Morgan Smith sets a football up vertically on the turf and places a holder on it to keep it standing up. She lines up behind the football, paces a few steps back, takes a deep breath, and charges forward.

Smith keeps her head down as she makes contact with the football. After her toes strike the leather, Smith looks up as the ball sails through the upright.

It’s something she has done dozens of times over the last three years. But this isn’t the kind of football that Morgan Smith grew up playing. There's something different about the pigskin, and those around it.

“I can’t even describe it,” Smith said. “It was the best feeling ever.”

During her teen years, Smith played soccer for South Glens Falls. But one day, just out of curiosity, she gave kicking field goals a try. It turned out, Smith was pretty good at it.

At that same time, the varsity football team happened to need a kicker. Smith soon found herself playing two sports at once during the fall of her senior year.

“There would be a game in like Burnt Hills, and then I would have to drive all the way back to South Glens Falls for my football game,” Smith said. “It was crazy, but I loved every minute of it.”

After graduating in 2018, Smith returned to being a one-sport athlete. She took her talents to Franklin Pierce University that fall to play soccer for the Ravens. But Smith missed football a lot.

“The comradery, the family kind of feel you get being on a football team, I really missed that aspect of it,” Smith said. “I just really liked playing football, being a kicker, and being heavily relied upon.”

The following spring, she tried out for the Franklin Pierce football team, which was getting ready for its inaugural Division II season.

Smith made the team. While she says it was a little awkward being the only woman at first, that didn’t last long.

“They welcomed me pretty quickly,” Smith said. “It’s probably the best experience I’ve ever had.”

On September 7, 2019, Smith became the first woman to play football in the Northeast-10 Conference. A week later, she became the first woman to register a point in NE-10 history, and the second woman to score in Division II football.

“I just wanted to play football so when I went out on the field and I was getting ready to play, I just thought it was an everyday kind of a thing,” Smith said.

She says it was pretty cool to learn that she made history. In November, Smith was one of many tuning in to watch Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller make the history books by becoming the first woman to play in a Power 5 conference game.

But it hasn’t all been easy. Like Fuller, Smith also had to deal with negativity.

“People are going to say nasty things, they’re not going to want you to do well,” Smith said. “Me being a female in a primarily male sports team, it’s not the easiest thing for other teams to handle.”

But Smith says her teammates have always had her back. Plus, she says the big scary guys make some of the best friends.

Smith is now getting ready for her sophomore season, which was pushed back to the spring. She is up against three other kickers for a starting job.

While Smith and Fuller have made history, she says there’s more to come.

“Keep watching. There are plenty of women that are in football, especially at the high school level, and there’s more joining at the college level,” Smith said. “So hopefully, we can see a woman in the NFL in the next upcoming years.”