Sandwiches, scones and a warm Irish welcome. It’s a few days before Christmas when Andy Quinn invited me over for an interview. Down in Louisburgh. Only a short walk down to the beach with Clare island in sight.

Conversations around the kitchen table quickly swirl around Andy’s fortunes as a punter for the Boston College American football team. The last months have been a whirlwind for the 20-year-old.

It has to be stated, Quinn might have grown up in Creggs, in county Galway, but his mother Kathy is a Tiernan from Mayo. A family that has strong roots in and around Louisburgh.

“My granduncle, John Tiernan, is my biggest connection to here,” explains Andy, sitting down with me in the living room. “I went down and visited his bench down by the beach there today. The bench, that was where John used to walk down every day, and then after he died in March 2022, there was a collection put together to put the bench there in his memory. It’s a real focal point for our family to go down and see the bench.”

CROSS-ATLANTIC CONNECTION

BEFORE we sat down to talk, Andy and me walked down to the bench. We talk about the sporting dream that he has signed up for. It’s a completely different world in the USA. College football is a multi-million dollar machine.

But standing on the beach in Doughmakone, our view stretches into the West: “The nice thing for me is, the bench looks out into the Atlantic Ocean, looking across to the nearest place, which is Boston.”

It feels like John Tiernan is still looking after Andy, while he is pursuing a career as an athlete. Well, he’s also studying finance there. And the grades have to keep up, if he wants to play for the Boston College Eagles football team, it’s part of the scholarship agreement.

And Andy had no idea what to expect in Boston, as he found out he had a family connection over there already.
“I had already got my offer from Boston College, when my grandfather said, that’s where his mummy used to work.

So, my great-grandmother went over there for work, and she used to write back letters home saying, I attended Boston College today, and she just attended it to go to mass. She worked as a house cleaner for the houses around Chestnut Hill (Boston College buildings).”

It’s reassuring for Andy Quinn to learn about these cross-Atlantic connections.

“It makes me feel at home no matter where I am. I’ve got cousins in Boston because my grandaunt and my great-grandmother and her sisters, they all went to Boston to live there.”

NO MASTER PLAN

AS much as the story feels like Andy has arrived at the place he intended to be, it must be said, his journey from a rugby lad in the West of Ireland to a Division I American Football College team was entirely coincidental.

There was no master plan. It’s been an extraordinary journey. Andy didn’t even pick up an American Football until he was 17.
Then, it all started in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium during the “Aer Lingus College Football Classic” in August 2022, when Northwestern played Nebraska that day.

Andy was picked along two other contestants, to kick two balls over the bar from 45 and 50 yards. And he slotted them both.
He showed qualities that he had been honing for a while. He has always had a passion for the other oval shaped ball as Andy started playing rugby when he was eight.

“My favourite thing to do in rugby was to kick, to kick conversions, to kick penalties, to kick for touch. And I really focused in on that during COVID. That’s when I used to go down to the field for three or four hours a day during the pandemic. It was like a round of golf. I would go down to the field and then I’d punt them back out. “

The teenager was developing his American football kicking ability without knowing it. On top of that, he was also playing Gaelic football, kicking 45s.

“And then when I got the opportunity to just go and kick American football, it was sort of like a dream sport for me that I never even sort of knew was out there.”

RECRUITMENT ON TWITTER

ANDY took the opportunity with both hands when it came around. Soon after the Aer Lingus College Classic, scouts from the National Football League (NFL) academy contacted him through Twitter and they explained to him, if he wants to get a trial and see whether he’s good enough to go to America.

After a Zoom call, Andy organised a trial and got a roster slot in the NFL Academy based in London to be their kicker and punter for the year.

“It was a great experience. I got to play in loads of games. I played in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, their new stadium, which was a really cool experience. And then that was the fall of 2023. And then after Christmas I decided to go over to America and compete in camps.”

It’s a system of ranking camps where they rank from the best kicker in the country to the 800th best kicker in the country. That was actually Andy’s first time kicking really under pressure and kicking for a scholarship.

And sure enough, he showed what he is made of. Andy came fourth in the whole of America for punting. And 12th in America for kicking field goals in his class.

It didn’t take long and loads of colleges, loads of big time colleges came in contact with Andy on Twitter. All the recruiting process happens there.

“And Boston College was one of the first ones to reach out to me and I had the best relationship with them. They brought me on an official visit, I got my scholarship offer. And then for the official visit, they flew me, my mom and my dad out to Boston. They bring you to the best of restaurants, try and sell Boston to you, try and sell Boston College to you, make sure you come there. After that, I committed to them.”

A PUNTER’S LIFE

ANDY Quinn fills a very specific position as a punter in American Football. It slightly resembles to a fly-half in rugby kicking for territory out of hand and tries to get down the field to put the opponent under pressure.

“So this happens in American football on fourth down when you’re not going to make the ten yards. Every play you have four attempts to make 10 yards territory.

And if on the fourth time you don’t think you’re going to make that 10 yards, they bring out the punter to just pin the opposition down the field. So I have to kick the ball as far down the field as possible with the greatest amount of hang time. I catch it and there’s a rush coming in on me and I have to kick it away.”

Again, a bit similar to rugby, a fly-half clearing his lines when the team isn’t making ground, isn’t getting over the gain line.
For a punter like Andy Quinn, it all happens in a matter of fractions of a second. From the moment he catches it, Andy has to have the ball away in 1.2 seconds.

“The whole operation takes 2 seconds from when the snapper has the ball in his hands and snaps it back to me until the ball hits my foot. So that should be 2 seconds. And if it goes over 2 seconds, the kick will be blocked and the other team will get it, whoever I am.”

That would be a worst case scenario, which fortunately, didn’t happen to Andy during the 2025 season with Boston College.
It is a lot of pressure on not only having a big and high kick but also to get it out fast enough. American Football is a completely stats driven sport. Everything is tracked, assessed and monitored to the T.

“We have a channel down the line which is about 5-10 yards wide where we want to kick the ball,” Andy elaborates: “And if it’s outside of that, our coaches will definitely know that it was a bad kick. But the opposition or the fans certainly won’t know that it’s not exactly what we wanted.

And after every practise in our film, for every single kick we had, we have our up time, we have our hand to foot time, we have our hand time, the distance the kick went, how good our location was and then also the call. So we have about 10 different calls of different types of kicks in different locations. And whether we kick it left, right, down the middle, straight out of bounds.”

LIVING THE DREAM

THE professional behemoth, the NFL, is America’s biggest show in town. And it’s a valid assumption, that college football comes second. There are teams filling stadiums with more than 100k capacity.

The Boston College Eagles, a Division I organisation, spends $7 million for expenses and licences. Another monetary example: The team made $34 million last year through TV licencing deals.

But obviously, perfect training facilities are the upside.

“Every day I have to wake up at five o’clock in the morning, but it’s more I get to wake up at five o’clock in the morning. I get to work in the best of gyms.

Our indoor facility is a full size American football field. It’s unbelievable that it’s like a multi-million dollar industry that I’m getting to be a part of, which is life-changing. And then on top of that, I get to get a great education from Boston College.”

Additionally, a recent deal allows college athletes in the US to earn royalties and sign individual sponsorship deals. The biggest individual contract is quoted being Texas quarterback Arch Manning, with an estimated valuation of $6.8 million annually from various personal sponsorships.

It’s exciting times with sheer endless opportunities for Andy Quinn, and he has four more years with the Eagles to look forward to.

And all the pressure and performance driven approach aside: “I’ve loved my first year,” says a beaming Andy Quinn: “It was a transitional year, my first year playing American football in a high-intensity environment.”

Adding: “You go into a bar and you hear a very familiar accent, could be from Connemara, could be from Westport. And that’s really comforting in that you get a conversation out of them because they can hear your accent.”

Andy also produces an anecdote of popping into a shop run by Italians and Polish people in Boston, for a soft drink, and then discovering, they’re selling Rock Shandy and Tayto. There’s also Irish bread available.

Probably the sweetest way to round off his freshman year at Boston College, is the fact that Andy ended up with the biggest net average in the whole country in all the college football.

He has a long road ahead. But making it to the NFL and going fully pro is definitely on his radar. Many things have to fall into place. But for now, Andy Quinn is living his dream in Boston. Just across the Atlantic from Louisburgh.

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