COLUMBUS — Jack Willoughby graduated magna cum laude from Duke in May and had a well-paying job lined up at a Madison Avenue consulting firm in New York City. 

But figuring he had all of his life to wear a suit and tie, Willoughby decided to live a little. 

“I wanted to test my luck to see if I could kick field goals,” he said.

So begins the story of how the Ohio State football team’s other position battle was won. 

Forget that Willoughby had never attempted a field goal at any level. 

A walk-on kickoff specialist at Duke, the former high school soccer player deferred his job at McKinsey & Co. for a year and sent out highlight tapes to several top football programs. 

Willoughby landed at Ohio State, which did not need a new kicker but found one anyway. The graduate transfer unseated incumbent starter, Sean Nuernberger, and has quietly settled in well to his new high-stakes role, brushing off an uneven debut at Virginia Tech. 

“It’s worked out, I guess,” said Willoughby, who has made 4 of 5 field goal attempts. 

If his path to Columbus and onto the nation’s top-ranked team sounds hard to believe, it does not get any easier. 

Willoughby grew up in Princeton, N.J., playing soccer, and he starred for his team at the nearby Lawrenceville School — one of the nation’s most elite college prep schools. But he also loved football, his interest piqued by his grandfather, Larry Black, who kicked for the University of Oregon. 

With a big right leg of his own, Willoughby decided after his graduation from Lawrenceville to give kicking a try. Willoughby bought an instructional DVD online and went to work.

“When he was first doing, it, I said, ‘Look, it’s just like a corner kick. Just get back there and give it a whack,’ ” said his father, Jay. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was a big learning curve. It’s like golf. There are so many little things you need to remember.”

Willoughby, though, showed enough promise to walk on to the football team at Duke, where — by his senior year last season — he served as the Blue Devils’ primary kickoff man. 

He pined for the chance to kick field goals and had a year of eligibility remaining for this fall. But if he returned to Duke, which returned All-American kicker Ross Martin, that meant another season of just handling kickoffs. 

As Willoughby saw it, there were only two options. 

A former president of Duke’s Sigma Nu fraternity who graduated with a 3.9 grade-point average as a statistics and economics double major, he could follow his father — a former high-profile investment manager who now works as the chief financial officer of the state-owned Alaska Permanent Fund in remote Juneau — into the business world and begin work in Manhattan. 

Or he could chase the thrill of his life. 

After receiving encouragement from his bosses at McKinsey & Co., he came to Columbus and steadily impressed.

The self-taught kicker once known as the rookie who unwittingly parked in coach Urban Meyer’s parking space at the Ohio State practice facility — a photo of Meyer blocking him in with his car went viral — soon began to improbably challenge the returning starter from a national championship team. 

He especially turned heads on the day of fall camp the Buckeyes covered all of their special teams bases. One drill had them practicing the unforeseen scenario of a field goal coming up short and the opposing team returning the kick — similar to the stunning kick-six play at the end of the Auburn-Alabama game in 2013. 

Meyer backed Willoughby up for a 60-yard field goal. 

There was just one problem: He made it. The next one too. 

“Never seen that,” Meyer said.

Were coaches mad he messed up the drill?

“More people were happy than upset,” Willoughby said, smiling. 

Soon the Buckeyes officially had a new kicker. Willoughby replaced the departed Kyle Clinton as the kickoff specialist and beat out Nuernberger — who made 13 of 20 field goals as a freshman last season — for field goal duties. 

Meyer pulled out all the stops to get Willoughby ready for his first game attempt, hovering over him in practice to simulate the pressure of performing before six-figure crowds. The audience of one was no doubt more intimidating. 

“I wouldn’t talk trash about coach Meyer’s trash talk,” Willoughby said. “I think what he does is smart.”

Willoughby, who still uses the tee that came with the instructional DVD, struggled in the opener. He missed a 43-yard attempt and sent two kickoffs out of bounds, perhaps overcome by nerves as he aimed for the “coffin corner.” 

But Willoughby has not missed since, and — like with the quarterback drama — the competition at kicker appears settled. 

For one more year, the real world can wait. 

Willoughby is living the dream. 

“I always thought it would be pretty awesome to be a college football player,” he said. 

Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.

First Published September 30, 2015, 4:33 a.m.