Tipped pass for Ole Miss score was 'luck'
Ben Jones
TideSports.com Staff Writer
Cam Robinson was on the bench, but saw it on the jumbotron. Dillon Lee had never seen a play like it. Cyrus Jones was right on top of it.
Ole Miss' tipped ball that went for a 66-yard touchdown pass on Saturday certainly wasn't in the playbook. But now it's in the memory of every University of Alabama player and those who watched it.
"I mean, honestly, it's luck, just to be honest," Robinson said. "No way in the world you plan that, but it's kind of how it goes sometimes."
The Rebels were facing third-and-one on the Alabama 34 on their first drive of the second half. The snap to quarterback Chad Kelly was high, glancing off his fingertips over his head and into the air. Kelly was able to corral the ball, but found Alabama linebackers Reggie Ragland and Reuben Foster already in the backfield with no blockers to protect him.
Rather than take a sack, Kelly heaved the ball to the left side as he was hit, where All-SEC wide receiver Laquon Treadwell and Quincy Adeboyejo were lined up. Alabama had Jones, also an All-SEC player, and freshman Minkah Fitzpatrick on that side.
Fitzpatrick had stepped toward the backfield, perhaps an instinct when he saw the ball fly up after the snap. He made it back to the receivers by the time the ball arrived, and Jones got a hand on the preposterous pass. But instead of it falling to the ground, the ball took a wild bounce off Fitzpatrick's helmet as Treadwell tried to grab it. Then it was in the hands of Adeboyejo, who was behind the defenders, sprinting untouched to the end zone.
"There wasn't any blown coverage," Jones said after the game. "I batted the ball down, it knocked on somebody's helmet or something like that, bounced right into his hands. I don't know."
It was a one-in-a-hundred play, but there were still things the defense could have done, head coach Nick Saban said.
"The defensive backs are never going to recover (the snap), so they should have covered their guy," Saban said on Monday. "Somebody didn't cover their guy, so somebody else had to come off their guy to knock the ball away from that guy, which left his guy open to catch the tip and run for the touchdown. So fundamental execution still minimizes the opportunity for those things to happen."
It's an unlikely play at best. Even Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said after the game that when Kelly returned to the sideline, "I said, 'Brother, you need to pray hard tonight and thank God, and let's not do that again.'"
But it's not a once-in-a-lifetime play. Saban had been the benefactor of a tipped ball for a touchdown as coach at LSU in 2002, when the Tigers beat Kentucky on a last-second play now known as the "Bluegrass Miracle."
UA wide receiver Richard Mullaney said there's nothing practiced by the receivers to prepare for a play like that.
"I feel like it's just the right place at the right time," he said.
Lee said he's hoping a team he's on will find itself on the right side of a play like that soon. The seven points that resulted from that play might have been the difference in a game decided by six points, though any number of plays could have also made the difference.
There may not be a way to prepare for it, but there's also no way to guarantee it doesn't happen.
"I think those are the kind of things that happen in games," Saban said. "But it still goes back to fundamental execution."
- See more at: https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1805972#sthash.tJNT1BAa.dpuf
Ben Jones
TideSports.com Staff Writer
Cam Robinson was on the bench, but saw it on the jumbotron. Dillon Lee had never seen a play like it. Cyrus Jones was right on top of it.
Ole Miss' tipped ball that went for a 66-yard touchdown pass on Saturday certainly wasn't in the playbook. But now it's in the memory of every University of Alabama player and those who watched it.
"I mean, honestly, it's luck, just to be honest," Robinson said. "No way in the world you plan that, but it's kind of how it goes sometimes."
The Rebels were facing third-and-one on the Alabama 34 on their first drive of the second half. The snap to quarterback Chad Kelly was high, glancing off his fingertips over his head and into the air. Kelly was able to corral the ball, but found Alabama linebackers Reggie Ragland and Reuben Foster already in the backfield with no blockers to protect him.
Rather than take a sack, Kelly heaved the ball to the left side as he was hit, where All-SEC wide receiver Laquon Treadwell and Quincy Adeboyejo were lined up. Alabama had Jones, also an All-SEC player, and freshman Minkah Fitzpatrick on that side.
Fitzpatrick had stepped toward the backfield, perhaps an instinct when he saw the ball fly up after the snap. He made it back to the receivers by the time the ball arrived, and Jones got a hand on the preposterous pass. But instead of it falling to the ground, the ball took a wild bounce off Fitzpatrick's helmet as Treadwell tried to grab it. Then it was in the hands of Adeboyejo, who was behind the defenders, sprinting untouched to the end zone.
"There wasn't any blown coverage," Jones said after the game. "I batted the ball down, it knocked on somebody's helmet or something like that, bounced right into his hands. I don't know."
It was a one-in-a-hundred play, but there were still things the defense could have done, head coach Nick Saban said.
"The defensive backs are never going to recover (the snap), so they should have covered their guy," Saban said on Monday. "Somebody didn't cover their guy, so somebody else had to come off their guy to knock the ball away from that guy, which left his guy open to catch the tip and run for the touchdown. So fundamental execution still minimizes the opportunity for those things to happen."
It's an unlikely play at best. Even Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze said after the game that when Kelly returned to the sideline, "I said, 'Brother, you need to pray hard tonight and thank God, and let's not do that again.'"
But it's not a once-in-a-lifetime play. Saban had been the benefactor of a tipped ball for a touchdown as coach at LSU in 2002, when the Tigers beat Kentucky on a last-second play now known as the "Bluegrass Miracle."
UA wide receiver Richard Mullaney said there's nothing practiced by the receivers to prepare for a play like that.
"I feel like it's just the right place at the right time," he said.
Lee said he's hoping a team he's on will find itself on the right side of a play like that soon. The seven points that resulted from that play might have been the difference in a game decided by six points, though any number of plays could have also made the difference.
There may not be a way to prepare for it, but there's also no way to guarantee it doesn't happen.
"I think those are the kind of things that happen in games," Saban said. "But it still goes back to fundamental execution."
- See more at: https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1805972#sthash.tJNT1BAa.dpuf
