Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Nebraska Recap
10/15/2018 11:08:00 AM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Twenty-six seconds remain in the third quarter and Northwestern is down six to Nebraska and now, their drive stalled, the sophomore Drew Luckenbaugh is prepared to take the first field goal attempt of his career. An injury to Charlie Kuhbander has provided him this opportunity, but here, on this 42-yarder, he hurries it and shanks a low-and-ugly hook that never has a chance. "(Holder Jake) Collins barely had the ball down and Drew's foot was hitting the ball," Pat Fitzgerald will later explain.
"You've got to settle down," he will tell Luckenbaugh on the sideline.
"I was a little bit too fast," Luckenbaugh will here admit.
"A little bit? No. A lot bit," Fitzgerald will say. "Just slow down and you'll be fine."
"I was," Luckenbaugh will later say, "a little bit excited to go out there for the first one. But as I was growing up we had a saying. 'Fix it and forget it.' So I realized what I did, moved on and fixed it for the next one."
As Saturday morning bled into Saturday afternoon, Nebraska and the Wildcats were offering up just-another football game at Ryan Field. The Huskers went up early, driving easily to a touchdown on their first possession, and the 'Cats came back to tie it in the middle of the second quarter on a 21-yard touchdown pass from Clayton Thorson to Flynn Nagel. Less than five minutes later they went up seven when corner Trae Williams sacked Husker quarterback Adrian Martinez and caused a fumble defensive end Earnest Brown IV picked up and carried in, but 42 seconds before halftime the Huskers pulled back to within one (after missing the PAT) on a 12-yard run by Devine Ozigbo.
He would go in from the one midway through the third to put them up six and then, five plays after Luckenbaugh's miss, the Huskers went up 14 on a short run by Maurice Washington and a two-point conversion. The 'Cats responded with a touch of their own, this one on a 61-yard completion from Thorson to Nagel. But then, after his defense held the Huskers to a three-and-out, Nagel got stuck coming out of a break and this Thorson pass bounced off his hand and was picked by Husker Tre Neal. Nine plays later they were up 10 after a 34-yard field goal by Barret Pickering.
Until now, until just 5:41 remained in this affair, there had been little untoward or unusual about this game, but suddenly both it and the 'Cats were metamorphosed. "We're going to win this game. We're going to win this game," Nagel was barking on the sidelines. "You've got to believe."
"Guys were pumped up," he would later say. "We knew as an offense we had to take over. We had to step up. We had to make some big plays. Clayton and I looked at each other, and we looked at the other guys, and we said we've got to win this game as an offense."
"I'll remember going down by 10 and looking around at the guys and seeing the life in their eyes," Thorson would say. "Seeing Flynn telling the guys, 'We're going to win this game. There's nothing that can stop us. We're going to win this game.' Just seeing the fight in the guys, how we came back and won, that was cool."
That comeback began inauspiciously, Solomon Vault dropping a short cross on first down, Thorson throwing it away after getting flushed on second, Vault dropping another short cross on third. But on fourth Ramaud Chiaokhiao-Bowman made his first catch of the day for 16 yards and a first, and now the 'Cats were off. There would be another completion to Chiaokhiao-Bowman and another to the rarely-used Chad Hanaoka, and then one more to Nagel for 16 on a fourth-down conversion that set up the 'Cats at the Husker 26.
Two plays later an interference call gave them a first on the three, but then a pair of incompletions and a 10-yard sack left them facing a fourth at the 13. Down two scores, Fitzgerald would later say, "At what point is it too close not to go for the touchdown and at what point do you feel it's definitely a field goal. When we got pushed back there, there was no doubt the field goal was the right call."
Now Luckenbaugh, on his second career attempt, calmly kicked it through from 31 with 2:27 remaining, and on the sideline it was suddenly the 'Cat defense that was animated. "They came together, talked of getting a stop," remembered Fitzgerald. "We needed a big play. Our defense went out and did it."
"We realized the game was on the line," said safety JR Pace. "There was a heightened sense of urgency."
The Huskers had nicked up that defense throughout this game, ending it with 482 net offensive yards. But here they were stoned for no gain, for no gain, for a gain of three, and after each rush Fitzgerald burned a time out and so 2:11 still remained when Isaac Armstrong kicked it away. His punt was a beauty, and it bounced at the three, and it was downed by Husker Wyatt Mazour at the half-yard-line, where the 'Cats took over at 2:02. "I don't think I've ever put a (drill of ) 99 1/2 yards with no time outs and two minutes to go in practice," Fitzgerald would say. "So the credit goes to the guys. Clayton managed it like a senior player. Like an NFL quarterback. Like a pro."
Thorson did miss his first pass of this drive, an out to superback Cam Green, but on it he was roughed by Husker nose guard Carlos Davis, which gave the 'Cats some air. Here, quickly, came completions to Riley Liis and Nagel and Nagel again, and now the 'Cats were looking at a second-and-six at their own 36. "Throw me the ball. That's why I'm here," Nagel told Thorson.
"I was like, 'OK,'" Thorson would remember. "So I dropped back and had my eyes downfield. But I knew I was going to him. He was playing out of his mind."
"I was just in a zone," Nagel himself would say. "That feeling, it's kinda hard to describe. I don't think I've ever had that feeling playing football. It just felt different. I felt love for everybody beside me. Not that I don't feel that every game. But it was just on a different level in this game. And the trust with Clayton. I was ecstatic out there. It's a feeling I can't really describe."
Years ago, recalling a completion he threw in a 1971 playoff game against the Redskins, a 49er quarterback named John Brodie said, "Pat Fisher (the 'Skins corner) told reporters after the game the ball seemed to jump right over his hands as he went for it. When we studied the game film, it did look as if the ball kind of jumped over his hands into Gene (Washington's, the Niner receiver). Some of the guys said it was the wind— and maybe it was."
What did he mean by maybe?
"What I mean is that our sense of that pass was so clear and our intention so strong that the ball was bound to get there come wind, cornerbacks, hell or high water."
That is just the kind of sense that infused Thorson and Nagel throughout this game and here, in the depths of the crucible, Nagel ran a wheel route down the left boundary, brushed through the hold of Husker safety Aaron Williams, collected Thorson's perfect offering and set the 'Cats up with a first on the Husker 32. Now came a 27-yard completion to Skowronek; a spike; a five-yard touchdown pass to the exciting first year JJ Jefferson with 12 seconds remaining; and, improbably, this one was in overtime. "That was pretty cool, 99 1/2 yards," Fitzgerald would later say with a chuckle. "That's about as good as it gets."
The 'Cat defense, in overtime, again stoned the Huskers, Pace picking Martinez on the quarterback's desperate fourth-down toss into the end zone. Now Vault rushed for two and Nagel, on a forward handoff, ran for three, and Fitzgerald made a decision. "We don't have to do anything obscene throwing the football, put ourselves out of field goal range," he would explain. "I told Mick on third down the play that we ran and he didn't have a vote. I had great confidence in Drew, the way he responded."
That third down play was another run, this one for a yard by Vault, and on came Luckenbaugh, whose first attempt had been so ugly. "I was pretty calm," he would recall. "I was with my holder (Collins) and snapper (Tyler Gillikin).They were talking to me, keeping me calm. They've been through this before. They were just saying, 'Deep breath. It's nothing different from what we've practiced before. We do this every week.'"
But never before had he done it in a game, yet neither that reality nor his earlier shank would unnerve him here, and calmly he nailed the 37-yarder that stamped him an unlikely hero and delivered the 'Cats their unlikely comeback win. "It still really hasn't hit me yet," he will say when asked about his new status. "I'm just kinda going with the flow, seeing how it rolls."
"The amount of fun I had in this game and this season, and the amount of fun we're going to have moving forward," Flynn Nagel will soon say when asked what he'll remember about this electric affair. "These are moments you're going to remember the rest of your life.
"Me and Clay, after the game, we hugged it up and told each other we love each other. That's a moment I'm never going to forget the rest of my life."
