Washingtonpost
The Fourth Down Awards from a spellbinding college football Saturday
A.Davis3 months ago
Hello, and welcome to the Fourth Down Awards, noting achievements on fourth down after a college football Saturday stuffed with humongous fourth downs that tilted games, seasons, fates, other people’s fates, moods, careers, blood-alcohol levels and playoff berths. This comes in a nation which has changed its relationship with fourth down, which has gone from a time of caution to a time of, well, metrics. Before we get to Fourth Down of the Year, which is so obvious it’s blaring from down on the Plains of eastern Alabama, let’s begin with Most Audacious Fourth Down, from clear up in Seattle. With 67 seconds left Saturday night and an 11-0 record and a playoff chance trembling like an apple on a branch in a gust, No. 4 Washington stood tied 21-21 with fourth and one and the ball on its own 29-yard line against Washington State in the annual festival of contempt, the Apple Cup. Your grandparents, great-grandparents and all the know-it-all uncles and aunts of all the Thanksgivings all would have told you to punt (except maybe that one who was kind of nutty anyway). The Huskies took a timeout and how did the ensuing decision to go for it rate on the all-time risk-o-meter of Kalen DeBoer, the Huskies’ fantastic second-year coach? “It’s up there,” DeBoer would smile and tell reporters. “It’s up there.” The play that happened took it up to the risk rafters even more. It did not involve some mano-a-mano push with a blob of bodies. It did not adhere to all the ancient texts. The running backs did not run. The quarterback did not sneak. No, Michael Penix Jr. did his due reading and saw this on his left: “I was just looking at the guy on the end of the defense and he squeezed in, and there was a lot of green grass out there.” Soon, the elite receiver Rome Odunze ran alone upon that green grass, halted only once 23 yards upfield . He ran alone because he had started on the right, had moved leftward through the backfield, and had taken a pitch — a pitch! — from Penix. He ran alone just ahead of Grady Gross’s 42-yard field goal that meant No. 4 Washington would tote a 12-0 record to the Pac-12 monster title game against No. 6 Oregon (11-1), the team it edged, 36-33 , on Oct. 14. “There’s some moving pieces to that (fourth-down play),” DeBoer said, “and you’ve got to trust your players to read things right, have great timing, execute.” That’s mighty trust.
The 4th down conversion is good for pic.twitter.com/J5jeYzgdRh — FOX College Football November 26, 2023 There ought to be an award for Best Hidden Fourth Down, that fourth down that gets deluged by so many subsequent plays that it doesn’t even come up all that much in the postgame babble. That one goes to some Cowboys. With a harrowing 3:02 left in a bout with visiting BYU, Oklahoma State faced both a 24-21 deficit — it had been 24-6 — and a fourth and two from its own 42-yard line. Now the Cowboys and their winding-road-with-cliffs season had dragged along their beloved Oklahoma Sooners, because if this play didn’t work and the Cowboys lost, Oklahoma would go play Texas in the Big 12 championship game. If it worked, though, Oklahoma State could advance to the Jerry Jones palace just two months after it lost 33-7 at home to South Alabama, which has gone on to go 6-6 and place third in the Sun Belt West, which isn’t bad but doesn’t hint at that particular 33-7. Quarterback Alan Bowman, formerly of Texas Tech and Michigan, faked a handoff to Ollie Gordon II, who would rush for 166 yards and five touchdowns. Bowman then flipped a pass to the right to running back Jaden Nixon, who crossed the 40 with a defender squarely up ahead. He reached the 42 as they nearly converged. He reached the 43 as they did. He would need the 44, so Nixon took his momentum and his 5-foot-10 and his 185 pounds and wriggled and wrestled past BYU defender Eddie Heckard to wind up sprawled around the 46. Oklahoma State (9-3, 7-2 in the Big 12) won 40-34 in double overtime and heads for Texas . The sport in general remained some madcap wonder, unsuitable for analysis. This was the most underrated play of the night. Jaden Nixon just breaking out the truck stick with the game on the line. pic.twitter.com/TtxPEDAS3A — Kyle Snyder November 26, 2023 “You’ve been watching college football a long time,” Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy said to a questioner, the great Berry Tramel, long of the Oklahoman, nowadays of Sellout Crowd. “What odds would you have given us?” “Thousand to one,” Tramel eventually said. “Thank you,” Gundy said. “I would have given you five thousand to one.” Such bets might have paid but for that fourth down. For Fourth Down Special Commendation, it’s No. 5 Florida State which, like Washington, spent Saturday night with both a teetering 11-0 record and a certain fourth down. The Seminoles’ fourth and three in their annual lovefest against Florida at Gainesville wasn’t quite so dire: Gators’ 34-yard line, 13:15 left, 15-14 deficit. It’s the play itself that shouts. Tate Rodemaker, the backup quarterback called in because of Jordan Travis’s great-big bummer of an injury , zinged one toward Ja’Khi Douglas on a slant. Douglas held onto it for a 10-yard gain despite having Florida cornerback Jaydon Hill just about draped upon him with unkind intent. The Seminoles got a go-ahead field goal to gain a lead and soothe some pressure. They won, 24-15 , to reach 12-0 and keep the College Football Playoff puzzle puzzling. Best General Fourth-Down Management, of course, goes to Michigan pinch-hit head coach Sherrone Moore, who went 3-for-3 in the first half in that colossus of a tussle against Ohio State. Those three fourth downs came against a defense ranked No. 2 in the country in yards per play. They came from the Ohio State 1-yard line early on when a field goal might have been understandable, from the Ohio State 39-yard line and from the Ohio State 29-yard line. Blake Corum dove in. Blake Corum leaped across. And J.J. McCarthy flipped a pass to the right to Colston Loveland. “Coach Moore said at the beginning of the game,” Corum said, “he’s not calling this game scared.” And finally, Fourth Down of the Year, which by 2029 might vie for Fourth Down of the Decade. “So,” Alabama Coach Nick Saban began to reporters in Auburn, Ala., “do I really need to say anything?” It’s unforgettable already, but the details: Thirty-two seconds remained. Alabama trailed Auburn 24-20 in a game each side seems to like to win in part because it means the other doesn’t. Alabama had ridden a slapstick grotesquerie of plays from the Auburn 7-yard line back to the Auburn 31-yard line. Alabama faced either fourth and 31 or fourth and goal, as you wish. “Never give up,” quarterback Jalen Milroe said he kept telling himself. “Never give up.” The pass that left Milroe’s hand made an express-train trip past so many Auburn stomachs about to sicken, to the back left corner of the end zone, to Isaiah Bond, a charismatic receiver who said he saw the ball coming, jockeyed for some position against a nearby defender and thought, “It’s mine.” It landed both in Bond’s hands and beyond belief. It provided a coveted Iron Bowl win unearthed from the dirt 10 years after another such famous Iron Bowl ending, and two years after another Alabama escape on a 97-yard drive that forced overtime (while featuring a fourth and seven). It kept 2023 Alabama afloat in on the turbulent playoff ship. It kept the SEC championship game — Alabama (11-1) vs. Georgia (12-0) — sumptuous. “‘Big players make big plays,’ that’s one quote my Mom instilled in me as a young child,” Bond said. What portentous parenting, Penny Bond. Isaiah Bond: Live and Let Fly pic.twitter.com/OPMWN0XC1T — CBS Sports College Football November 26, 2023 This latest implausible play to pile atop the steep Iron Bowl lore hatched from a practice routine Saban said happens on Fridays as “everybody runs down the field and runs varying routes in the end zone.” A reporter asked for the name of the play. “If the play had a name, I wouldn’t tell you what it was,” Saban said. A reporter asked Bond for the name of the play. “Gravedigger,” Bond said. On the American custom of fourth down, the gravedigger often lurks.
The 4th down conversion is good for pic.twitter.com/J5jeYzgdRh — FOX College Football November 26, 2023 There ought to be an award for Best Hidden Fourth Down, that fourth down that gets deluged by so many subsequent plays that it doesn’t even come up all that much in the postgame babble. That one goes to some Cowboys. With a harrowing 3:02 left in a bout with visiting BYU, Oklahoma State faced both a 24-21 deficit — it had been 24-6 — and a fourth and two from its own 42-yard line. Now the Cowboys and their winding-road-with-cliffs season had dragged along their beloved Oklahoma Sooners, because if this play didn’t work and the Cowboys lost, Oklahoma would go play Texas in the Big 12 championship game. If it worked, though, Oklahoma State could advance to the Jerry Jones palace just two months after it lost 33-7 at home to South Alabama, which has gone on to go 6-6 and place third in the Sun Belt West, which isn’t bad but doesn’t hint at that particular 33-7. Quarterback Alan Bowman, formerly of Texas Tech and Michigan, faked a handoff to Ollie Gordon II, who would rush for 166 yards and five touchdowns. Bowman then flipped a pass to the right to running back Jaden Nixon, who crossed the 40 with a defender squarely up ahead. He reached the 42 as they nearly converged. He reached the 43 as they did. He would need the 44, so Nixon took his momentum and his 5-foot-10 and his 185 pounds and wriggled and wrestled past BYU defender Eddie Heckard to wind up sprawled around the 46. Oklahoma State (9-3, 7-2 in the Big 12) won 40-34 in double overtime and heads for Texas . The sport in general remained some madcap wonder, unsuitable for analysis. This was the most underrated play of the night. Jaden Nixon just breaking out the truck stick with the game on the line. pic.twitter.com/TtxPEDAS3A — Kyle Snyder November 26, 2023 “You’ve been watching college football a long time,” Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy said to a questioner, the great Berry Tramel, long of the Oklahoman, nowadays of Sellout Crowd. “What odds would you have given us?” “Thousand to one,” Tramel eventually said. “Thank you,” Gundy said. “I would have given you five thousand to one.” Such bets might have paid but for that fourth down. For Fourth Down Special Commendation, it’s No. 5 Florida State which, like Washington, spent Saturday night with both a teetering 11-0 record and a certain fourth down. The Seminoles’ fourth and three in their annual lovefest against Florida at Gainesville wasn’t quite so dire: Gators’ 34-yard line, 13:15 left, 15-14 deficit. It’s the play itself that shouts. Tate Rodemaker, the backup quarterback called in because of Jordan Travis’s great-big bummer of an injury , zinged one toward Ja’Khi Douglas on a slant. Douglas held onto it for a 10-yard gain despite having Florida cornerback Jaydon Hill just about draped upon him with unkind intent. The Seminoles got a go-ahead field goal to gain a lead and soothe some pressure. They won, 24-15 , to reach 12-0 and keep the College Football Playoff puzzle puzzling. Best General Fourth-Down Management, of course, goes to Michigan pinch-hit head coach Sherrone Moore, who went 3-for-3 in the first half in that colossus of a tussle against Ohio State. Those three fourth downs came against a defense ranked No. 2 in the country in yards per play. They came from the Ohio State 1-yard line early on when a field goal might have been understandable, from the Ohio State 39-yard line and from the Ohio State 29-yard line. Blake Corum dove in. Blake Corum leaped across. And J.J. McCarthy flipped a pass to the right to Colston Loveland. “Coach Moore said at the beginning of the game,” Corum said, “he’s not calling this game scared.” And finally, Fourth Down of the Year, which by 2029 might vie for Fourth Down of the Decade. “So,” Alabama Coach Nick Saban began to reporters in Auburn, Ala., “do I really need to say anything?” It’s unforgettable already, but the details: Thirty-two seconds remained. Alabama trailed Auburn 24-20 in a game each side seems to like to win in part because it means the other doesn’t. Alabama had ridden a slapstick grotesquerie of plays from the Auburn 7-yard line back to the Auburn 31-yard line. Alabama faced either fourth and 31 or fourth and goal, as you wish. “Never give up,” quarterback Jalen Milroe said he kept telling himself. “Never give up.” The pass that left Milroe’s hand made an express-train trip past so many Auburn stomachs about to sicken, to the back left corner of the end zone, to Isaiah Bond, a charismatic receiver who said he saw the ball coming, jockeyed for some position against a nearby defender and thought, “It’s mine.” It landed both in Bond’s hands and beyond belief. It provided a coveted Iron Bowl win unearthed from the dirt 10 years after another such famous Iron Bowl ending, and two years after another Alabama escape on a 97-yard drive that forced overtime (while featuring a fourth and seven). It kept 2023 Alabama afloat in on the turbulent playoff ship. It kept the SEC championship game — Alabama (11-1) vs. Georgia (12-0) — sumptuous. “‘Big players make big plays,’ that’s one quote my Mom instilled in me as a young child,” Bond said. What portentous parenting, Penny Bond. Isaiah Bond: Live and Let Fly pic.twitter.com/OPMWN0XC1T — CBS Sports College Football November 26, 2023 This latest implausible play to pile atop the steep Iron Bowl lore hatched from a practice routine Saban said happens on Fridays as “everybody runs down the field and runs varying routes in the end zone.” A reporter asked for the name of the play. “If the play had a name, I wouldn’t tell you what it was,” Saban said. A reporter asked Bond for the name of the play. “Gravedigger,” Bond said. On the American custom of fourth down, the gravedigger often lurks.
Read the full article:https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/11/26/fourth-down-awards-college-football-saturday/
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