After Saturday’s “Bluegrass Miracle,” I finally understand why Nick Saban says play for 60 minutes. He says it every week, and I mean every week.
I thought I understood it before, but when Devery Henderson caught Marcus Randall’s “Hail Mary” and I picked my jaw up off the floor Saturday afternoon, I understood it like never before.
Not 30 minutes. Not 45 or 55 minutes. Not even 59 minutes and 58 seconds. Play for 60 minutes, that is 3,600 seconds, every one of them equally important.
“We always say to play for the full 60 minutes and this is why,” Saban said.
A number of things happened Saturday that even allowed LSU to have a shot in the final seconds.
Just as LSU’s defense broke down in the fourth quarter to allow Kentucky to a take a 30-27 lead in the waning seconds, Kentucky’s game management broke down.
Yes, you have to game manage for 60 minutes/3600 seconds — every single one of them.
First, a break for LSU, although it did not seem like it at the time. With 22 seconds left in a tie game and both teams armed with one timeout, Kentucky faced second down and one from the LSU 13-yard line. Jared Lorenzen sneaked the ball to the 12 to gain the first down and the clock began to tick down.
Everybody knew Kentucky was going to run the clock down to three or four seconds, and send the special teams unit out to attempt a game winning field goal and leave no time remaining.
But Kentucky called a timeout and stopped the clock. Mistake No. 1.
Because it had no timeouts left, Kentucky could not risk running another play so UK head coach Guy Morriss sent the field goal unit out.
Right before Taylor Begley kicked a 29-yard field goal to give the ‘Cats a 30-27 lead, it appeared Saban tried to use LSU’s final timeout to ice Begley, but the officials did not see the timeout and it was saved. We’ll see how crucial that turned out to be later.
Kentucky took the lead and kicked off to LSU with 11 seconds remaining. Henderson returns the ball to the 13-yard line and ran out of bounds with nine seconds left on the clock.
With 87 yards to go, and a loss staring them in the face, things looked even worse when the Tigers were backed up to the eight-yard line on a delay of game penalty.
Normally in a situation like this, the goal is to get as close to midfield as possible so the quarterback can throw the ball into the endzone with a chance of a miracle catch.
The Tigers only reached their own 25-yard line when Randall hit Michael Clayton in the middle of the field with two seconds on the clock. Timeout LSU. Had Saban used this timeout to ice the kicker earlier, it is doubtful Randall and the Tigers would have been able to line up in time to spike the ball to stop the clock.
It’s 75 yards to go for LSU to score a touchdown, and Lorenzen and Kentucky gave Morriss a shower from the water cooler, victory only two seconds away. Two seconds — the last .055 percent (2/3600 times 100 for all you math majors out there) of the game.
This is normally when I turn off the television in disgust, but for some reason I left it on and watched in amazement one of the most incredible, unbelievable plays in college football history.
The touchdown pass to Henderson was tipped numerous times before landing in his arms as he took it into the endzone amid Kentucky fans already rushing the field, not knowing what had happened. The box score simply will read: Randall to Henderson for 75 yards, touchdown. LSU 33 Kentucky 30.
Oh how important two seconds out of 60 minutes of any football game possibly can become.