RE: Game Five - Stony Brook
It is hard to predict how the rest of the season will go, but if, as we hope, it turns into a memorable one, THE PLAY--Sean Ballard's stunning 53 yard dash to the endzone for the tying TD in the dying moments of the game--will stand as one of the great moments in Tribe football.
Improbable as it was, Sean's remarkable run is mind-boggling to anyone who knows anything about football--watch the rerun on Tribe Athletics TV if you don't think this can be:
*it was second and eleven from our own 47 with just 53 second remaining. The ball is snapped and SBU is sending everyone, including what appears to be all their linebackers,
on a push to sack Cluley.
*Right away you know this is a terrible defensive call. W&M needs a TD and is 53 yards away..why, for heaven's sake, are they sending seven men after our qb.
*Apparently Jimmye called the short pass out into the right flank to Ballard. Why, I have no idea...this is ordinarily a doomed play for big yardage unless, somehow, Laycock knows SBU is sending everyone on a mad charge at the qb. Otherwise, why call this time-eating play instead of a big pass downfield? Yey I don't perceive this from Jimmye's post-game comments.
*Our other receivers apparently fan out to the left, away from the pass, drawing several of the four remaining defenders with them.
*Ballard executes the pass perfectly, a ball that, basically, goes a short few yards to our right sideline.
*With the linebackers caught in our backfield, Ballard escapes the one defender who has charged at him from the left and is off and running.
*There are only, it appears in the film, only two men remaining who have any shot at Ballard,
who is running faster than anyone has ever seen him run before.
*Ballard escapes a diving stab at his legs and has picked up our receiver, Flynn Heald, as a blocker to Ballard's left.
*Heald, an unheralded soph from Cedar Rapids, Iowa (perhaps the first football player ever from Iowa for W&M), screens off the last SBU player with a real chance of stopping Ballard
*Heald is the real hero hero here...watch the film and you'll see that Flynn keeps the SBU defender from getting to Ballard, screening him for six or seven yards from making what
would have been an easy shot at Ballard. By the way it is Heald who caught a pass for ten yards in our completion before Ballard's big catch & run.
If we go on to a memorable season it is this play that will live forever in Tribe gridiron history.
It is as improbable as it is stunning when one views it.
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