Everything was so close to being beautiful for Michigan. The Wolverines were about to get a win over Michigan State after letting the rivalry get away from them in recent years, and were about to move to 6-1 in their first year under Jim Harbaugh.
Michigan State stunned Michigan on the last play, a freaking flubbed punt snap
Heartbreak for Michigan in the Big House.
But leading 23-21, Michigan had to punt the ball back to Michigan State with 10 seconds left. And it didn’t go as planned.
The snap by long snapper Scott Sypniewski was low, punter Blake O’Neill muffed it and tried to punt it. But as he tossed the ball into the air to punt, he got dragged down by a slew of MSU defenders, and the toss fell to sophomore safety Jalen Watts-Jackson. Watts-Jackson took it to the end zone thanks to a convoy of blockers.
The clock hit zeroes while Watts-Jackson was running, and if he’d gotten dragged down in the field of play, the game might have ended with a 23-21 Wolverines win. But his blockers did their jobs and he just crossed the line, and MSU got the 27-23 shocker. Sadly, Watts-Jackson suffered a broken hip in the celebratory dogpile.
ESPN's analytics department said Michigan State had a .2 percent chance of winning before the play. Michigan fans were stunned:
Ohio State had fun with those sad Michigan fans -- they put them on the big board at Ohio Stadium. Michigan State fans, on the other hand ... they went pretty nuts. Look at Le’Veon Bell.
Punting had been a strength for the Wolverines earlier in the game, with O'Neill blasting an 80-yard punt to pin the Wolverines within the 5. It's the second big game of 2015 to come down to a last-minute snap being handled poorly by a punter -- that's how Texas lost to Oklahoma State.
* * *
SB Nation presents: Breaking down the wild final play
See More:
