High school team successfully stops a QB kneeldown, and then it gets even better

Well, this is pretty dang cool. During a high school football game in California, the La Jolla Vikings pulled off a pretty unlikely play and subsequent victory against Scripps Ranch High School. With less than a minute left in the game, Scripps Ranch was lining up in the victory formation, and Falcons quarterback Dillon Gebase was set to kneel down, which would have ended the game.

But before Gebase was able to do that, La Jolla linebacker Max Smith somehow managed to strip the ball before Gebase’s knee hit the turf. What’s even cooler is that when La Jolla got the ball back, Smith caught the game-winning touchdown with 38.5 seconds left.

Here’s more from the San Diego Tribune:

“I was hoping for a second chance,” said the sophomore [quarterback Diego Solis], listed generously at 5’9, 153 pounds. “I knew when we got the ball that play would work. We practice that stuff.”

It was Smith who gave La Jolla (2-3) another opportunity after Scripps Ranch had stopped the Vikings and with 48.1 seconds remaining just needing to kneel twice.

But on the snap, Smith broke through, knocking the ball loose and recovering it himself.

“God blessed us with a second chance,” said Solis, who also plays a lot of safety on defense, and was in when La Jolla thwarted Scripps Ranch’s last, desperation drive.

The touchdown sealed a 13-10 La Jolla victory.

I’m not a football historian, but this is probably one of the few times a team has successfully stripped the ball away from a QB trying to kneel in victory formation. The closest and most recent example we have of course, is the infamous Greg Schiano-Eli Manning incident from 2012.

Of course this play is seen as dangerous and cheap — completely unlike this wonderful La Jolla play. Schiano called the Manning twice against Pitt and West Virginia in 2009 when he was the head coach at Rutgers, too.

Shoutout to La Jolla for pulling off this awesome play.