Written by Alex Scarborough at ESPN.com
The safe move would have been to run the ball on third-and-a-foot inside their own territory. Up 17-10 in the third quarter, on the road, against No. 2-ranked Alabama, no one would have blamed Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly for handing the ball off and hoping for a new set of downs. But then Eddie Jackson started cheating down into the box from his safety position. Laquon Treadwell and Quincy Adeboyejo were lined up to Kelly’s left, the defense was showing man-coverage and there was suddenly no longer any help over the top. Kelly couldn’t pass that up. Armed with the run-pass option, he chose the latter.
But then the snap shot wildly over his head. Kelly tipped it high into the night sky. Like Willie Mays on the warning track, he turned away from the line of scrimmage completely, jumped and caught the ball over his shoulder. Before his feet could touch the ground, he spun back around and in one motion fired the ball to his left just as he was tackled. It looked like pure desperation, but it wasn’t. Somehow he knew that Treadwell would be there.
Adeboyejo, who hadn’t moved from the line of scrimmage as he watched Kelly gather himself and throw, woke up and started sprinting, following the path of the ball. He didn’t see its intended target until Treadwell and defensive backs Cyrus Jones and Minkah Fitzpatrick collided. Jones got a piece of the ball, itcaromed off Fitzpatrick’s helmet and hung there as if suspended in mid-air. Adeboyejo barely broke his stride. He caught it underhanded like a loaf of bread and kept on running past the defense, which had slowed down thinking the play was over. Ole Miss scored and went on to beat Alabama for the second year in a row, 43-37. (Watch the play again here.)
Like everyone else, Javon Patterson initially thought it was a busted play. Ole Miss’ freshman left guard had let the pass-rush reach Kelly and said, “That’s on me, that’s my job.” And afterward? He called it a “blessing from the Lord.”
“Chad’s a very, uh, energetic guy,” Patterson said, “so he can make plays like that.”
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