One of the great things about college football as an experience is that with only 12 games and what feels like 100 teams hoping to play for a championship, every game is loaded with the import of the entire world. When you place that burden on a bunch of 20-year-olds, and coaches constantly on the doorstep of an aneurysm, lots of chaotic and hilarious things will emerge. Lots of bad things and unhelpful anger emerge too, but, for now, let's focus on the other side of the coin.
When Notre Dame scored an emphatic touchdown with just under three minutes of game time left, it felt like proof they weren't just a flash-in-the-pan team that got hot last year. They could do it again. Despite how up-and-down their quarterback, CJ Carr, was, they had survived on a gladiatorial performance by their running back. Jeremiyah Love: 94 rushing yards, an additional 53 yards receiving for two touchdowns, including what looked to be the dagger. It was a perfect moment in South Bend. And then Tyler Buchner fumbled the hold on the extra point attempt.
Here is something that people who are really into numbers and statistics do not always love hearing: Football has its own rhythm. You can call it momentum, or you can call it some sort of divination that takes place, but if you watch enough of it, you can see how a game is going to end even before it ends. It happened in the Tennessee–Georgia match earlier in the afternoon when Tennessee's kicker, who had a chance to give the Volunteers their first win against Georgia in a decade, completely gashed it to the right. In that moment, whether you wanted to speak it aloud or not, you knew Georgia was winning that game. And so too, right here after a failed hold and now only a 6-point lead instead of 7, you knew in your heart what Texas A&M would accomplish.
For Notre Dame's part, they didn't make it easy. Well, after they got bailed out with holding on a return for a TD, they didn't make it easy. In retrospect, I'm sure Marcus Freeman would've taken that as it would've allowed over 2 minutes for his team to mount a winning response. Truly, it is a game of inches. What did happen was that the defense gave A&M quarterback Marcel Reed all he could handle, and he just kept making plays. Then, a couple of false starts on Texas A&M, and it seemed like that would do the trick. But an ill-conceived hold by Notre Dame's defense negated all of that. Still, they held them to one last do-or-die fourth-down play, and Marcel Reed, buying a little time and maybe fortunately having the refs miss some holding by his linemen, threw a dart to their big, blocking tight end Nate Boerkircher for the tying score. And there was no way they were missing that kick. 41-40, Texas A&M over Notre Dame in the latter's home stadium.
And just like that, Texas A&M walks away with a defining program win for the Mike Elko era. And Freeman and Notre Dame, now at 0-2, after losing their two toughest opponents of the season, are reeling and looking for answers. This was not the easiest game to watch. Before halftime, Texas A&M defender Bryce Anderson was carted off the field on a stretcher after a horrifying hit that I don't know how any of us could stomach watching. On-going status updates about his ability to still move his fingers and toes were meant to provide relief, but did more to remind you of the stress of this sport. And it is stressful—stressful enough to make you miss the things you're supposed to catch, aim for the head when you meant to aim for the chest, or, well, mess up holding the ball for your kicker. There is no telling how the ball will bounce. And that's just the way it goes sometimes, you can nitpick on things or decision-making, but at the end of the day, it was the difference of a bad hold. Tyler Buchner, unfortunately, will live in some kind of college infamy for it, the same way that Reed and Boerkircher will live in college infamy for their heroics. That is the beauty and the tragedy of this sport.
