In the third quarter of its seismic upset of No. 2 Alabama on Saturday night, Ole Miss faced 3rd-and-1 in its own territory. It made an enormous mistake: the snap went high, forcing Chad Kelly to bat the ball out of the air and ruining whatever timing had been planned for the play.
Then, the Rebels made an even bigger mistake: rather than eating the ball and making sure his team was able to punt the ball away (rather than endure an even bigger disaster), Kelly lofted up a wounded duck just as he was being hit. The ball seemed far more likely to come down in the arms of a Tide defender than any Rebel receiver.
In short: Ole Miss didn't deserve anything good to happen on the play. And yet, instead, the best possible thing that could happen for Ole Miss ... happened:
Just your typical 66-yard touchdown catch for Quincy Adeboyejo ... and your extremely atypical 24-10 lead for the Rebels, one they would never relinquish despite the Tide's late rally. Let us honor this play with a reading from ESPN's Reece Davis:
Rece Davis reading Chad Kelly's rap song "Chad Kelly" was LOL funny pic.twitter.com/I3fOK2xIPY
— Kmarko (@Kmarkobarstool) September 19, 2015
A further look at what already shapes up as one of the defining plays of the season:
Just. Plain. Crazy. #MISSvsBAMA pic.twitter.com/sgkvwmW0U0
— NCAA Football (@NCAAFootball) September 20, 2015
On the one hand, Alabama can feel aggrieved that their entire season could come down to a play on which their opponents did everything wrong and came out dramatically ahead through no reason other than blind luck. On the other, you don't have to have been a college football fan for long to know blind luck -- even the 66-yard touchdown-awarding kind -- is as much a part of the game as helmets and cleats:
Yes, you can look up the word "fluke" in the dictionary and watch the play above. But nothing about it will change the result in the Rebels' win column, or the Tide's loss column. It's a well-worn saying that anyone who wins a championship in college football needs a few breaks, and the Rebels already seem a prime candidate to have that adage applied when all is said and done.
