One of my favorite parts of covering college football is going down to the field for the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. The press box can be a detached, unemotional place (which it should be), so the spirit of a game can often feel like it’s a million miles away. And at West Virginia’s Milan Puskar Stadium, it actually did feel like we were hovering just shy of the moon. But I digress.
When Star-Telegram columnist Gil Lebreton and I headed down to the field, Tavon Austin had just returned a punt 76 yards to give the Mountaineers a 31-24 lead with a few minutes remaining in regulation. We thought we were going down to do some depressing TCU postgame interviews.
For the first time since TCU's Poinsettia Bowl win over Louisiana Tech last season, I apparently had maxed out my Twitter feed late in the fourth quarter Saturday. As we headed to the field, I tried deleting old tweets so that it would allow me to tweet new ones, especially with the game’s outcome in the balance.
Soon after we made it to the field, Josh Boyce tied it with
a shocking 94-yard touchdown pass from Trevone Boykin. Boyce came running right
at me in the corner of the end zone but I was so stunned I didn’t have me
camera ready to record. So this is all I’ve got. SuperFrog, however, does play a starring role.
Once we were in overtime, I had my game-face on and caught
Jason Verrett’s game-saving block on West
Virginia’s field goal attempt in the first overtime. “Unbelievable.”
Here’s former Euless Trinity star Brandon Carter’s first-career pass as a Frog to tight
end Corey Fuller, scoring his first-career touchdown, to pull TCU to within 38-37 in the second overtime.
And here’s Josh Boyce just after he caught the game-winning
two-point conversion pass. TCU wins 39-38 in double overtime. Again, Boyce comes running towards my direction, and
suddenly his teammates engulf the area for a brief, but ecstatic celebration. Maybe Josh read my Saturday morning story about him being Mr. Steady for the TCU offense. Check out the story here.
Here's a shot of the team celebrating with TCU fans in the crowd.
And this is what I ate at Eat 'N Park back in Pittsburgh around 1 a.m. Sunday morning.
It was a classic finish, my tweets were again sending, and I ate myself into a coma. Good trip.
-- Stefan Stevenson
@FollowtheFrogs
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