The Catch

An amateur writer such as myself would not be able to describe in words the beauty and importance of the play shown above but I will tell you what I was thinking at the time. It was late in the game against a Temple football team who although they had shown improvement recently was surely a team that was down on its luck. We had played and beaten some very good football teams this season so why were we having so much trouble with Temple? This was the most upset I have ever been watching my Knights play football. I was almost throwing things around the room and at the TV. We did not have much time left on the clock and would have to somehow score at least a touchdown to even send the game into overtime. The offense had moved the ball well into Temple territory to about the 30 - 35 yard line-ish. Under pressure from the defense Blake rolled out into the flats and was facing another oncoming defender when he threw it toward the back of the end zone. I saw that JJ had gotten a lot of space between himself and the defender that was covering him and was looking to make the catch. I would later find out affter watching the replay a couple hundred times that Marc Daniels and I were thinking the same thing as we saw the play develop - "He over throws him!" - "OH MY GOODNESS - HE CAUGHT IT!!!! - WHAT A CATCH!!!!" I think Brian Williams of NBC said it best when he said "This is how we catch a pass in our dreams." Here is a clip from NBC (sorry about the crappy audiio).



 What remained of the rest of the game was the type of play that only teams of destiny know of. A great stop by the defense would get us the ball back with just a sliver of the game clock remaining. A great move and catch by another talented UCF receiver Rannell Hall, a short field goal with only a couple of ticks left on the clock, and this game is history and ours.