Buckeye’s late win over LaSalle was not as easy as they would have hoped, but it was just as satisfying once the clock ran out.
written by Marshall Loeffler, story by Zach Craig
Not every Friday night football story is the one where the home team is down by one point and the QB is having to battle back from a late mistake and find a way to lead his team to victory. But this one is that kind of story, and it deserves to be told one more time by someone who had the best view of it all.
Buckeye quarterback Zach Craig had thrown an interception, with the Panthers trailing by 1. LaSalle had the ball with the game in their hands. Then Buckeye’s defense answered with an interception of its own. Wade Jenkins, who has made plays for the Panthers all year long, jumped up and intercepted the ball, and in the process picked up his teammates, giving them good field position and another chance. And suddenly, with the game still hanging in the balance, Craig was back on the field. According to him, because he also plays linebacker on defense, there wasn’t much time to think about what had just happened.
“Football is definitely a lot more exciting in that kind of scenario just because there’s almost no time for you to just calm down,” Craig said. “Especially when you play both sides of the ball. Like, as soon as that happened, we’ve got to lock in and we’ve got to flip the switch.” Buckeye drove into the red zone, but the drive reached fourth down. “I think it was fourth and five, and we were on the 22 or something close to that,” Craig said. “We called a timeout, we were talking, and we were like, we’ve got to go for it. We need this first down if we want a chance of scoring.”
Buckeye called a rollout flood. Craig rolled out, nobody was open. “And in that instance, that’s when I’m like, I’m going to have to do this for us,” he said. “This is my moment to get us where we need to be.” He found a way through the first defender. Then another.
“Our guys are covered and I see one guy that I’ve got to get around, and I do. I beat him there. And then the next guy, I just got to get through him, and I ended up getting through him.”
Buckeye kept going. Craig remembers the touchdown play: a zone read. He read the defender on the line of scrimmage.
“He dives in for the running back and I’m like, oh yeah. This is it.” Craig pulled the ball.
“I saw the free shot to the goal. And, you know, I mean, I got to take it. I’m here to win. So I take it and I score.” “I end up doing a flip into the end zone,” Craig said. “And everybody’s like, ‘Why’d you do a flip?’ And I was like, ‘I tripped.’ I’m trying to get in there, man.”
The touchdown gave Buckeye the lead, and one stop left to get.
“Defense was awesome on that final drive,” Craig said. “I’m playing linebacker and I drop back into pass coverage. And finally, our big nose guard gets back up in there and makes the tackle on fourth down.”
“And finally I got to call the win formation,” Craig said. “That was super exciting. That felt good.”
Buckeye entered the season with a young group: “We graduated eight starting seniors on offense,” Craig said. “And on defense probably more than that, so to get a win as a new group, as a young team together, felt extremely good.”
Then came the part he had been waiting for through the first three games.
“The win formation,” Craig said. “Ready for many more to come for the rest of the season.”
