24 Days till Kickoff: The Most Crucial 24 Yards in Baylor Football History

The ball is on the 1-yard line with 24 seconds on the clock. It's the fourth quarter of the Big 12 Championship game, and there might possibly be a spot in the College Football Playoff on the line. The No. 9 Baylor Bears are up 21-16 on the No. 5 Oklahoma State Cowboys, but the Bears’ backs are against the wall and their feet are in their own end zone.

We all know how it went down, but let's break this play down a little more. I’m writing about this today because, by my calculations, Jairon McVea had to sprint 24 yards from his position when he recognized the ball carrier, Dezmon Jackson, was bouncing it outside to make the game-winning tackle.

How did I arrive at that number? There was some video analysis, some trigonometry, and some healthy guesstimation, but 24 yards is the number I came up with. 24 of the most crucial yards to ever be covered by anyone wearing the green and gold.

When you watch the replay, you’ll see McVea work his way from depth towards the line of scrimmage as he deciphers run or pass and then the direction of the run. Once he recognizes the run and puts his foot in the ground to meet Jackson the outside, that’s where I started measuring.

In college football, the hash marks are 20 yards from the sideline and Jairon was about 2 yards inside the hash. Straight line to the pylon, that’s still about 22 yards because of how acute the angle is. However, McVea bows his pursuit about 2 yards into the backfield. That curved path, which I will not attempt to calculate with more integrity than guessing, is in my mind about 24 yards. Jairon fly out of bounds around the two-yard line, so he got 2 yards deep and went 22 yards sideways on a slightly curved path.

Maybe it was more than 24 yards that he covered. Maybe I’m just shrinking it to fit my writing schedule. But I can’t shrink the magnitude of the play in Baylor Football history. A third Big 12 Championship, a third Sugar Bowl bid, and what would be the 11th of a program record 12 wins on the year, all secured by this play.

That whole team fought so hard for that whole game, and amazingly, beautifully, it all came down to a sixth-year walk-on making a hustle play. Does football get more beautiful than that?

Man, I’m ready for football season!