Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
AUSTIN, Texas — Missed shots and hits. Big yields. Nerve nerves.
Special teams have produced some nerve-wracking, game-changing and game-defining moments so far in the College Football Playoff.
The potential for more touchdowns in the blink of an eye and knee-jerk pressure on late-game field goals gets even bigger in the semifinals with Notre Dame-Penn State in the Orange Bowl and Ohio State-Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
Makes and misses
Notre Dame seems to have solved its problems at the right time.
Fighting Irish shooting guard Mitch Jeter, a graduate transfer from South Carolina, missed two regular-season games with a hip injury and was just 8 of 15 field goals in the quarterfinals against Georgia. He then made field goals of 44, 48 yards and 47 yards to become the first kicker in playoff history to make three field goals of 40 yards or longer in a single game.
Bert Auburn from Texas could use a confidence boost. His 66 career goals are a record at a school that produced future pros Phil Dawson, Justin Tucker and Cameron Dicker. But he’s just 16 of 25 this season, including 6 of 14 beyond 40 yards.
In the quarterfinal win over Arizona State, he missed twice in the final 2 minutes of regulation. The first, from 48 yards, went wide right. Before he made a 38-yarder with 3 seconds left, coach Steve Sarkisian tried to encourage him. The ball came out to the left. Texas won in double overtime.
Auburn sent the SEC championship game into overtime with a game-tying shot in the final seconds. Teammates insist they believe he can deliver another big shot if needed.
“He’s made a lot of amazing shots for us in the past. He’s going to come up big when we need him,” Texas defensive back Jahdae Barron said. “So if you could just block out the noise. He knows we ride with him. We had his back through it all. That’s the culture here.”
Big yields
Texas and Notre Dame scored points on punt returns in the quarterfinals.
The Longhorns’ Silas Bolden returned the game’s first punt 75 yards for a touchdown and a 14-3 lead against Arizona State. As a senior transfer from Oregon State, the speedy Bolden hasn’t delivered as much as he hoped as a receiver, where he has 22 catches for 243 yards, but he finally broke off a big play in the return game.
It was the Notre Dame rematch against Georgia that turned the game around for the Irish.
Jaydon Harrison’s 98-yard punt return to open the second half extended Notre Dame’s lead to 20-3 and stunned the Bulldogs, who were tied 3-all in the final minute before halftime.
Jeter’s field goal and Beaux Collins’ touchdown catch made it 13-3 before Harrison punted. Fifteen seconds into the second half, Notre Dame led 20-3.
It’s getting awkward
Notre Dame closed out the win with a little special teams trickery.
Notre Dame had fourth-and-short deep in its own territory when coach Marcus Freeman sent in the punt team before taking all 11 players off the field and sending the offense on.
Surprised, Georgia raced to tie the game, then jumped offside as the game clock ticked down. Notre Dame had a first down and held the ball for five more minutes, bleeding the game clock.
“We practiced it to the point where I felt like we couldn’t go wrong,” Freeman said. “I thought they did a great job of not panicking, and the whole point of that is to try to cause another panic.”
