With 00:46 to play Saturday night, Daniel Evans was largely unremarkable at 12-for-27 for 107 measely yards and one undeniably crucial interception deep in his own territory with just three minutes to play.
These are the stats that get you benched and make the seat even hotter for your egomaniac of a coach. The fans lose whatever hope they had left. There’s really only one way to make people forget how bad your numbers really were.
Lead a game-winning drive and lay the groundwork for becoming a Legend.Â
No one will remember that the under-sized hometown kid who grew up rooting for the Pack had completed only 44% of his passes until that final drive. And no one will ever care.
Because when it was over, our new team leader had produced gaudy numbers of 15-for-32 for 179 yards and most of all, The Touchdown that none of us who saw it will ever forget.Â
I’ve been a State fan my entire life. I can likely recap every game we’ve played since around 1991 or so with reasonable accuracy (I’ll save that for my book). I’ve seen some great game-winning drives by some pretty damn good quarterbacks like Montgomery, Harvey, and Barnette, as well as the expected masterful drives by the Football Jesus, but in all my years, I’d never seen a quarterback lead us to victory on the final offensive play of the game like Daniel Evans did against Boston College.Â
So now let’s hope we find some semblance of an O-line before we’re carting our New Hero off the field on a stretcher when Florida State comes to town.Â
I’d also like to add that even in victory Chuck Amato made questionable decisions. After that final touchdown, there is absolutely no $^&* reason for kicking a PAT. Nothing good can come from it. A two-point lead is no different in any way than a one-point lead and all you do by kicking that PAT is give BC an opportunity to block it and return it for two points and the 17-16 victory. It happens; I was at an App St./Furman game several years ago where Furman scored with 0:03 to play for a 15-14 lead and opted to go for two to make it a FG game; App interecepted the ensuing pass and returned it 100 yards for the 18-17 victory. With the new clock rules in place this season, what we should have done was snap the ball, take a knee and then kick off and make the tackle. There wasn’t enough time to return it and get into FG range, so all we did by kicking that PAT was take a huge gamble. It worked this time…but what happens against FSU? Just saying.