BYU Cougars

BYU staggers Nebraska on game-ending Hail Mary

Published Sep. 5, 2015 8:06 p.m. ET

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LINCOLN, Neb. — BYU spoiled Mike Riley’s debut with Nebraska on Saturday in a way that 'Huskers and Cougars fans will never forget.

The Cougars were down to one play and were without star quarterback Taysom Hill, who suffered a Lisfranc injury in the second quarter and is lost for the season.

Enter backup QB Tanner Mangum.

A year ago Mangum, a freshman who was the co-MVP of the Elite 11 camp with Jameis Winston in 2011, was on his Mormon mission in Chile. His mission before a sold-out crowd in Memorial Stadium was daunting.

And Mangum delivered. He connected on a game-ending Hail Mary with senior Mitch Mathews from 42 yards to turn a 28-27 defeat into an astonishing 33-28 victory for the Cougars.

“My heart goes out to [Mike Riley] and the team,” BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall told the media after the game. “He's a good friend of mine and a really good person and a really good coach. ... Sometimes one play determines a game."

So what went into that game-winning call?

"There was a discussion amongst the coaching staff, with about six seconds, on whether we take the shot now or do we try to get 10 yards closer with an outcut to the sideline,” Mendenhall said. “Our quarterback coach, Jason Beck, he and I communicated and then we decided if we throw it on time we might get 10 yards closer. So the last thing I said to Tanner was actually the play before, and I said to make sure that you throw it on time so we can have one more shot."

One shot. Actually, Mathews himself had practiced the play once, and the QB on that day was not Mangum.

"Practiced it one time, never with Tanner (Mangum)," the wideout said. "You just hope that you can go jump ball and get that thing. Tanner didn't practice it, but he ended up being in the perfect place at the right time."

Nebraska's Riley is going to have to watch the play again to figure out what could have been done differently, if anything.

"I'm going to have to look at it more closely,” said Riley, who became the first Nebraska coach since 1957 to lose his debut. “ I think that guy came in from across the field. And obviously we need to have someone in front of him rather than behind him at that point. We must have been out of position at that point over there. He came all the way from our sideline."

Riley said he had never felt the sting of such a play at the end of a game before.

“I don’t ever remember one,” said the coach, who came over from Oregon State after Bo Pelini was let go in Lincoln. “I think there were more Hail Marys completed last year at the end than I’ve ever heard of, and we had one completed on us at halftime of the USC game, but I don’t remember that happening at the end of any of our games.”

The emotions were different in the visitors’ locker room.

"The victory and defeat hangs in the balance on the results of one play," Mendenhall said. "I know what defeat feels like. I know what it looks for the team, our community and our family. And I know what the win looks like and to be almost at the mercy of that and watching the play, there's no more raw emotion than a setting like that. ...

"It's one of the greatest celebrations that I've ever been part of in a locker room."

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