Nebraska Week, Volume 9 (You LEFT the Stadium?!?! edition) ...

Um. So. Uh. Whoa.

That pretty much covers it, right? Let me just say ... that finish was the craziest, coolest, most-exciting thing I have ever witnessed in person. And I had the good fortune to be standing directly beside the pylon Danny Coale dove for on his 81-yard catch and run.

It was ... electric. The play, the atmosphere. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The general consensus all around me was: Did that REALLY just happen?

That was Cheryl Beamer’s reaction. She was standing a few feet away from me. She was squeezing her hands in prayer before that long pass. She said she was planning an “I’m so sorry” speech for husband Frank.

“And then,” she said, “the greatest finish I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Agreed. Easily the most unexpected outcome imaginable.

Please consider that when Tech took over with 1:44 to go in the game, needing 88 yards for a victory, the Hokies had managed 190 yards of offense for the game and 48 in the second half.

They were in for a very, very disappointing evening. They were on the verge of letting Nebraska win by kicking five field goals. The Cornhuskers had not won a game without scoring a touchdown since before World War II.

This was a loss for Tech. It was in the books. A flood of Hokies fans poured out of the stadium as I left the press box and headed down to the field for my good view of history.

To quote Cheryl Beamer: “And then ...”

Uh. So. Um. Whoa.

I’m speechless, so let these guys tell you how it happened ...

QB TYROD TAYLOR

ON WHETHER THAT WAS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF HIS CAREER: “Um, yeah, you could say that.”

ON WHAT HE IS THINKING STARTING THAT FINAL DRIVE: “We work on this in practice all the time: Two-minute drill, need a touchdown. It just worked out. We had a chance to make some big plays, and the offense played well that drive.”

ON HOW THE LONG PASS HAPPENED: “We were in a two-minute situation where I called my own play. We actually had one miscue, a route was wrong. But I ended up working away from the other side and Danny ran up the sideline. It was cover-2 and he ran up the sideline. I saw him at the last minute. He made a great catch. His guy thought I was working the other side of the field. I just kept the play alive and worked back to his side. He kept running and playing fast, and I found him.”

ON HIS FRUSTRATION AFTER ROBERTS DROPPED THE FOURTH-DOWN PASS BEFORE THAT, WHETHER HE THOUGHT THE GAME WAS OVER: “I never think that until the clock says zero across the board. I just knew that we needed that play, but that’s behind you. When you come to the sideline, you just have to encourage your teammates, that anything can happen.”

ON WHETHER HE TALKED TO HIS TEAMMATES BEFORE THE LAST DRIVE: “I told them this is a big drive, the biggest drive of the game. Let’s go out here and execute.”

ON HIS THOUGHTS WHEN THE LONG PASS WAS IN THE AIR: “He’s a very dependable guy. I knew he was going to catch it. It was just a matter of if he was going to score or not. I couldn’t see.”

ON HAVING THE HUSKERS’ STAR D-TACKLE ON HIS BACK ON THE TD THROW: “I knew I had somebody on me, but I can’t go down. I just had to stay up as long as I could.”

ON THE SACK RIGHT AFTER THE LONG PASS: “It was a quarterback draw. I slipped trying to get around the extra defender. I said we just have to have a sense of urgency.”

ON TALKING TO ROBERTS AFTER THE DROP: “He was down a little bit. I was the first person to talk to him when he came to the sideline, just to let him know the game was not over and to stay confident. I was going to give him the ball back.”

RB RYAN WILLIAMS

ON HIS THOUGHTS AFTER THE DROPPED FOURTH DOWN: “I was thinking it was two minutes still to go. I put all my trust in the defense when I saw Dyrell drop that ball. I saw he was down. The first thing that came to my mind was when I had dropped that ball in the Alabama game and I was down. I told him, ‘It’s how you bounce back that determines what kind of football player you are.’ He sucked it up and he made a play for us.”

ON THE LONG THROW, WHAT HE WAS THINKING: “I saw him scrambling, scrambling. I’m thinking, ‘Who is he looking at?’ Then I see him launch the ball and I see Danny Coale running down the sideline. I’m like, ‘Please, please catch the ball.’ He caught the ball and I was looking at Tyrod. He was still on the ground. I’m like, ‘Do you know that Danny Coale caught the ball?’ Me and Tyrod just started sprinting down the field. This is when things started getting shaky, when we ran the QB draw and Tyrod got tackled 7, 8 yards behind the line. We really needed to make a play. That’s what Tyrod is best for. He made probably the biggest play of the season with his feet.”

ON WHERE THIS WIN RANKS IN HIS CAREER: “No. 1. I’ve never felt like this. I’ve never really felt this type of team chemistry before – ever. It was the best feeling. The fans were into it. The fans ran on the field. I had people with my face on their shirts. I’m getting high-fives. It was great.”

ON HOW FRUSTRATED THE OFFENSE WAS BEFORE THAT DRIVE: “Very frustrated. I saw Tyrod was very frustrated. I’m kind of glad he calmed down, but he was very frustrated when Dyrell dropped the ball. Dyrell, he was sitting on the side, had mixed emotions. We had to pick ourselves back up, and that’s what we did.”

WR DANNY COALE

ON WHETHER IT FEELS LIKE TECH STOLE A WIN: “I don’t know if you can say that in competition. You just keep going until the final whistle. That’s what we did.”

ON THE LONG CATCH THAT GAVE TECH A CHANCE: “Tyrod called the play. He just got back there and he scrambled a little bit and I think he froze the defense. He just made a great play with his feet and his arm.”

ON BEING SO FAR BEHIND A CORNER IN THAT SITUATION: “They have to respect the fact that (Taylor) can run. At the end of the game, you just try to get in a spot where he can see you – and he did.”

ON THE BALL IN THE AIR: “That’s kind of what you play for, moments like that.”

OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR BRYAN STINESPRING

ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A DRIVE LIKE THAT: “I think a drive like that, when you talk all the factors into consideration, what had taken place ... We were struggling to advance the ball. They had kept us pinned back. The defense had done a fantastic job of turning their red-zone opportunities into field goals, which kept us in a position where we just still needed one score. But when you have that one opportunity, and you’ve got no timeouts and you’ve got 88 yards to go ... and we called them up and we were talking to them: ‘We’ve got a one-shot deal here.’ ... Mike was relaying it to Tyrod. ... From a legacy standpoint, when you have an opportunity to win a game like this ... you talk about challenges and you talk about obstacles ... this was a daunting, daunting task that our football team was looking at. I’m not an odds-maker ... but chances of taking it the length of the field with all factors considered was probably a difficult venture. But somehow, some way, this team found a way to get it done.”

ON WHAT HE WAS LIKE IN THE PRESS BOX WHEN THAT DEEP BALL WAS IN THE AIR: “Before or after I passed out? There was a thud and I got back up. Nah. You saw it. It was one of those times where you saw it ... Mike and I were already standing up a little bit. You see it, and there’s that moment where the ball seems like, ‘Is it coming down?’ You don’t breathe. When he gathered it in, it was just ... just ... this overwhelming feeling. But then you’ve got to quickly get to the next (play).”

ON HOW HE LOOKED AND SOUNDED AFTER THE FINAL PASS FOR A TOUCHDOWN: “We’re just like the fans probably at that point: Throw it! Run it! Get rid of it! There’s a lot of one-word, two-word statements. You’re screaming but he’s not hearing you. Nobody’s hearing you.”

ON WHEN THE REF’S HANDS WENT UP TO SIGNAL TD: “When the hands went up, we all went up. My 22-inch vertical was pretty spectacular. It was amazing. Just absolutely amazing. It was the greatest feeling, other than when you have children and witness their birth. Other than that, that was the greatest feeling I’ve ever been around in my life. I said, ‘I think I’m going to tilt right here.’ ”

WR DYRELL ROBERTS

“You can’t think about previous plays. After the drop, I got down on myself, but after my teammates talked to me, it left my head. I just knew it was time to go back out there and make plays.”

ON WHAT TAYLOR SAID TO THE TEAM: “He really wasn’t saying anything. We could just tell on his face he was ready to go. He was just calling the plays and going out there and executing.”

ON STEALING A WIN: “It’s always going to be somebody that’ll say we got lucky. We can stress ourselves. People are going to talk. That’s what they do. But we know we didn’t give up on ourselves. We made the plays we needed to make to get away with the ‘W.’ ”

ON THE LONG PASS: “I seen Tyrod scrambling. I sat in the middle of the field. I was thinking Tyrod was going to come to me. But when I looked and saw what Tyrod was looking at, I saw Danny running down the sideline scott free. I said, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s got to hit him.’ Once I saw the ball in the air, I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, this has got to be showing us we’re going to get out of here with a win today.’ I was like, ‘Thank God.’ ”

ON TAYLOR SCRAMBLING AND THE RECEIVERS ALWAYS STAYING WITH HIM: “That’s always the case. In practice, when we do scramble drill, we always say, ‘Don’t give up on the play, because there’s no telling what Tyrod can do.’ His feet are so good. When I saw him scrambling around, I was like, ‘OK, we practice this every day.’ ”

ON CATCHING THE TD AFTER DROPPING THE PASS ON FOURTH DOWN: “It’s the greatest redemption ever. After that fourth-down drop, I got down on myself. I needed my teammates to do what they did: They picked me back up.”

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