COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Grant Delpit couldn’t find the words – he won’t be alone in that.
How do you encapsulate seven overtimes of the highest scoring and longest game in college football history?
“Probably the game of the century,” Delpit said.
You can omit the probably, add in another century or two, and Delpit would still be correct.
Chaos unfolded in front of the world on Saturday night – and parts of Sunday morning, depending on where you were watching. The box score will tell you Texas A&M defeated LSU 74-72, and the photographs and videos will show you elated Aggies and heartbroken Tigers on the field in the aftermath, and the game recaps will relay the action, play-by-play, in longer-than-usual fashion.
None will do justice. None will find the words. Not all of them.
Some will have to suffice.
Delpit’s word of choice: “Craziness.”
At least half-a-dozen times, the game came down to a single play. Do or die. Each and every time, the team staring defeat in the eye elected the former, until the Aggies succeeded on one final two-point conversion to claim victory.
The mentality, Delpit says, was “play your hearts out. I think we did that as a unit. They just made a couple crazy plays. We made some crazy plays, too. It was just craziness.”
“It’s just a surreal feeling.”
A word on the minds and mouths of everyone who watched Saturday: controversy.
To be sure, there were controversial calls. A fourth-quarter interception by Delpit – overturned when officials ruled A&M quarterback Kellen Mond’s knee was down. A last-second spike by Mond that allowed the clock to reach zero – before officials added another second. An incompletion in the first overtime that might’ve been a forced fumble by Delpit.
It was the attempt to spike the ball and the additional second that bothered Ed Orgeron most.
“We’ve been told with three seconds left, you can’t kill it,” he said. “They tried to kill it, the clock went down to zero. Why they put another one second left on the clock, remains to be seen. That one second, in my opinion, should’ve never been put up.”
Those calls didn’t make LSU happy, but some did – particularly those from the coaches’ box. Steve Ensminger dialed up some doozies to help net Joe Burrow six total touchdowns and keep LSU apace with A&M in the highest-scoring game in college football history.
Tight end Foster Moreau‘s favorite: a halfback pass from Clyde Edwards-Helaire to Tory Carter.
“Steve Ensminger‘s one of the best coordinators in the country,” Moreau said. “I said it at the beginning of the season. People laughed at me, scoffed at me. They threw us by like we were nothing. But you don’t think we have a freakin’ halfback throw from freakin’ Clyde to Tory? You think we don’t have these plays? We know what we’re doing.”
But calls don’t matter if players can’t execute them. For 60 minutes and seven overtimes, Tigers on both sides of the ball made big plays.
Devin White posted 17 tackles, four for loss, with a sack and a forced fumble Michael Divinity scooped and scored. JaCoby Stevens registered 14 stops of his own, including multiple game-savers in overtime to prevent Aggie touchdowns and, like White, four behind the line of scrimmage.
“It was a heartbreaker,” Stevens said. “How many overtimes was it? If you’re not tired, you’re a machine. We run the levies, we run the 110s. We were in shape to play all four quarters and overtimes. That’s a testament to Coach (Tommy) Moffitt.”
On offense, Burrow crossed the end zone six times. Moreau accounted for one, while Justin Jefferson and Dee Anderson each added highlight-worthy scores of their own.
Tracy did his part, too, nailing a 47-yarder before halftime and a 50-yarder in the first overtime.
“That was the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. “Just a lot of ups and downs. It just shows how close knit this team is. We’ll be alright. It’s a tough loss, though.”
Moreau, the team spokesman and wearer of the symbolic No. 18 uniform, is known for his way with words, so it’s fitting to let him have the last one.
It’s pride, and he says it with a smile.
“It’s hard,” he says of the loss, and of overcoming adversity on a historic scale. “It’d be hard for any player, team, or program. But I’ll be damned if we don’t handle it the best. Coach O just looks at you, puts a smile on your face, and says, ‘We get some extra football, baby.’
“I’m proud of the way we fought tonight.”