Given a second chance to make a spectacular touchdown catch, Daniel Jackson seized it.
And Tyler Nubin and Dragan Kesich made sure it didn’t go for naught.
Kesich kicked a 47-yard field goal as time expired, giving the Gophers a 13-10 victory over Nebraska and a thrilling fourth-quarter comeback on Thursday night in the season opener at Huntington Bank Stadium. The winning kick was set up by Nubin’s second interception of the game, coming with 58 seconds left.
Athan Kaliakmanis completed 24 of 44 passes for 196 yards and was at his best on Minnesota’s final two drives, completing six passes and leading his team to 10 points in the final 2:32 in front of a sold-out crowd of 53,629.
“In January, we said this team would have to be poised. That’s poised,” coach P.J. Fleck told Fox Sports on the field after the game. “There’s a lot of things that didn’t go our way offensively. … Our defense kept us in the game.”
Jackson caught nine passes for 68 yards. Three plays before his tying TD catch, Jackson almost made a diving catch while dragging a toe just barely out bounds. Then, on fourth-and-10, he hauled in a 13-yard touchdown pass from Kaliakmanis by leaping high and dragging his left foot in bounds along the end zone sideline.
“It’s a catch that will go down in history,” Fleck said in his postgame radio interview.
Jackson’s play, and Kesich’s extra point, tied the score 10-10 with 2:32 left in the fourth quarter.
Fleck said he gathered the team to say: “The players are going to win this game.”
But back in the third quarter, Nebraska looked as if it might spoil the Gophers’ party when it flipped momentum on a trick play. The gamble almost blew up on Nebraska when quarterback Jeff Sims pitched the ball to running back Anthony Grant on his right, then drifted to the left.
Grant threw a lateral Sims’ way, but the quarterback let the ball slip through his hands, and surely it would lead to a busted play, right? Nope. Because the football is oblong and produces odd bounces, it hopped back up into Sims’ hands. The Georgia Tech transfer then spotted a wide-open Alex Bullock for a touchdown.
The Gophers led 3-0 at halftime on Kesich’s 34-yard field goal but mustered only 47 yards in the third quarter. They had one last gasp to tie it after Justin Walley forced a fumble by Anthony Grant and Aidan Gousby recovered at the Minnesota 47. Ten plays later, Jackson made his big catch.
Tristan Alvano added a 27-yard field goal for Nebraska for a 10-7 lead in the fourth quarter. Sims rushed 19 times for 91 yards and completed 11 of 19 passes for 114 yards with a TD and three interceptions. Rahmir Johnson’s 63-yard kickoff return to open the second half set up Nebraska go-ahead TD.
On the tying drive, Gophers running back Bryce Williams converted a fourth-and-1 with 3:53 left, and a facemask penalty on Nebraska’s Cameron Lenhardt moved the ball to the 28. Kaliakmanis’ hookup with tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford for a 15-yard gain to the 13 put the Gophers in business.
The Gophers had the game’s first possession and came out throwing. Kaliakmanis hit Spann-Ford and Corey Crooms Jr. for gains of 7 and 9 yards on slants. Facing third-and-8 from the Gophers 38, Kaliakmanis escaped pressure and scampered 9 yards for a first down. Nebraska’s defense stiffened, hitting Crooms for a 2-yard loss and forcing a third-and-10 incompletion.
Gophers punter Mark Crawford, however, nailed a 52-yard boot that Minnesota downed inside the Huskers 1-yard line.
In the second quarter, Nubin ended a Huskers drive with a diving interception of Sims, but Minnesota couldn’t capitalize as Kesich’s for a 54-yard field-goal attempt, which went wide left.
The Huskers reached the Gophers 1 with 11 seconds left in the half. After false start penalty forced the Huskers back to their 6, Nebraska called timeout. Officials then said the previous play, Ervin’s 3-yard run, was being reviewed to see if he broke the plane of the goal line for a touchdown. Upon review, the ruling stood.
On the next play, Sims tried to hit Isaiah Garcia-Castenada in the left corner of the end zone, but Tre’Von Jones swooped in and intercepted the pass, ending the Nebraska threat.