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Roundtable Sports
Paddy McAteer’s 60-Yard Kick Gives Indiana a Second Chance
- Story byRoundtable Sports
- Paddy McAteer’s 60-Yard Kick Gives Indiana a Second Chance
(USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
A football game can turn on a single kick. Indiana and Minnesota managed to produce two extraordinary ones before regulation was finished.
For the Hoosiers, Paddy McAteer's answer became the moment that kept victory possible.
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McAteer connected from 60 yards as regulation expired Saturday, tying Minnesota 16–16 and forcing overtime. Indiana then completed the comeback with a touchdown and defensive stop, winning 23–16 at Memorial Stadium.
The sequence began with Minnesota seemingly taking control of the finish. Luke Drzewiecki made a 60-yard field goal with 19 seconds remaining, putting the Golden Gophers ahead by three. Indiana responded through the air, with Grant Wilson finding Charlie Becker to move the Hoosiers into position for McAteer's attempt.
The distance made the opportunity extraordinary. Reaching a place on the field where a kick is technically possible does not make the attempt routine. Indiana still needed the protection, snap, hold and strike to work together under the pressure of an expiring clock.
McAteer delivered the final piece.
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His kick carried particular significance because Indiana's earlier special teams work had created problems. The Hoosiers endured a missed field goal, a blocked attempt and a botched snap on another field-goal opportunity. Two short punts also complicated the afternoon.
That background made the tying kick more than an isolated highlight. It gave Indiana a successful finish in an area that had repeatedly contributed to its difficulty putting Minnesota away.
Special teams can be easy to overlook when an offense is scoring freely. In a game this close, their influence becomes impossible to miss. A failed scoring opportunity changes the next possession's importance. A short punt can alter what an opposing offense needs to do to produce points.
Saturday showed both sides of that equation.
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Indiana's mistakes helped create a situation in which an exceptional play became necessary. McAteer then supplied that play, preventing those earlier failures from becoming the final explanation for a defeat.
The kick did not win the game by itself. Indiana still needed to execute in overtime, and Minnesota still had an opportunity to answer the Hoosiers' touchdown.
But without McAteer's finish, those opportunities would never have existed.
For Indiana's coaches, the film will contain plenty to correct. One remarkable conversion cannot make every earlier special teams issue disappear. The team needs greater consistency so that future games do not require such an unlikely rescue.
For one evening, however, McAteer gave Indiana exactly what it needed: three points, another possession and a chance to turn a near-loss into a victory.
