When the San Diego State Aztecs came up with a fourth-and-goal from the 2-yard line with just under 10 minutes left while leading Washington State 20-14 on a rainy Halloween evening, there was no way coach Sean Lewis and his staff were going to play it safe and settle for a field goal.
They reached into their bag of tricks and pulled out a real treat, a play named for a figure in Norse mythology. It will likely live on in Aztecs' football lore, especially if they can salvage their season by becoming bowl-eligible.
The play is called "Odin's Pass" and although there were a few rough edges, it ended up with tight end Jackson Ford hauling in a pass from wide receiver/former backup quarterback Bert Emanuel Jr. to give the Aztecs the breathing room they'd need to pull off the win and improve to 4-5 overall and 3-2 in the Pac-12.
The Aztecs are cutting it close to become bowl eligible, and the situation didn't call for playing it safe.
"No risk it, no biscuit, right?" Lewis said. "We're going to call it to win it. And so again, something that we put in, unbalanced set that we had shown throughout the course of the week. Something that the boys had confidence in and kind of huddled up and talked it through. 'Hey, how do you guys feel?' They're like, 'Heck yeah, coach. Let's own it. Let's do it. Let's go and make it happen.'
"So again, like we're going to call it to win it. Boys know that; have confidence in them and you know, you step into the arena, you have the courage to call it and you come out on the right side of it and things are good."
Running back Lucky Sutton lined up behind the center, with redshirt freshman quarterback Stone Saunders to his right. Sutton tookthe direct snap and handed it off to Saunders, who headed left as Emanuel came around from left end. Saunders was hit as he tossed the ball to Emanuel, who threw to the wide-open Ford, who slipped but caught the ball.
"The name of the play is 'Odin's Pass' because the shift was Loki where the line goes left and when we shift out of it they go Thor because there's an R in it and then Loki and Thor's father is Odin so it's all tied together," Lewis said.
"Little peak behind the curtain," he added with a chuckle.
"We repped that so much that we already knew what it was going to be when we called the play in the huddle," said Sutton, a native San Diegan who gained 115 yards on 18 carries, including a 46-yard run early in the game to help set up the first of two TD runs by Javion "Chop" Kinnard.
"I'm really just grateful and happy that everything turned out right. We repped it so we were really confident that it was going to lead to the outcome," Sutton said.
As for handing off the ball, "It's different, man," Sutton said.
SDSU gets its badly needed bye week and will host Utah State on Nov. 14. The regular season will conclude with two road games, at No. 20 Boise State on Nov. 21 and then the flex game against an opponent to be determined on Nov. 28.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/san-diego-state as Why San Diego State's game-changing trick play was named 'Odin's Pass' .
