Redemption on kicker’s foot
EUGENE, Ore. — David Shaw was shouting over his players’ own shouts, and his voice was louder and stronger than all of theirs combined.
“Where’s Jordan? Let me see your face!” Stanford’s coach thundered.
Shaw was looking for Jordan Williamson, whose 37- yard field goal in overtime had just given the Cardinal a stunning, galvanizing 17- 14 upset victory over No. 1 Oregon on Saturday.
Williamson must have been found, because, after a few moments, everyone in the locker room started shouting in unison, and the Autzen Stadium walls rattled. “JOR- DAN! JOR- DAN! JOR- DAN!” I was standing 10 feet outside the locker room, next to an open door, and it was something to hear, the full- throated sound of sports redemption. Williamson, of course, is the guy who missed two
kicks at the end of last season’s Fiesta Bowl loss, Andrew Luck’s final Stanford game.
When Williamson made the kick to win this game, he sprinted to the other side of the field with a host of teammates madly chasing him in euphoria.
The kick knocked Oregon from a guaranteed spot in the national- title game to an outsider looking in.
And the kick made sure that Stanford is now — surprise!— just two victories from a trip to the Rose Bowl.
“It felt great to help the team,” Williamson said. “I felt I owed them to do my best.”
OK, this monumental Cardinal game wasn’t all about Williamson or even mostly about him. It just came down to him.
Let us note that the Cardinal hardly played a perfect game, including three killer turnovers.
But a defensive performance for the ages kept Stanford in this.
I can’t remember a better defensive game by a Stanford team, and I’ll bet nobody else can come up with one.
“Our word of the week was ‘ resolve,’” Shaw said. “We knew things were going to go against us. We had to stay with the same mentality. The kids kept fighting.
“We knew if we got to the fourth quarter, we’d give ourselves a chance to win.”
While Oregon’s powerful offense struggled to capitalize on countless opportunities, this game came down to a play, a tackle, a moment, a gasp …
And finally, to Williamson, at the end of the chaos.
Yes, Williamson, who, until this game, was most famous for missing a kick that would have won last season’s Fiesta Bowl and then missing another in overtime.
This game was about emotion— Cardinal linebacker Shayne Skov pulled his teammates around him at the start of overtime and delivered a fist- shaking speech that had them all jumping.
This game was about redshirt freshman quarterback Kevin Hogan improvising on the fly and driving Stanford to the huge tying touchdown in the last minutes of regulation.
It was about Oregon getting the ball first in overtime, and Ducks kicker Alejandro Maldonado missing a 41- yarder off the upright to set up Stanford’s victory.
In a game full of great mistakes and great plays, it was going to come down to Williamson, who was both the most appropriate player to decide this game …
And, for Stanford, also the most worrisome.
Williamson had already missed from 43 yards in this game, and as he lined up the previous one, his teammates all knelt on the sideline.
And they hoped. Or prayed.
But Williamson measured it calmly, then punched it right through.
Was this redemption for the Fiesta Bowl?
“It definitely helps,” Williamson said.
It was the end of this amazing game, the end of Oregon’s perfect season and the end of Williamson’s Fiesta Bowl nightmare, most probably.
His teammates knew that. They made sure he knew it, too, with the chanting and the screams.
His coach wanted him to show his face, and man, oh, man, Jordan Williamson did that.