Capturing history
Miami (Fla.)’s Joe Zagacki is latest broadcaster to deftly lend voice to a finish for the ages,
When Corn Elder took the last of eight Miami (Fla.) laterals and headed down the sideline for the end zone, Joe Zagacki had one thought: “Don’t screw this up.” History was happening.
“Joe Z” has been the radio voice of the Hurricanes for 14 years. Earlier in his career he was in the booth as part of the broadcast team for Doug Flutie’s famous 1984 Hail Mary to beat Miami. But he had never been part of something like this — a 91yard kickoff return that took 49 seconds as time ran out to give Miami an improbable 30-27 victory against Duke. The teams, not to mention radio crews, endured a nine-minute replay review before the game officially ended.
“The last 40 yards you’re thinking, ‘This is going to be a crazy finish.’ But I didn’t realize it was going to be this big,” Zagacki said. “You’re thinking, ‘Well he’s going to score, so what’s the exclamation here? Is it “Touchdown!”?’ I think I just went with ‘He scores! He scores! He scores!’ ”
Stunning — and often season-altering — endings really only happen every few years. Before this season, the last true iconic moment in college football occurred in 2013 when Auburn returned Alabama’s missed field goal for a game-winning touchdown in the Iron Bowl. The “Kick Six” ruined the Crimson Tide’s hopes for Southeastern Conference and national titles.
But this season, we’ve seen wacky special-teams finishes three weeks in a row. First with Michigan State returning a fumbled Michigan punt for a gamewinning touchdown, next Georgia Tech blocking a Florida State field goal and returning it for the win, and then Miami’s controversial kickoff return against Duke.
The pure, raw emotion of all these moments was captured on the airwaves.
So what was it like to be on the call? What was going through the radio broadcasters’ minds as they watched and described history?
“Oh, God, a lot of things,” Zagacki said. “(Miami) started tossing the ball around, and my thought is just, ‘ Get it right. Try keeping it cool, get it right, get the players’ (names and numbers) right.’ Play-by-play is kind of about geography, so where is the ball, where is it going, and who has it? They were kind of going backwards, so I was resigned to the fact that, ‘Well, sooner or later this is going to end. Someone is going to drop the ball, it’s going to be intercepted, somebody is going to get tackled or something.’
“And then Dallas Crawford makes the throw across the field to Corn Elder, and it’s lining up like dominoes, and all of the sudden, it’s in my mind of, ‘My goodness gracious I think this could go all the way!’ And I came to the realization of, ‘They could win this damn game.’ ”
Zagacki and color man Don Bailey Jr., a former Miami starting center, quickly realized the significance of what was transpiring. They started yelling back and forth, sometimes in unison.
“He scores! He scores! He scores!” Zagacki howled into the microphone. “It’s a touchdown! It’s a touchdown! It’s a miracle! … The force is with the Miami Hurricanes!”
Two weeks before this pandemonium, Michigan punter Blake O’Neill fumbled a snap with 10 seconds left and Michigan State backup defensive back Jalen Watts-Jackson made the play of his life by returning it for a touchdown and a 27-23 win.
Michigan State play-by-play man George Blaha noticed before the snap that the Spartans decided to rush all 11 players. Nobody was back to field a punt, so he was prepared for the block.
“They’re going after the punter,” Blaha said. “So I was locked in on that. But never in my wildest dreams did I think what happened after they got to the punter and knocked the ball loose was going to happen. I was thinking, ‘You get this punt, who knows, you might get a snap or two and a chance for a Hail Mary to the end zone or a long field goal.’ “Anyway, then it was bedlam.” In 40 years calling games for the Spartan Radio Network, Blaha had seen nothing this crazy.
“Never, never, never,” he said. “Never seen one like that before and can’t imagine I’ll see one like that again. When you’re talking about this play in this game, if you don’t live in the state of Michigan or you aren’t a graduate of either one of these schools, you don’t know how much this play really meant. And that’s what made it monumental, as far as I’m concerned.”
Brandon Gaudin had been calling Georgia Tech games for three years when Florida State kicker Roberto Aguayo’s career-long 56yard game-winning field goal attempt was blocked and returned by Lance Austin for a 78-yard touchdown and 22-16 Yellow Jackets win.
Gaudin remembers when the play started, he was sitting down. When it was over, he was standing up.
“It was just adrenaline taking over,” he said. “It’s sort of like an out-of-body experience.”
Gaudin deemed the play the “Miracle on Techwood Drive” during the call, something that came to him naturally while he was in the moment.
“Some people say that certain broadcasters have things in the can, various phrases and things they want to say at certain times,” Gaudin said. “But in that moment and with something that wild, there’s just no way you can pre- dict. You can’t — and you shouldn’t — have something scripted for these moments. You just have to feel the excitement of the moment and feed off it. And that’s what I was trying to do. I was doing my best to match the excitement.
“When the play develops, the magnitude of the moment and how the crowd gets into it lifts you out of your chair — literally and figuratively — and you have to let that show through the mike. And that’s kind of what happened in that call.”
After Georgia Tech had ended FSU’s 28-game win streak vs. Atlantic Coast Conference foes and the broadcast was over, Gaudin could finally breathe.
“It was my heart rate going about 300 beats per minute back to where it probably should be,” he said. “I remember walking out with our analyst, and he shook my hand, and I said, ‘We just lived a piece of Georgia Tech football history.’ ”
As Elder was making Miami history, Zagacki didn’t take his eyes off him. Zagacki couldn’t look at Bailey, his producers or anyone else in the booth.
“I had to maintain my focus on who had the ball,” Zagacki said. “And when he crosses the (endzone) line, where’s the flag going to be, because you know there’s going to be a flag, and so I was kind of cognizant of that.
“But then I didn’t see the flag because there were bodies everywhere, and then I saw (the flag) back at the 30-yard line.”
The flag was later picked up by officials after a conference.
“I guess I wanted it to be a big emotional moment,” Zagacki said, “but also knew it could be all for naught. I hope I served it the right way.”
By the time the radio crew got to the team bus, Zagacki’s call had gone viral, and everyone was replaying it on the ride back.