A Division III college football game ended in one of the most crushing ways you can imagine. A pair of schools in Wisconsin — 11th ranked UW-La Crosse and UW-Platteville — went toe-to-toe in Platteville on Saturday afternoon. The Pioneers had a chance to pull an upset, all they needed to do was get themselves in position for a score as time expired despite having no timeouts.
They managed to do just that, getting the ball down to the Eagles’ 15 with less than 10 seconds remaining and the team trailing, 24-23. The playbook from there is easy enough: kill some clock, spike the ball with a few seconds left, send out the field goal team, and hope the 32-yard boot goes through the uprights.
But a problem popped up. Platteville’s quarterback mixed up what he was supposed to do in this situation, and instead of spiking the ball with five seconds left, he took a knee.
Kneeling instead of spiking, what a nightmare.
pic.twitter.com/5QLOs5H6qR— Billy Football (@Billyhottakes) October 16, 2021
The quarterback even started walking off, thinking he did the right thing. It was so surprising that even the clock operator in the stadium stopped it from counting down for a moment, because they, too, assumed a spike was coming. The Pioneers had a few seconds to line back up and spike it, but they did not do it in time and their attempt at an upset came up short.