Utah was about to take a 14-o lead on the No. 4 Oregon Ducks when the everything went wrong for the Utes. Wide receiver Kaelin Clay caught a long pass from Travis Wilson and was about to score a 78-yard touchdown, but Clay did that thing they told you not to do as a kid: he counted his chickens. They weren’t hatched! Clay dropped the ball a yard oustside the end zone and started celebrating while the alert Ducks recovered it and ran it back 99 yards for a touchdown the other way.
Utah never recovered. Kaelin Clay’s play will be shown on highlight–err, lowlight–loops for a long time to come. It’s a cautionary tale. You have to feel terrible for Clay. It’ll be a very long time–if ever–before he lives down this play that makes Kaelin Clay the Bill Buckner of college football. Let’s everyone hope Clay manages the ignominy with the same grace Buckner has managed his–and that he scores many a touchdown in the rest of his career. Clay began with a mea culpa in uppercase:
I TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS GAME BY MY SELFISH ACTIONS…I'll take this one
