Lateral Thinking

Normally, ESPN doesn't give a hoot about Division 3 football. They say the last true amateurs in college sports compete in Division 3. Division 1 is the premier division. All the football, baseball, basketball that you see is Division 1 with rare exception. When kids graduate from high school and want to play in college, they want Division 1.

Division 3 is for the rest of them. Those who lack the talent to play at a higher level, or perhaps some lack of luck. They don't get many fans. A few of them are smart enough to have career doing something else besides sports.

But occasionally, something so unusual happens, that even ESPN takes a few moments to give Division 3 its due.

In this case, it's a 15 lateral sequence. In case you don't know that much about football, you can only throw one forward pass. However, you can throw as many backward passes as you want. A backward pass is called a lateral.

Why throw it backwards when the goal is to throw it forwards? Throwing the ball moves the ball faster than runners can run. But when you throw it backwards, you need to run forward to compensate.

The quality of the video is poor, so there's one part that's hard to see. On the last lateral, the ball hits the ground, and the player lifts it up, and runs into the endzone for a score. Apparently, it's legal.

Oh yeah, the two teams are Trinity and Millsaps. I can't really tell you much more than that.