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WATCH: Nebraska's Unbelievable Hail Mary To Beat Northwestern

Nebraska wide receiver Jordan Westerkamp catches the game winning touchdown.
Nati Harnik
/
AP
Nebraska wide receiver Jordan Westerkamp catches the game winning touchdown.

My father — ever the optimist — always told me that a game is never over until the final second expires. You never know, he said, when an act of utter desperation will beat the odds.

Last night, with Nebraska trailing Northwestern 24-21 with four seconds left in the fourth, backup quarterback Ron Kellogg III threw a Hail Mary pass from behind the 49-yard-line hoping for a miracle.

Sometimes, this game proved, prayers are answered. Jordan Westerkamp somehow got his hands on that pass at the end zone, lifting the Huskers to a 27-24 victory.

"You can never let somebody get behind the pile," is all a deflated Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzergerald told ESPN.

As for Nebraska, ESPN reports they are hoping for another miracle — that the unbelievable play reverses a bad season.

Here's the must-watch video of the play:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.