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With 15 second left on the clock and his team trailing 46-45, redshirt freshman Andrew Gantz walked on to the field and calmly lined up his kick. He was facing a career-long 47-yard attempt with the game on the line. The crowd of nearly 20,000 stood silently in the freezing temperatures, waiting with bated breath for what would be Gantz's finest moment of his young career.
After a few deep breaths, Gantz gave holder Sam Geraci a small nod, and the ball was snapped. Kirk Willis flung the football between his legs to Geraci, and the punter/holder snatched the ball and placed it down on the right hash of the 30-yard line. Gantz took three steps and swiftly chopped his right foot at the ball.
The pigskin blasted off his foot and flipped end over end and sliced down the middle of the uprights for the game-winning field goal.
"I can't really describe it" Gantz said. "It is something every kicker dreams of. To be in a position to win a game for your team, for your brothers that you work so hard with, it was just indescribable. I can't thank our offensive line enough, or our snapper and our holder. It was just unreal."
Unreal it was because just a month ago, the Dayton, Ohio native was at Paul Brown Stadium missing his first career field goal in a lopsided loss to Memphis. The miscue was one of many by the Bearcats, but it was one that rose suspicion on whether he was Coach Tuberville's best option as the place kicker.
With doubt surrounding him in the ensuing weeks, Gantz responded like no other. The redshirt freshman went on to make his next eight field goals, earn back-to-back American Athletic Conference Special Teams Player of the Week honors, and be named one of the 20 semifinalists for the 2014 Lou Groza Collegiate Place-Kicker Award.
The first-year kick had come into his own, but he had not yet been tested in the clutch, until Thursday night.
Some would think the pressure would have gotten to the first-year kicker, but as he walked onto the field with 15 seconds remaining and the Bearcats trailing, he didn't feel the weight.
"We just went out there like it was routine" Gantz said. "Coach [Tuberville] put us through those situations all throughout camp and spring ball. I was telling Sam [Geraci], our holder, that he did a fantastic job getting the ball laces out. And Kirk [Willis], our snapper, is a perfect operation. I just told them it was just like the first day of camp when we would practice a 47-yarder from the right hash to end practice and stop everyone from running."
Gantz may have downplayed the kick in his head, but everyone in the stadium was holding their breath. When the kick sliced through the uprights, the crowd erupted with excitement as the freshman sprinted across the field with the rest of his teammates chasing him in joy.
Prior to Thursday's game, Gantz was just another kicker on the Groza semifinalist list with an outside shot at winning the award, but after nailing the game-winning 47-yarder on national television, the Centerville High School graduate has positioned himself as a top contender for the prestigious hardware.