Saturday night's Pac-12 showdown between the Stanford Cardinal and the USC Trojans was crazy. It was amazing. It was cryin' crazy amazacrazy. Somewhere in the middle of the third quarter, it started getting a wacky-epic vibe. You got the sense you were watching a game that was going to be either legendary or extremely goofy. And then Stanford decided to do something beyond goofy.
Since ESPN's videos cause the SB Nation pages to suffer debilitating palpitations, I'm going to need to ask you to click on this link right here.
Go ahead and watch that a few times. I'll wait.
So how about that, huh? A back sets up in the shotgun/wildcat formation, gets the direct snap, hands it off to another back, who gives a shovel-pass to quarterback Andrew Luck, who was just kind of hanging out at the wing, hoping nobody noticed that Stanford doesn't have a gigantic gangly wide receiver with a patchy beard. Luck then proceeded to huck a monster pass 62 yards downfield to Chris Owusu. This is probably the sort of thing you would conjure up in your mind's eye if someone just walked up to you and said, "Trick play."
But did you know that this is just one of a myriad of goofy trick plays in Luck's arsenal? Let's take a brief look at some of the others, transcribed verbatim from Luck's personal journal (which is a Trapper-Keeper emblazoned with images from the Brendan Fraser smash "The Mummy Returns"):
- "Sit down behind center and eat out of big bowl of popcorn. RB takes direct snap and falls into me, fumbling the ball. Everyone dives for ball. I pull out second (REAL) ball that was hidden in popcorn bowl. Run for touchdown. High fives."
- "THE TEX AVERY: Dress as pretty lady. Flash unbelievable gams to defensive line. (Jaws should drop to turf and eyes should bug out, allowing me to run for touchdown.) High fives."
- "Lay down and fake tummy ache. Center snaps ball straight up in the air, then catches it himself and laterals the ball to me. I throw a hail Mary from my back to the end zone. High fives and manly hugs."
And this is just a tiny excerpt. If Stanford plays enough games, I'm sure we'll see them all. Otherwise, the Colts are desperate to have him on board next year and teach them a top-secret play that he refers to only as "The Aristocrats."