Week 1, Texas played Notre Dame in a double overtime thriller. The wildness of the game was exemplified by Notre Dame’s game-tying blocked extra point returned for a defensive conversion.
The blocked extra point returned for two points is a rare play, and one with interesting implications. It flips a play that’s normally a formality into a thrilling scramble, and salvages some momentum for a squad that just allowed a score. That it happened at an meaningful juncture in that big Week 1 game was fascinating.
And now both teams have repeated their role, both tying rarely cited NCAA records.
Notre Dame returned a Syracuse XP for two:
And Oklahoma State blocked a Texas XP and ran it back the length of the field for two (with a nifty lateral!)
And so Notre Dame has now returned two extra points for defensive conversions, and Texas has now allowed two opponents to return extra points for defensive conversions.
Both of these achievements tie records. The last team to return two extra points in one season was Tulsa in 2010 — incidentally, one of those was actually against Notre Dame, a play that helped the Golden Hurricane shock the Golden Domers in a 28-27 win. The only other team to manage two in one season was... Texas. Tony Holmes returned two blocked extra points in the Longhorns’ victory over Iowa State in 1998.
And Texas has tied the record for most opponent 2-point conversions off extra points. As you can probably tell, it’s held by Iowa State thanks to that 1998 game.
So both teams have seven games to set a record.
Notre Dame can totally do it. Their defenders have been more than happy to allow the kick block unit to show their unique excellence, as they’re allowing touchdowns at such an unfortunate rate that the Irish fired fired defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder last week after the Irish gave up 500 yards to Duke.
And Texas is scoring enough to allow plenty of returned extra points. Oklahoma State actually managed to block another extra point in the first half against the Longhorns. The Cowboys didn’t return it for two, but there are still plenty of chances to make history.