We got a BUTT CATCH in Saturday’s Rutgers-Nebraska game:
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) September 23, 2017
Rutgers tight end Jerome Washington had a hard time corralling a pass, because a Nebraska defender had closed in and almost batted it away. The ball somehow wound up behind him, and Washington pinned it to his legs and then to his buttocks.
The play was initially ruled an incomplete pass, which is understandable, because there’s no way that looked legal in real time. But it turns out that it was, indeed, legal. Washington controlled the ball all the way through the play, and it never came loose on the ground. That’s a catch in the most unconventional way possible.
Rutgers is playing this game a day after the NCAA announced it found its previous coaching staff guilty of a handful of NCAA violations. Nebraska is playing two days after firing athletic director Shawn Eichorst, which begs the question of whether coach Mike Riley is next. This game needed some levity, and it got some.