Every so often, there is a play in a football game that combines the physical and cerebral for a moment of magic that transcends the game around it. Brodrick Brown just made one of those plays in tonight's Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game.
Go ahead, watch that a few times. When you retrieve your jaw from the ground, hit the jump for a photo and an explanation.
First, Landry Jones is pretty clearly trying to throw the ball away on this play. He's rolling right, sees no open man, and just chucks it. Jones didn't expect Brown to leap out of bounds and tip the ball back to Shaun Lewis in mid-air.
But Brown did just that, and you can see how far over the line he and the ball were when he tipped it, volleyball-style, right to Lewis. That's perfectly legal — players can touch the ball as it travels out of bounds, as long as they don't touch the ground — and made for one of the more phenomenal plays you will ever see.
Sure, it's happened before, and a tipped interception in this vein will no doubt happen again. But it sure seems like Brodrick Brown may have made the defensive play of the year tonight.
(Video and photo via @thesportsgeeks.)