Mizzou’s Naeshaun Montgomery tightropes sideline en route to 72-yard TD vs. Texas
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Mizzou had a 2nd-and-7 at its own 28-yard line and was looking for a boost after Texas had just tied Saturday afternoon’s ranked SEC matchup at 13-13.
The crowd in Columbia was looking for something to cheer about, too, and Mizzou‘s quarterback-receiver connection of Austin Simmons to Naeshaun Montgomery certainly provided that.
But it wasn’t just that Simmons found Montgomery for a 72-yard scoring strike to give the Tigers a brief 20-13 lead with 4:52 left in the third quarter.
It was how it happened.
Simmons found Montgomery at about the Tigers’ 35-yard line, and then Montgomery broke a Texas tackle and pulled off the rest. And the rest was a tightrope act down the right sideline that took him untouched, all the way to the end zone for the lead.
It started as an innocent sideline completion and turned into a highlight-reel play, even if the Tigers’ 20-13 lead only lasted a few minutes.
Here is the Simmons-to-Montgomery magic:
The senior Simmons and the sophomore Montgomery had about a quarter left to work more magic after the Longhorns tied it at 20-20, with the ranked SEC powers trying to position themselves for a shot at a College Football Playoff berth.
Because of Montgomery’s third-quarter footwork, Mizzou was still in position to make that happen in the fourth quarter.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
