COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Mere minutes before the clock struck 10 p.m. local time on Saturday at Kyle Field, LSU offensive linemen Garrett Brumfield and Damien Lewis sneaked up behind Ed Orgeron, cooler in hand, and doused him with Gatorade.
The party was on, as the Tigers seemed moments from their 10th win and securing a New Year's Six bowl bid. Little did Orgeron and the Tigers know that things were just getting started.
That premature celebration kicked off more than 90 minutes of big plays, emotional swings, controversial calls, coach fights and other assorted craziness in Texas A&M's 74-72 (!), seven overtime (!!) win, a wild game fans won't soon forget.
Late in the 4th quarter, Texas A&M's Kellen Mond throws an interception. LSU celebrates, but replay overturns the call because Mond's knee was down.
'Please put one second on the clock'
As Kellen Mond spiked it, LSU players watched the clock. Safety Todd Harris waved his arms in the "incomplete pass" motion, signaling that the Aggies were out of time. Greedy Williams did the same. Then Harris turned toward the massive scoreboard atop the south end zone, looked at the clock and pointed. It read "0:00."
Jimbo Fisher went up to referee Matt Austin to protest. Austin assured him, "We're gonna look at it." As soon as Austin announced to the 101,501 in attendance "please put one second on the clock," Mond looked intently at Fisher on the sideline, who gave him the playcall.
When Mond unleashed his last-ditch pass, it came at warp speed. Over the head of Harris it whirred, where Quartney Davis came down with it, with Williams covering tightly. As the two fell to the turf, Davis rolled over, stood up and just dropped the ball onto the turf, and put both arms out, before Kendrick Rogers met him with a hug. It happened. Overtime approached.
'The momentum was always in their favor'
LSU, which doesn't even think it should be in this position, has a rough start.
"After they put that one second back on the clock, the momentum seemed like it was always in their favor," Orgeron said after the game.
A false start creates a third-and-long and Joe Burrow is sacked by Otaro Alaka. The stadium is loud. Towels are being waved by 30,000-plus students, three-decks high on the east side of Kyle Field. The A&M sideline is jumping. Throughout all the excitement, Jimbo Fisher stands calmly, play sheet in his hands, as Cole Tracy lines up for a field goal. When it goes through the uprights, Fisher doesn't even react, and gets ready for the A&M series, which also results in a field goal that sends the game to a second overtime.
'I lost track of overtime'
The number of clutch plays during the ensuing periods was nothing short of astounding. LSU RB Nick Brossette, on fourth-and-2 from the 3-yard line, spun around and stretched his right arm out across the goal line to force the third overtime. Rogers' one-handed, juggling touchdown catch in the third overtime is something even he couldn't believe.
The halfback pass call in the fifth overtime was a brilliant one by LSU offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger and perfectly executed by Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Tory Carter.
"I lost track of overtime, I'm not even going to lie," Fisher said.
'Words can't even explain'
It's 72-72. Is this game ever going to end?
Mond throws to Rogers in the corner of the end zone. Over his head, incomplete. Overtime No. 8, here we come.
But wait, there's a flag down. And a hat! Pass interference on Greedy Williams. Then, a personal foul for unsportsmanlike conduct, because field judge Blake Parks wasn't too fond of what Williams said to him after the call.
So the Aggies were set up at the 1. But just before the snap ... Ed Orgeron, having been doused in Gatorade more than an hour earlier, runs down the field to call a timeout.
The Aggies line up in a heavy run formation ... and false start. Left guard Keaton Sutherland jumps forward too soon. Orgeron is pleased, raising both fists in the air in victorious fashion.
Let's try this again.
Mond drops back, slides right, fires a bullet to the middle of the field, and -- who else? -- Rogers hauls it in. He spins around, holds the ball in his left hand and runs out of the end zone as Camron Buckley hugs his back. Rogers drops the ball as several Aggies chase him and Kyle Field is deafening.
The cannon in the north end zone, which has fired 112 times already -- how did they not run out of ammo? -- goes once more and in a rare scene, fans are sprinting onto Kyle Field. Yes, Texas A&M a program steeped in tradition that never rushes the field, caves in to emotion. How can you not?
"Words can't even explain. That was seven overtimes. Isn't that the record for the most overtimes?" Texas A&M RB Trayveon Williams said.
"Honestly, I still haven't really figured out what happened," Rogers added.
A few LSU players walk dejectedly toward the visitors tunnel. Safety Grant Delpit, who has been one of the nation's best defensive players all season, crouches alone in the end zone, staring quietly at the scene. He can't believe it. Neither can linebacker Michael Divinity, who two hours prior, returned a fumble for a touchdown that looked like it might spark LSU's victory. He's down on one knee, eight yards in front of the goal posts, as hundreds of maroon-and-white clad fans sprint jubilantly past him.
As the Tiger Marching Band plays LSU's fight song, Delpit stands up and Texas A&M athletic director Scott Woodward approaches him, presumably offering encouraging words. Delpit nods his head quickly, but the pain on his face is clear. The words, in that moment, following that loss, can't erase the deflating feeling.
In the middle of it all, Fisher exchanges a brief handshake with Orgeron and hugs his son Ethan, his girlfriend, Courtney Harrison, and Kirstin Rayborn, who runs Kidz1st Fund, the foundation Fisher and his ex-wife Candi founded to raise funds for children with fanconi anemia, the condition Ethan has. Afterward, he smiles and puts his thumbs up in a "Gig 'em." It's the signature win of the Fisher era in Aggieland thus far, the first time Texas A&M has beaten LSU since joining the SEC.
The final tally: 1,017 combined yards, 197 plays, 4 hours, 53 minutes.
'Never been in anything like it'
Oh, but it's never a clean ending. Not in the SEC.
LSU director of player development Kevin Faulk was seen in an altercation with a credentialed member of the Texas A&M sideline. An LSU spokesman alleged that the man involved in the scuffle with Faulk punched LSU special assistant Steve Kragthorpe in the chest. Kragthorpe, who was once the offensive coordinator for the Tigers, has Parkinson's disease and a pacemaker.
POSTGAME | #LSU director of player personnel Kevin Faulk and an unknown man with what appears to be an #Aggie bench credential throw punches on the field after @AggieFootball defeated @LSUfootball in 7-OT @theadvocatebr pic.twitter.com/H7EvCNmoIv
— Hilary Scheinuk (@hscheinukphoto) November 25, 2018
The spokesman said the team would gather more information before commenting further on the situation.
"Out of nowhere, I got nailed," Kragthorpe said in a phone interview with The Daily Advertiser on Sunday. "I didn't go down, but I clutched over. I was like, 'Damn, he got me right in my pacemaker.' Then it started fluttering like he jostled it."
Fisher told reporters after the game that he was not aware of the scuffle and "had no idea" what happened.
Orgeron was frustrated, mostly by the calls that led to the Tigers' loss. Most notably, the officials' decision to put a second back on the clock after the spike was what bothered him most.
"That is one second, in my opinion, that should've never been put [back on the clock]," Orgeron said. "That was very unfair that that happened to our football team tonight."
Fisher, obviously in a pleasant mood afterward, said, "There's not a lot of words I can say," before saying many, many words about the night. "Just an incredible football game. ... And I've never been in anything like it."