File photo of UMHB kicker Anthony Avila by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru
Anthony Avila stood alone on the sideline, a crowd of over 5,000 in the stands surrounding him, and the opportunity for a kick of redemption becoming all the more probable.
This was a game bigger than any other UMHB had played in the 2019 season. UMHB-Hardin-Simmons carries a certain amount of weight, the kind that comes when a singular, 60-minute contest is most often the determining factor in the race for a conference title. In some years, the result decides who advances to the postseason and who is left at home. The magnitude of the moment is what both teams work all preseason for, a rivalry game at a level that none other in Texas Division III football can match.
Precious seconds were ticking off the clock as Jase Hammack and the UMHB offense pressed forward against HSU’s unrelenting, hard-nosed defense, trailing 14-12. The drive had begun with 1:17 in the fourth quarter, an opportunity for one last score before time ran out. Everything was on the line, for both The Cru and the Cowboys, as UMHB took possession at HSU’s 47-yard line.
“In a perfect world, we want to score a touchdown,” Hammack, now the quarterbacks coach at Ponder High School, recalled earlier this week. “But we wanted to try to get it to where it would at least be a 30-yard field goal for Anthony.”
The Cru was the top-ranked team in the land, touting a perfect 6-0 record and a 21-game win streak. HSU was 14th in the D3football.com Top 25, yet playing with everything that was left in the tank. Losing wasn’t an option in a rivalry game of this caliber, especially since the Cowboys had lost just two weeks prior, victims of a home upset against Texas Lutheran. A two-loss team wouldn’t earn an at-large bid to the NCAA playoffs. That was a foregone conclusion.
“It’s not a rivalry that ever needs anything additional,” said Jon Wallin, UMHB’s longtime Sports Information Director and play-by-play broadcaster that afternoon. “But when you have your back against the wall like that and you’re playing with the season on the line to have any chance at a playoff berth, that brings something to it.”
UMHB dealt with its own pressures, starting with the Crusaders’ status as the reigning national champions. Not only had they won 21 straight, but since the opening of Crusader Stadium in 2013, UMHB had not suffered a regular season home loss.
HSU’s bus rolled into Belton with every intention to change that. The game plan was highly conservative, aiming to bleed as much time off the clock as possible on offense, keeping the ball out of the hands of a UMHB offense that averaged 51 points per game. That was the formula for the upset, reliant on a calculated pace of play and a defense that had limited four of its six opponents to 10 points or fewer.
“They were going to control the ball, control the clock, and play keep away,” Wallin said.
But The Cru defense, known for its impenetrable front seven under the direction of current head coach Larry Harmon, didn’t give in easily. HSU held the ball for 35:56, over 11 minutes longer than UMHB’s 24:04. But the Cowboys punted on 10 of their 12 drives, including the final three, never able to break away.
“The UMHB defense did a really good job of keeping them from capitalizing on [the gameplan],” Wallin added. “For the most part, they did a good job of keeping them out of the end zone and keeping it close. That’s what sticks out to me, the way Hardin-Simmons dominated time of possession, but couldn’t really ever put the game away, even though they had some opportunities. That was a credit to the defensive gameplan.
“There was never any panic on the part of UMHB, even though the game was close and they trailed going into the fourth quarter the way they did.”
The poise was what stood out through it all. Brandon Cunningham took a three-and-out drive and turned it into a positive, sending a punt down to the HSU 7-yard line. Then came a final stand from the defense, who weathered a storm that spanned six minutes, 11 seconds and 12 straight running plays. But the Cowboys moved the ball just 22 yards, forced to punt. And of the 18 punts that afternoon, the last was also the shortest, traveling just 18 yards. The last 77 seconds left the door open for a game-winning drive from The Cru. And as it turned out, they needed all 77.
Then came the offense’s turn. A dramatic finish was building when Hammack stepped back on the field.
“We practiced the two-minute drill all the time,” Hammack remembers. “We were coached there really well. It made you a little more calm in that scenario.”
Hammack only had six completions on the day when the drive began. By the time he faced a 3rd & 13 play from the HSU 37-yard line, he had nine. All the while, Avila watched from the sideline, well aware that the entire game could come down to the swing of his foot on what would surely be the biggest kick of his life.
“I remember that entire drive,” Avila said, reflecting on the moment. “The last thing I remember is Gary Ruckman, who was doing a really good job, running a tight end seam down the middle. The whole time, my teammates were saying, ‘Hey, you ready to go?’ I was just by myself thinking, ‘Okay, I need to lock in.’”
As if any more drama needed to be thrown into the equation, Avila hadn’t sent a ball through the uprights yet. He entered the day 10-of-12 on the season in field goals, but his first field goal attempt, from 45 yards out, missed as time expired before halftime. It would have given The Cru a 9-7 lead at the intermission, but they trailed instead, 7-6. And making matters worse was the fact that it came just over a minute after he missed what would have been a game-tying PAT after Jonel Reed’s 32-yard touchdown catch.
Now, he was potentially going to be faced with making a field goal from a similar distance at the first, on the same side of the field, on the last play of the half.
“It was the first time I remember being super upset and disappointed,” Avila, who now coaches at University High School in Waco, said of the back-to-back misses in the second quarter. “I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe this. This hasn’t happened before.’
“So I walk in the locker room and Coach [Randy] Smith comes up to me, and he’s like, ‘You’re going to get an opportunity. It’s going to come down to the last one.’ I was thinking in my head, ‘Man, I want that. I need the pressure on me. I need to make it up.’”
When Ruckman was tackled two yards shy of the first down marker, Avila got his shot. With the clock rapidly ticking towards zero, and UMHB facing a 4th & 2, 26 yards from the goal line, the field goal unit was hastily called upon. But not without a slight bit of confusion on the sideline.
“Somebody said to spike the ball,” Avila remembers. “There was like 18 or 19 seconds left. Then they were like, ‘No, no. Field goal!’”
Proud supporters of our coverage and extremely impactful within the UMHB Football program, the Crusader Football Alumni Association is committed to promoting and supporting the proud tradition of Cru Football through mentorship, coaching, events, and fundraising. The Cru FAA also maintains a close relationship with the current program. If you are a UMHB Football alum, you need to join the CRU FAA today! Learn more at cfaa.wildapricot.org. The Cru FAA will also be inducting four new members to the Hall of Honor at Saturday’s game against HSU, so be sure to be in Belton for that!
Hammack remembers the sequence well from his vantage point on the field. While the coaches and players on the sideline were standing at an angle that made it questionable as to whether or not Ruckman got the first down, he says the offensive players knew immediately that the kicking unit would be needed.
“All of us on the offense, we were able to understand the situation because the coaches had prepared us [for it] all week,” Hammack noted. “We were just screaming at each other to get off the field. And they always had the kicking unit ready, just in case.”
With no timeouts and no way to stop the clock, there was no room for error or hesitation. No time for Avila to think much about how important this kick would be, not just for him, but for the entire prospect of UMHB’s season.
“I run out there, take my three steps back, and look back at the clock to see how much time I have left,” Avila recalls. “There were four seconds.”
It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar situation for The Cru, who practiced the scenario each Friday at the end of practice, and often at other points during the week. But it wasn’t something they necessarily expected to have to apply in a game, certainly not in a Top 15 rivalry matchup.
“I’d say we practiced it, at the very least, once a week, but probably more like twice a week,” Hammack said. “So we practiced it quite a bit during our years at UMHB. It’s just that we never thought we’d have to use it. And then it turns out we had to use it in probably the biggest game of the year for us.”
That preparation paid dividends in the clean transition, as the kicking team sprinted on and the offense raced off, amidst chaos. Both sidelines were yelling instructions, while the two fanbases in the stands watched in awe, yelling at the same time. Avila’s calmness contrasted the frantic scene. He still went through his pre-kick progression—although a bit quicker than usual—taking three steps back, lifting his right arm to line up with the goalpost, and two steps to the left.
“When we practiced it on Fridays, I felt even more rushed,” Avila said, “because I’ve got all my guys there. And if I miss it, we have to go back and repeat the entire process of doing ‘kick the field’. That is a punt, the hail mary, the kick after a safety, the punter holder purposely getting a safety, all kinds of things that could happen in a game. I didn’t really pay attention to all the noise and everything [before that kick].”
From his spot in the radio booth, Wallin and George Haffner, UMHB’s former offensive coordinator, anxiously watched the scene unfolding on the turf below. The field goal unit rushed on with about 11 seconds left. By the time Avila took his two steps to the left, barely two seconds remained.
“Everybody knew their role,” Wallin said. “That’s a situation where somebody if goes out there and gets anxious and false starts, you would have to back it up five yards. Or the clock runs out. Or you’re one person short and you’ve only got 10 on the field. Everybody was ready.”
That included holder Luke Poorman and snapper Peter Kimani, both of whom were vital to getting the kick off. Avila’s field-goal making ability was of little use without an on-time snap and proper hold. And because the trio had worked together so much up to that point, the timing was in sync, even with the pressure greater than it had ever been for the kicking unit.
“Luckily for me, Luke saw the clock too, so he knew how much time we had,” Avila recalled. “And Peter Kimani was looking back at the clock the entire time from behind him. I don’t know how he was doing that, but he was looking at it too. We had practiced the 15-second field goal the Friday before, so we were pretty good with getting out there and getting set up on time.”
The phrase used to call the snap was “Texas, Texas”. Once Poorman uttered those words, the ball would come flying from Kimani and into Poorman’s hands. Then it was up to Avila to drive the ball through the uprights. Only this time, it wasn’t just Poorman who called for the snap.
“Everybody, somehow, said ‘Texas, Texas’ as soon as the clock hit one second,” Avila remembers. “Everybody was so locked in that it was exactly like we practiced.”
From 43 yards out, Avila took his three steps and connected with the ball. Hammack, who spun his head around to see the field as soon as he reached the sideline, says the stadium fell quiet as the ball was kicked. “You could hear a pin drop,” he remembers.
“When he kicked it, you couldn’t help but just watch,” Hammack added. “You’re sitting there watching for forever. Then it goes in, and to see the joy from everybody afterwards was really cool.”
The Crusader Stadium erupted into pandemonium. Avila’s kick sailed perfectly through the uprights, lifting UMHB to an emotion-filled, come-from-behind, 15-14 victory on homecoming.
“Our concern was, ‘They’re not going to get this off,’” Wallin remembers. “And then when Anthony drilled it, it was incredible. It was hard not to get lost in the moment.”
HSU’s coaches, who had rushed two players onto the field just seconds before the kick, ran onto the field, arguing that they hadn’t been given enough time to make their substitutions. But the officials huddled, and confirmed the field goal rather quickly.
Hammack and his teammates sprinted onto the field, mobbing Avila at the UMHB 25-yard line. Avila still remembers running backwards as he saw the ball fly towards the center of the goalpost, knowing he had connected on the kick perfectly. After that, his memory somewhat went blank through all the adrenaline and excitement of the moment. He can’t remember exactly how the moments after the kick unfolded, but the feeling of the ball off his foot and the reaction of his teammates will certainly remain embedded in his mind.
“As soon as I hit it, I ran away. I didn’t even need to look at it,” Avila says with a laugh.
Wallin says that moment ranks as one of the best he had the privilege to call as UMHB’s radio play-by-play broadcaster. The 2016 and 2018 Stagg Bowls hold a special place in his memory, considering the work it took to reach the pinnacle of Division III football and hoist the national championship trophy. “But that Hardin-Simmons game is way up there,” he adds.
“You think about the execution that has to go into that,” Wallin points out. “Not only does everybody have to make their blocks, but the snap has to be good, the hold has to be good, Anthony has to make the kick. Anthony is the one who put it through the uprights, but so many people played such a role in that. The coaches making sure they had the right guys on the field, and had them ready to go.
“You see the preparation pay off and that sinks in. When the guys are out there in August or September, it’s 120 degrees on the field, and they’re tired, they can say, ‘Hey, this is difficult and we have to fight through this. But remember when it paid off at the end of the Hardin-Simmons game.’”
The final sequence was the epitome of the cliche “the next play is the biggest play.” Regardless of how things had gone through the first 59 or so minutes, The Cru simply turned the focus to the next play, and eventually broke through in one of the program’s most memorable regular season victories. The offense dealt with its struggles for the better part of the day, yet found the positive yardage when it was needed most, driving into field goal range with just enough time left on the clock. Avila had already missed both a field goal and a PAT earlier, yet focused on the next chance he got, and capitalized on it.
“I nominated Anthony for the D3football.com Team of the Week, and I’m looking at it, and thinking, ‘Well, the stats aren’t that great,’” Wallin remembers. “You had to fill out the stats and everything, and there was a place to justify [the nomination]. For justification, I remember all I did was type one sentence: He made the kick, with a bunch of exclamation points. I actually got an email back from Pat Coleman saying, ‘This almost clinched it…loved that response.’ Because regardless of what else happened, you can’t take that away. That was the play that decided the game and he came up big when he needed to.”
And for Avila, at the center of it all, he still relishes the moment five years later. The audio clip from the game-winning kick is his voicemail, and more likely than not, when the alums who were part of the 2019 squad meet in Belton this weekend to watch another edition of the storied rivalry, the story of that game in late October, the 15-14 win, and the magical kick will come up in conversation.
“It’s something that will live with me forever,” the Troy, Texas native said this past week. “I think it solidified my legacy at UMHB.”
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