This past weekend, if you were flipping through the channels on TV then you might have come across a college football match up between the Marshall Thundering Herd and the East Carolina Pirates. If you did happen upon this game just before halftime then you got to witness just a hell of a catch by Marshall receiver Aaron Dobson. In case you missed it, here it is again:
Wait, he caught it....how? His back was still turned to the ball! Forever coining the phrase "the onebackhanded catch", Dobson just cemented his status as a unique pass catcher. With college football coming to a close soon he won't have many more chances to get on the highlight reels this year, but that's ok because I don't think I'll be ready to stop watching this amazing display until next year anyway.
I mean..... seriously? Try and catch ANYTHING like that. Okay, so it's possible to do with some smaller objects like a spoon or a AA battery. But try and do it with something a little bigger than your hand like a football is, something like a cantaloupe or maybe your neighbors new born. Get's a lot tougher huh? To help illustrate my point a little more, here are all the big factors at work here:
1. Dobson is covered- Often times in football, when you have a big strong receiver like Dobson is, it's not uncommon to loft a ball up and let the big man jump and make a play to catch the touchdown. This is a textbook example, as the big wide out runs straight to the back corner of the end zone and QB Cato doesn't hesitate to put it up for him. As the camera pans to follow the play, we see Dobson is getting jammed and played by one of the ECU safeties. Well, whats a little physicality between friends, right? If you thought it was hard to catch that spoon earlier, imagine how much more difficult it would have been to make while trying to fight with a 6 foot, 180 lbs defensive back that's trying to keep you from being able to catch the thing. Yeah, good luck with that. By the way, in order to overcome this coverage he did have to jump for the ball, so add that extra degree of difficulty in there as well
2. This is not an accurate pass- Did you happen to see how far Dobson had to reach to gobble that ball up? Yes, that does look like a full extension of the arm in the air to pull the pass down. When Cato threw the ball, the only thing he was trying to do was get some air under it to let his big target out there make a play. It's not like he knew where Dobson was going to be at the time, so all you really can do is toss it up and hope your own guy makes it down with it. Despite not being in the right position, Dobson was still able to maneuver the coverage just enough to get one big mitt under the ball. Going back to the pass, it would have been a lot easier had he gotten a more accurate toss. Despite having to fully extend the arm for the catch, he's still able to swing his arm back in to his body with the ball safely in tow. Just making the catch isn't always enough, as a heads up play by one of the few defenders in the area could have been enough to knock the ball out before Dobson could secure the catch. This wasn't the case though, as I'm sure the defenders might have been just as in awe of the play as we all are.
3. This isn't a short toss- Take a look at where this pass is thrown. The ball is lined up and snapped from the 13 yard line, and Cato throws the ball just a step inside the twenty. Dobson makes the catch just inside the back boundary of the end zone, which measures another ten yards so we'll say he was about 7 yards inside goal. This pass was complete for more than 25 yards. This wasn't a little pitch and catch, this is a quarter of the entire field we're talking about here. Making ANY catch for that long is a great play, touchdown or not. Yet Dobson has to take it up another notch with the way he hauled it in AND score to help even the game up going into halftime.
Dobson and Marshall would go on to beat the Pirates in OT. Had this play not made it through, ECU could be sitting on another win right now going into the final week of regular competition among the college ranks. Dobson would wind up with a game high 110 yards and two scores on four catches. Lets hope for more highlights like this on down the road from Dobson and all the other athletes in football. Maybe one day we'll even see him in the next line of extreme NFL promos like these
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