100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

Three weeks earlier, John Flanders had a clean look at an interception at SMU. He dropped it. The Mustangs kept the ball, scored on the drive and won 21-18.

Flanders carried that drop to South Bend.

“I was thinking about all the balls I’ve dropped in my whole (Tulsa) career,” Flanders told the Tulsa World. “I had to make a play.”

With 37 seconds left at Notre Dame Stadium, Notre Dame at the Tulsa 19, Brian Kelly sent his best receiver on a fade route against a 5-foot-9 cornerback. The defensive scheme was called Cloud 9. Flanders ran it to perfection — rode Michael Floyd’s hip through the route, read the underthrow from Tommy Rees and picked it off in the end zone. He came down on his back with the ball in both hands. Safety Dexter McCoil rushed over, but there was nothing left to do except celebrate.

Tulsa 28, Notre Dame 27.

“That erases all the ones he’s dropped before, or any knock on TU’s defensive backs coming into today,” quarterback G.J. Kinne told the Tulsa World. “That play erases them all.”

The Smallest School

Tulsa was the smallest school in the Football Bowl Subdivision — roughly 3,000 undergraduates — and in 2010 it played a brand of football that reflected its place in the sport. The Golden Hurricane averaged 505 yards of offense per game. Its pass defense ranked 120th nationally — dead last — at 330.1 yards allowed per game. Tulsa beat people by outscoring them. When it couldn’t outscore them, it lost — 51-49 at East Carolina on a catastrophic game-ending touchdown pass, by 37 at Oklahoma State, 21-18 at SMU when Flanders dropped an interception.

Then Tulsa went to Notre Dame.

It was the first time the program had played at Notre Dame Stadium. The Golden Hurricane was an 8-point underdog. NBC carried the game nationally — the most-watched Tulsa game in school history. Nearly 81,000 filled the stadium on a crisp Saturday afternoon, three days after a hydraulic lift toppled in high winds during practice and killed Declan Sullivan, a 20-year-old student and team videographer. Both teams wore memorial decals on their helmets. The stadium observed a moment of silence. Then they played.

Tulsa philanthropist Bill Warren — Notre Dame Class of 1956, senior class president, a member of the university’s board of trustees and part of the committee that hired first-year Irish coach Brian Kelly — served as Tulsa’s honorary captain. He wore a blue TU letter jacket on the sideline.

“But I live in Tulsa, my heart’s in Tulsa and I hope Tulsa wins today,” Warren told the Tulsa World before kickoff.

Fifteen Points

The Golden Hurricane made short work of the Notre Dame defense on its opening possession — a nine-play, 67-yard drive finished by Kinne’s 9-yard pass to Damaris Johnson. It was the only offensive touchdown Tulsa would score all afternoon.

The offense spent the rest of the day fighting itself. Twelve penalties for 133 yards — a season high. Tulsa had not been penalized more than 65 yards in any game all season. The Hurricane had 88 penalty yards in the first half alone. Kinne’s receivers dropped passes. Two fumbles killed drives. Charles Clay couldn’t haul in a touchdown catch on third-and-3 from the Irish 20 and settled for a field goal. Kicker Kevin Fitzpatrick missed a chip shot from 32 yards.

The defense and special teams carried them.

In the first quarter, Cory Dorris blocked a Notre Dame extra point and Curnelius Arnick returned it 98 yards for two points. Arnick drew a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for flipping into the end zone.

In the final minute of the first half, freshman linebacker Shawn Jackson intercepted Rees and returned it 66 yards for a touchdown. Jackson had played quarterback at McLain High School. “It was great,” he told the Tulsa World. “It did feel like old times.” Jackson finished with six tackles, a sack and two quarterback hurries. The Tulsa World’s report card said he may have been the game’s MVP.

In the third quarter, Damaris Johnson returned a punt 59 yards for a touchdown — his first punt return for a score since the 2009 season opener at Tulane, more than a year earlier.

Fifteen of Tulsa’s 28 points came from defense and special teams. The secondary was fully healthy for the first time all season. The unit that ranked dead last in the country in pass defense held Notre Dame to 3-of-14 on third-down conversions.

“To win in a big game, you have to play defense,” Graham told the Tulsa World. “We played defense today.”

Third-and-26

Notre Dame led 27-21 in the fourth quarter. Floyd had been dominant — a career-best 11 catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns. Tulsa started what would be its final drive.

It did not go smoothly.

On third-and-11 from the Tulsa 42, Kinne completed a pass to Damaris Johnson — first down. But Ricky Johnson was flagged for offensive pass interference, negating the play and pushing Tulsa back to its own 27.

Third-and-26.

“A defender hit me in the face, and I just kind of hit him back,” Ricky Johnson told the Tulsa World. “It was just a reaction, and after the play was over, I was like, ‘It can’t be on me.’ But it was.”

Kinne sent three receivers deep. His primary read was Damaris Johnson. Not open. He looked left and found Ricky Johnson.

“I was really looking at Damaris but he wasn’t open and my eyes came to Ricky and just lit up,” Kinne told the Tulsa World. “We’ve run that play a lot this year, long streaks down the field. He did a great job of getting open.”

Kinne drilled it to him for 31 yards. The receiver whose penalty created third-and-26 caught the ball that converted it.

Two plays later, Kinne hit Genesis Cole for 32 yards to set up Fitzpatrick — the kicker who had missed the chip shot earlier — from 27 yards. Fitzpatrick had made a game-winning kick the year before against Memphis. He spent much of the fourth quarter getting himself ready for another one.

“I just went out there and it was like any other kick,” Fitzpatrick told the Tulsa World.

Tulsa 28, Notre Dame 27. Three minutes and 23 seconds remained.

“This was the same feeling,” Fitzpatrick told the Tulsa World, “except for the 80,000 people in the stands.”

Cloud 9

Notre Dame drove to the Tulsa 19 with under a minute remaining. Kelly had David Ruffer on his bench — a kicker who hadn’t missed a field goal all season, 13 for 13. A 36-yard field goal would win the game.

Kelly threw.

“Why not try to get Michael Floyd one-on-one against a 5-9 corner?” Kelly told the Tulsa World. “I would make that call again, and I would hope that the process of learning would have a different outcome.”

Floyd was drafted 13th overall by the Arizona Cardinals two years later.

Flanders was five inches shorter. He played in a secondary that ranked dead last nationally and had already surrendered a game-ending touchdown pass at East Carolina. Three weeks earlier, he had dropped a clean interception at SMU.

The scheme was called Cloud 9.

Flanders expected the fade. He rode Floyd’s hip through the route, read the underthrow and picked it off in the end zone. He landed on his back with the ball secured. McCoil arrived a step behind, but the play was already over.

Thirty-seven seconds remained. Tulsa’s contingent, vastly outnumbered, filled Notre Dame Stadium with chants of “T-U.”

“It was just me and him,” Flanders told the Tulsa World. “I thought they may try to go to him because he was the only one over there. I did my best to hang onto the football.”

Graham was asked what he thought when he saw the ball in the air.

“I was scared to death,” he told the Tulsa World, “because you’re probably the best receiver in the country.”

Kelly walked into his press conference.

“That one is completely on me,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “I would try to take it back. Nothing I can do now.”

As Tulsa celebrated its first victory over a BCS-conference team in a dozen years, Notre Dame’s crowd turned hostile. The Irish left the field before the alma mater was finished.

Flanders was the last Hurricane to reach the locker room, pulled aside by one reporter after another.

“We are a little D-1 school that people don’t believe in, and they are always against us,” Flanders told the Tulsa World. “So we just had to keep playing and fighting for ourselves. But we got a big win for our program. Maybe the biggest win in its history.”

Why It Matters

Dr. George Mauerman, Tulsa’s team physician, was an orthopedic surgeon who spent more than 50 seasons on the Hurricane sideline before his death in 2023 at age 86. Dave Sittler of the Tulsa World called him the best authority on the planet when it comes to TU athletics history. His verdict was immediate.

“It’s the biggest win ever,” Mauerman told the Tulsa World. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Graham agreed. “It was the biggest win ever. No question in my mind,” he told KJRH. “I don’t want to put down the championship teams that I’ve had an opportunity to coach in the past, but boy, it means a lot to me. It’s no question at the very top.”

Then he looked forward.

“These kids will be talking about this game when Coach Graham is dead and gone,” he told the Tulsa World. “Fifty years from now, they’ll be saying ‘I just didn’t go to Notre Dame. I went there and won.’”

Tulsa won its final six games after Notre Dame. The Golden Hurricane beat No. 24 Hawaii 62-35 in the Hawaii Bowl and finished the season 10-3 and ranked 24th in the AP poll. Graham left for Pittsburgh after the season.

Kinne finished 2010 with 3,650 passing yards and 31 touchdowns. He spent time on NFL rosters with the Jets, Eagles and Giants before turning to coaching. In 2022, he won a Southland Conference championship and reached the FCS semifinals at Incarnate Word. Texas State hired him two weeks later.

In three seasons in the Sun Belt, Kinne has gone 23-16 and won three consecutive bowl games — the first bowl victories in the program’s FBS history. He is the winningest coach Texas State has ever had at this level.

The quarterback who threw the third-and-26 bullet at Notre Dame Stadium is building a G6 program of his own. He takes it to the Pac-12 this fall.

They told you it didn’t matter. Here are 100 reasons it does.