The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (73 page)

BYU won the coin toss and elected to kick off. On the first possession, San Diego State’s quarterback, Adam Dingwell, dropped to pass. Ansah applied pressure up the middle, forcing him to throw early. As soon as Dingwell released the ball, Ansah turned and sprinted downfield toward the intended receiver. The pass ricocheted off the receiver’s shoulder pads and into Ansah’s hands—his first interception.

“Ziggy! Ziggy! Ziggy!” fans chanted. The ESPN broadcasters immediately started talking about Ansah’s rapid rise on NFL draft boards.

Later, Van Noy blocked a punt. Those two plays were the extent of the excitement for the first three quarters of the game. Both offenses were dismal. At the start of the fourth quarter, San Diego State led 6–3, and the Poinsettia Bowl was on track to go down as one of the most boring bowl games in the history of college football. Then BYU’s Nelson threw a goal-line
interception. San Diego State took over on its own three-yard line. As BYU’s defense prepared to take the field, the linebackers coach screamed: “We need a turnover! We need a turnover!”

On San Diego State’s first play, Van Noy blitzed from the outside as Dingwell dropped back to throw out of his own end zone. Blowing past his man, Van Noy left his feet and went lateral. Fully extended, he hit Dingwell just as he began to bring his arm forward, jarring the ball loose. From his knees, Van Noy scooped up the ball just as Ansah landed on top of him. Touchdown BYU.

Up 10–6, BYU kicked off. After another turnover, BYU went up 17–6. Then, with 6:29 remaining, Dingwell threw from the San Diego State nineteen-yard line. This time Van Noy had dropped into zone coverage. As Dingwell’s pass went toward a receiver near the sideline on the thirty-five-yard line, Van Noy leaped and intercepted it. Cutting back across the field, he eluded would-be tacklers and scampered into the end zone. Touchdown BYU. The defense mobbed him in the end zone, and the chants rained down from the stands: “B-Y-U! B-Y-U! B-Y-U!”

In a span of nine minutes, Van Noy had scored more touchdowns than both offenses combined. Along with his fumble recovery and interception, he had registered one blocked punt, two sacks and nine unassisted tackles. As Van Noy came toward the sideline clutching the football, Mendenhall was waiting for him. They made eye contact. Mendenhall nodded, smiled and clenched his fist. Those three things were the ultimate form of compliment. Van Noy nodded and smiled back.

At the conclusion of the game, Van Noy ran to the first row of stadium seats to get a kiss from his mother and a hug from his father. Then he joined the team at midfield for the Poinsettia Bowl trophy ceremony. Van Noy was named the game’s MVP. After his teammates retreated to the locker room, Van Noy went to a corner of the stadium occupied by BYU fans for a lengthy postgame television interview. As the interview ended, Van Noy waved to the fans. They began chanting, “One more year! One more year! One more year!”

Alone, he turned and walked across the end zone where he had scored both touchdowns, waving over his shoulder to the fans. “What a way to go out,” he thought to himself, pausing beneath the goalpost to look out over the field and empty stadium. “I have done everything I need to do. I have played my last game at BYU.”

Ziggy Ansah sat in silence at his locker, realizing how much he was going to miss BYU football. It was 9:00 p.m. His teammates had showered, dressed, said good-bye and headed for the team bus. Ansah was still in his grass-stained uniform. Even his high-top black cleats were still laced. He didn’t want to say good-bye. He didn’t want it to end.

Finally, Van Noy entered the locker room, trailed by Mendenhall. They had come from the postgame press conference. Ansah stood to greet them. Mendenhall embraced him.

“I love you,” Mendenhall whispered.

“I love you, too,” Ansah said.

Moments later, Ansah pulled off his gear and made his way to the showers, leaving Mendenhall and Van Noy alone in the locker room. They looked at each other and smiled. Then they wrapped their arms around each other. “I’m so proud of you, Kyle,” Mendenhall said. “So proud.”

“Thank you,” Van Noy said.

On January 19, 2013, seventy-three underclassmen were approved for the NFL draft. That marked an all-time high. But Kyle Van Noy’s name was not on the list. After the Poinsettia Bowl he went home with his parents to Reno to celebrate Christmas. But their conversations kept coming back to the question: Stay in college or go pro?

Three different agents had assured him that he would be drafted at the start of the second round. Overnight he’d go from a poor student-athlete to a wealthy professional. He’d fulfill his boyhood dream, too.

As good as it all sounded—and as certain as Van Noy felt—something kept nagging him. The turning point was a conversation with one of his closest confidants, Chicago Bears running back Harvey Unga. He and his wife maintained a home in Provo. In 2009, Unga became BYU’s all-time leading rusher as a junior, amassing 3,455 yards in his first three seasons. But Unga withdrew from BYU prior to his senior year after violating the school’s honor code. It was a decision he discussed at length with Van Noy.

“Harvey is like an older brother to me,” Van Noy said. “He told me that I didn’t want to have regrets about not finishing my senior year.”

After talking with Unga, Van Noy told his parents he’d made up his mind. He wanted to finish what he started. That meant obtaining his degree. He also felt as if he had unfinished business on the football field.
The team, he felt, was on the verge of something big in 2013. He wanted to be part of it. But the main thing on his mind was his legacy.

“Especially with my past, staying will have an impact on a lot of younger people,” Van Noy said. “There will be kids who say, ‘If Kyle can graduate, then I can, too.’ ”

His parents took out an insurance policy in case Van Noy was injured during his senior year. Then Van Noy called Mendenhall. “I’m staying for my senior year,” he told him. “I’m coming back.”

All thirty-two NFL teams were present at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, on January 26, 2013. All eyes were on Ezekiel Ansah. He had only started nine games in his college career. This was an opportunity to see him compete against the best offensive players in the nation. In the third quarter he left no doubt about his ability to get after the quarterback when he shed two blockers and tracked down Syracuse’s Ryan Nassib, hammering him as he scrambled, forcing a fumble in the process.

But the play that solidified Ansah as a first-round pick came on a run play. The North handed the ball to Michigan speedster Denard Robinson on a reverse. Initially, Ansah had been fooled by the misdirection. Still, he planted his toe in the ground, changed direction and gave chase. Despite having no angle, he chased down Robinson with ease and threw him to the ground. It was a remarkable display of speed, strength and agility.

Three months later Ansah sat between his mother and Bronco Mendenhall backstage at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. At the lectern, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell turned the microphone over to Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders.

“With the fifth pick of the 2013 NFL draft, the Detroit Lions select Ezekiel Ansah, defensive end, BYU.”

The audience went wild.

Ansah stood and hugged his mother. Then he turned to Mendenhall, who gave him a bear hug and congratulated him.

“We have coming out of the greenroom a young man who just a couple years ago hadn’t even played the sport,” said a commentator from the NFL Network. “We have a fifth overall pick in this draft with four and a half career sacks.”

“Please understand the magnitude of this story,” chimed in another NFL Network commentator. “The reason he’s playing football is that the BYU basketball team cut him twice. Then he went to the track team. He
never came to football until 2010 as a walk-on. He’s six feet five inches. He weighs 270 pounds. And he has frightening physical skills. Coming off the edge at the Senior Bowl, he dominated the Senior Bowl.”

Ansah stepped to the stage wearing a Lions cap and his trademark lens-less glasses. First Goodell hugged him, then Sanders did. Holding his new Lions jersey, Ziggy faced the crowd and smiled.

Twenty-four hours later he entered Ford Field in Detroit to chants of “Ziggy! Ziggy! Ziggy!” It was Draft Fan Fest, and the place was rocking.

“You can’t explain this,” Ansah said. “It feels warm. I feel the love. I’m ready to fall in love with this place.”

“A
ll right, let’s see the open, let’s walk through the open.”

The clock inside the production truck read 9:48:40.

Game time for ESPN’s
College GameDay
was less than thirteen minutes away.

“Signs, fellas, we need signs,” said the thirty-eight-year-old producer, Lee Fitting, long and lean with some age around his eyes.

Like magic,
I WASH MY DIRTY CLOTHES WITH TIDE
popped up on one of a dozen monitors in front of the director, Tom Lucas.
SABAN WEARS CROCS. AJ MCCRYIN
’.

“Clip those off,” Lucas said.

“Signs, signs, everywhere signs,” Fitting sang softly to himself.

He downed some coffee and set the Starbucks cup inside a roll of masking tape. Fitting was a senior coordinating producer at ESPN, in his ninth year at the helm of the gold standard of pregame shows. The challenge was keeping a show in its twenty-sixth season looking and feeling fresh and unscripted. “Organic,” he called it.

“Hey, how about these guys get to the set one week on time!”

“These guys” were Chris Fowler, in his twenty-third consecutive year as anchor and host of
GameDay
and his twenty-sixth overall at the network; Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard; Kirk Herbstreit, the game’s top analyst; and crazy-as-a-fox Lee Corso, known to the crew as “Coach” or “LC.”

Fitting pressed a small button on a communication console, enabling him to speak directly into the ear of talent.

“LC, good morning,” he said. “I need you to play to the crowd.”

Fitting did not have to ask twice. Corso grabbed an Alabama helmet from the
GameDay
desk and raised it over his head. Well, that certainly woke up the early-morning crowd that had gathered in Atlanta’s Centennial
Olympic Park. Then, for good measure, Corso gave the same salute to the Georgia fans.