This lineman caught his own team’s blocked kick and ran it in for a Piesman score

It’s a two-point conversion out of a blocked PAT.

I’ll be damned if this isn’t the most clever two-point conversion ever scored:

During a Week 1 game between Division III Rockford University and MacMurray College, a Rockford defender blocked a MacMurray extra-point attempt. But the ball landed in the waiting arms of Rockford offensive lineman/field goal protection man Xadrian Wilkins, who simply plowed ahead to create a two-point conversion instead.

Talk about reflexes and resourcefulness. I missed this when it happened, but it clearly deserves some consideration for the Piesman Trophy, the honor that goes every year to a lineman who does a decidedly un-lineman-like thing. Wilkins didn’t have far to go when he got the block, but he gets credit for pushing forward without mercy.

Everything about this play is legal.

On some blocked kicks, the kicking team isn’t allowed to recover it. But that’s only the case if the ball goes beyond the neutral zone, having crossed the line of scrimmage.

The rulebook says:

A scrimmage kick that fails to cross the neutral zone continues in play. All players may catch or recover the ball behind the neutral zone and advance it.

The blocking of a scrimmage kick by an opponent of the kicking team who is not more than three yards beyond the neutral zone is considered to have occurred within or behind that zone.

Way to think on your feet, Xadrian, and great stuff.