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Jalen Watts-Jackson on game-winning TD: 'After that, it was pretty much pure pain'

Graham Watson

Jalen Watts-Jackson didn’t realize the enormity of his play at the end of the Michigan-Michigan State game until he was lying in a hospital bed, post surgery.

“It first hit me after I got surgery. My family came, and I was just in my room, the hospital room by myself, looking at ESPN,” Watts-Jackson said in his first meeting with the media since Saturday’s game. “And they just kept playing it back and kept playing it back. I'm like, ‘Wow, like, that really happened.’”

Watts-Jackson was the main figure in one of the most exciting plays in Michigan football history. Michigan punter Blake O’Neill dropped a snap with 10 seconds remaining. He still tried to get the ball off and had it blocked by Michigan State defenders. Watts-Jackson picked the ball up and ran it 38 yards into the end zone.

But as Watts-Jackson explained Wednesday, that run wasn’t as exciting to him as it was to everyone watching. Instead, it was stressful and ultimately painful.

“I knew I couldn't be tackled, or (we) didn't have time to kick a field goal or whatnot,” Watts-Jackson said while sitting wheelchair in a news conference at Spartan Stadium, “and I started running.”

Watts-Jackson said he was biting so hard on his mouthpiece that he couldn’t direct his blockers to hold off Wayne Lyons, the only Wolverine in the way. Michigan State’s Jermaine Edmondson blocked Lyons while Watts-Jackson darted inside and headed toward the end zone.

However, from behind, Michigan tight end Jake Butt caught Watts-Jackson and both tumbled into the end zone.

“I was actually going to dive into the end zone before I got tackled, because I didn't know if I was going to make it or not and who was behind me,” Watts-Jackson said. “After that, it was pretty much pure pain.”

Watts-Jackson fractured his hip on impact and laid on the ground writhing in agony while his teammates all came to congratulate him.

“I saw LT, Lawrence Thomas, come over and he was like, ‘Bro, you won us the game,’” Watts-Jackson said of the moments after the score. “And he was trying to get me up. And I was like, ‘Bro, my hip, my hip.’ And he (put his arms out) to try to keep people back, and next thing I know, he was face-to-face with me, and it was like a pile. I was yelling like, ‘Get them off of me! Get them off of me!’ It felt like I was under there for an hour.”

Watts-Jackson was carried off the field on a stretcher and taken to U-M hospital. Doctors popped his hip back in place and he underwent surgery Sunday to repair the fracture. When he got out of surgery, ESPN was still playing the replay and Watts-Jackson’s phone had frozen because of all the text messages and calls.

When Watts-Jackson returned to East Lansing from Ann Arbor, teammates were making jokes, telling him the school was going to make a statue for him.

“It's crazy that 10 seconds that take you from just being on a team or people acknowledging that you guys won the game to people tweeting you and text-messaging you, Facebooking, saying you're a legend, you're a hero,” Watts-Jackson said. “Like I saw on ESPN Le'Veon (Bell’s) reaction, and I just was laughing. It was crazy.”

For more Michigan State news, visit SpartanMag.com.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter!

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