Willie Snead knew he was going to play well in Ball State's 31-27 win over South Florida. He wasn't going to let himself settle for anything less.
Saturday morning before the game, the wide receiver got a text from his mother Sofia asking him to call him when he got the chance. He called her only to get the news she wouldn't be making the trip from Palm Beach, Fla., to Muncie for the game.
The phone call hit Snead hard.
"It's Family Weekend and my family is really important to me," he said after the win. "When she said she couldn't come, she broke down on the phone. She's used to seeing me play and it hurts her. And it hurt me."
After he got the phone call, he tweeted he had something to play for against South Florida, and wasn't going to let them down.
He delivered on his word. Whether he meant to or not, he didn't just deliver for his family, he delivered for his team and for Ball State.
South Florida had just scored a touchdown and converted a two-point conversion to take a 27-24 lead with 4:12 left in the game. Ball State was faced with having to get another game-winning drive late in the fourth quarter. On a fourth and two from the Ball State 43-yard line with under two minutes left, quarterback Keith Wenning found Snead on a curl route for six yards and kept the drive alive.
"We were in more of a go-for-it mindset with that amount of time left," coach Pete Lembo said. "Had it been a couple more minutes, we might have thought about punting there and trying to get a stop and get the ball back."
Following a 15-yard run by running back Barrington Scott and a 17-yard reception by wide receiver Jamill Smith, Snead came up big for the second time in as many games in the fourth quarter.
On third and 10 from the South Florida 19, Wenning lobbed a pass to Snead who was streaking down the left sideline in the end zone. He reached out, caught the ball with his left hand and managed to get a foot down inbounds as he fell toward the ground.
"[The cornerback] was pressing me on the line so I knew I was going to run a go route," Snead said. "I beat [the cornerback]. Keith threw a perfect ball. He had my right arm so I sniped it with my left hand and was able to get the left foot down."
The play was reviewed and when the official announced the catch was confirmed, the Ball State bench and the crowd of more than 16,000 at Scheumann Stadium erupted. Ball State had taken the lead with 1:02 remaining in the game.
Snead's catch set up Ball State for the win, but it was cornerback Eric Patterson's interception of South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels that gave the team its fourth win over a BCS opponent. The win was also gave Ball State its second consecutive win in as many weeks over a BCS school.
"[The wide receiver] faked me like he was going to run the post route, but B.J. threw it to the other side," Patterson said. "In my mind, I knew they were going to try that same play again. They ran it again and he broke outside, and I just jumped the route."
Even though his mother wasn't at Scheumann Stadium to watch her son make the game-winning catch, some 1,100 miles away in a bar in Palm Beach, she was watching the game on television. Snead could only guess at how she reacted when he caught the touchdown pass.
"She was probably screaming in the bar," he said. "She understands football. She's been around the game since I've been born and it means a lot to her."
"Sofia's excitable," Lembo quickly added.
Snead's touchdown reception sealed perhaps the biggest win in Ball State football history. But it proved to Snead that he came through on wanting to play for his mother and his family.
"I wanted to play for them tonight," Snead said. "I feel like I did that."
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