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SCOTT GULLEDGE / Scroll
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Blake Jackson, a sophomore from Vancouver, Wash., front flips into the end zone.
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What is one thing citizens of southeastern Idaho probably didn’t expect to see when they tuned in to the Sunday evening edition of SportsCenter on ESPN?
Hint 1: It involved one of their university athletic programs.
Hint 2: It did not involve Idaho State University.
Give up?
On Nov. 6, a play from BYU–Idaho’s intracollegiate football league was highlighted on the nationally broadcast sports program, a first for BYU-I athletics.
The play featured Hawks’ quarterback Blake Jackson, a sophomore from Vancouver, Wash., making a 20-yard run, flipping over would-be Wildcat defenders and landing in the end zone.
“One day in practice I did a front flip over a guy, just messing around. I’ve been a gymnast all my life, so it was just a spoof. I was running in the game and I thought I could do it, so I did. I meant to; I didn’t touch the guy at all,” Jackson said.
Athletics Coordinator, Troy Dougherty, sent in the footage of the play on Oct. 27.
The national coverage surprised no one more than Jackson himself.
“I was surprised. We sent it in as kind of a spoof, like a ‘what-if?’ Then we didn’t hear back from them so we thought, ‘oh well,’” Jackson said.
The exposure was a big step in the progress of BYU-I Athletics, which was established in the fall of 2002.
“Even [ESPN broadcaster] Chris Berman said ‘intracollegiate football’ will, if nothing else, provoke curiosity of what we’re doing here,” Dougherty said.
