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Anatomy of a highlight: The moment that put Nathan Rourke on the radar

Nathan Rourke and Qadree Ollison combined to make one of the most memorable plays of their careers as members of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Now they've been reunited on the B.C. Lions' roster.

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To this day, Nathan Rourke winces when he watches “The Play.”

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Aug. 12, 2023.

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Jacksonville Jaguars versus the Dallas Cowboys in pre-season.

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Just over four minutes left in the game; the Jags up by six points on the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. It’s third-and-16, and Rourke is under the centre.

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The highlight that follows the snap — the quarterback connecting with Qadree Ollison for a touchdown — is a moment most view as greatness, but one Rourke remembers for what he didn’t do.

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More on that in a moment. But first, here’s how it went down:

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The Jags line up with three wide to the left, Ollison to Rourke’s right in the backfield and tight end Derek Parish just in front. The Cowboys show blitz, with five on the line of scrimmage. With that down and distance, Rourke expects pressure and man coverage.

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“(The play call) was part of our ‘hooks’ concept family, which was all nautical terms. This one was ‘ocean,’ because it was deeper. It was third-and-long, and it was our deeper hook, as in, the ‘ocean’s really deep.’ We had just deep hooks, and then we had (Ollison’s) flat route,” he said. “I remember thinking that just because of the down and distance, the five-step drop was going to take some time. I was going to probably have to buy some time to make a good drop to get the throw off. I was expecting to have to move and to get off my spot.”

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Ollison’s job on the play: chip the defensive end on the way out of the backfield to give right tackle Cole Van Lanen some assistance, then turn his five-yard flat route to the boundary and sit.

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The ball is snapped, and Rourke is nearly immediately under siege. Jaguars centre Daryl Williams gets caught out by a stunt, flailing as Cowboys defensive tackle Chauncy Golston blows by him to Rourke’s left. On the right, Van Lanen is overpowered by end Durrell Johnson, despite a shoulder barge from the 6-foot-1, 230 pound Ollison giving him some help. Johnson and Golston wind up with Rourke dead to rights 10 yards deep in the backfield.

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But Rourke ducks under one, spins past another, wriggles free from a tackle from Isaiah Lane like a moulting snake, then turns back upfield with 6-3, 260 pound defensive end Ben Banogu wrapped around his lower body.

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“From watching Nathan in training camp, I knew he can run. I knew he could move. Quarterbacks, they’re not getting tackled in practice, but you would see him just move in the pocket and scrambling,” said Ollison. “I ran my route. I sat down at five yards. I was watching him move and duck up under people, and I was like, ‘Oh s–t. Like, he’s not down.’ So I just took off.

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“The linebacker (Devin Harper) that was guarding me, he was watching it too, but he don’t know that I’ve seen this before. Like, he don’t know (Rourke) might break out of this. So I turn up field. We have a (scramble) rule: if nobody’s in front of you when you go to turn up, just keep going.”

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Banogu tried to pull him down, but right guard Cooper Hodges intercedes enough that Rourke could set his feet and hips, and fire a 21-yard dart to Ollison, whose sit route had turned into a de facto wheel route.

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Rob Williams, Rourke’s mechanics trainer, had prepared him for just that kind of moment.

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“We work on that all the time,” Rourke laughed. “He always grabs me and hangs off of my waist.”

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Parrish, the tight end, had run a short hook pass, clearing out the safety for Rourke to fire a laser bolt over Harper’s head, into Ollison’s outstretched arms for the TD, which ended up being the game’s deciding points in the 28-23 victory.

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“I turned up and I just saw him throw the ball. It was, like, slow motion. In my head, I was like, ‘This play is so crazy, I have to catch this ball,’ ” Ollison laughed over the phone from his off-season home in Atlanta.

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“And I caught it, it was super-dope, I was super, super-excited. I threw the ball out of camera (view) as hard as I could. And it was dope for me, because I was on Dallas the year before that … so it was a little bit payback for me too. It was a highlight for the both of us.”

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Having played with Matt Ryan his first three years in the NFL, and with Dak Prescott — watching the replay in disbelief across the field on the Cowboys’ sideline — Ollison had never had a mobile QB before.

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“Man, it was stuff that you see people doing video games. You don’t see a lot of like quarterbacks getting out of two situations like that,” he said. “Everybody was comparing it to a Patrick Mahomes’ type play — which is fair, I think it’s accurate — but I have never seen something like that in game with me being a part of it.

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“It was crazy to watch. It was like Houdini. Still to this day, I don’t know how he got out of that. I don’t know how he stays up.”

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Nathan Rourke stays on his feet to make the throw.
Nathan Rourke stays on his feet to make the throw. What were his statistics in the game? (Nine of 17 for 153 yards, one touchdown.) Who cares? All anyone will remember is this play. Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images /PNG
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Ollison worked heavily with Rourke in training camp and pre-season, with both trying to crack the roster. He remembers the Canadian being detail-obsessed, smart, and always working to hone his relationship, routes and timing with his receivers.

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And there’s one detail from that play that always sticks in Rourke’s craw.

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“One of my other teammates, (receiver) Seth Williams, was wide open on that play to the middle of the field, but my eyes were down to the right,” he said. “I always thought Qadree, but if I would have just seen Seth in the middle of field, it was wide open. It was a much easier throw. Every time I watched that, I just see, I just see 81 coming like, just, wide open, looking for the ball … It bums me out how open he was.”

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The play had ESPN in a chokehold for weeks, turned Rourke into a cult figure in northern Florida and made B.C. Lions fans misty-eyed for their former QB. It produced a massive amount of hype, but only a modicum of career help.

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“It was good for the situation that I was in, because I was trying to make a team,” said Rourke. “And ultimately, I think that play helped me get to a lot of other places. I think it helped me get to New England at the end of the year, and give me an opportunity to be on the active roster at the end of the year. I think it helped me get to New York when I got cut from New England, and then ultimately, back to Atlanta.

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“Those type of things are good when you’re trying to make a name for yourself. It doesn’t carry too much weight in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t necessarily think that the attention from it is a bad thing.”

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Ollison didn’t catch on with the Jags that season, but he, too, felt it helped him get picked up by Pittsburgh, giving him a chance to showcase his sticky hands and show that he’s not just another power back.

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“I think we helped each other,” he said. “He helped me … (but) if he don’t break four tackles in the backfield, it’s just another down and nobody even talking about it.

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“He did the hard part of the play. I’d say he helped himself more than I helped him.”

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The two former Jaguars are now being reunited in Vancouver after the Lions signed Ollison this week. He spent 2024 out of football, waiting for a chance that never materialized, before the opportunity with B.C. arose.

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The 28-year-old is practically Canadian, having grown up on the American side of the Niagara Falls border. He’s got friends scattered throughout the CFL, including current Lions receiver Stanley Berryhill, and Toronto Argonauts offensive lineman Ryan Hunter, who crossed the border from Canada to play high school football with Ollison in high school.

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“Football is a small, small world, whether it’s NFL or CFL,” he said. “I’ve never went to a team and not known a single person on the team. So I think that part makes it easier to get acclimated.

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“I feel like it’s a fresh start for me, and it’s really refreshing to get that. I wasn’t ready to be done playing ball. I got a lot of tread left on my tires, and I got a lot of good ball ahead of me. I wasn’t ready to hang it up in no way, shape or form.”

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jadams@postmedia.com

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@jjadams.bsky.social

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