Tim Skipper took a deep breath. What else could he do?
His quarterback had just clutched his right knee and needed assistance to make it off the field with a little more than two minutes left in a taut game in which his team appeared on the verge of losing its magic touch. Skipper had been in enough of these situations to know that sometimes injuries that look scary turn out just fine, so the UCLA interim coach inhaled and waited for the medical staff to render a verdict.
Once Skipper saw Nico Iamaleava starting to walk around the Rose Bowl sideline, his facial expression no longer transfixed in a grimace, the coach figured a team in need of a late break might get one.
“I was like, man, we have a shot here, we have a shot,” Skipper said. “And then they cleared him and I was like, all right, let’s go.”