Nathan Mays takes final snap on injured leg for Youngstown State

Urbana High School graduate Nathan Mays, a redshirt senior quarterback at Youngstown State, took one last snap in his college football career Saturday — three weeks after suffering a season-ending leg injury.

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Offensive linemen Myles Douglas and Matt Jones helped Mays walk onto the field on one leg, and he took the snap with 10 seconds left before kneeling with the ball, again with help from teammates, as the clock expired. Youngstown State beat Illinois State 21-3 to finish the season 6-6.

This is awesome 👏

Nathan Mays, who suffered a season-ending injury earlier this year, was carried onto the field for the final snap of his career. pic.twitter.com/J28xY2jdsH
— ESPN (@espn) November 24, 2019

“I had it planned,” Mays said in a postgame press conference. “A lot of people thought I was kind of joking around, but I said if we were up multiple scores at halftime, I was going to get the pads out, and once (the end of the game) got closer and it was just flying by, I didn’t really know if I had the guts to ask to do it. When I went up to Bo (Pelini), Bo was all about it. It was pretty crazy. It didn’t hit me until I did it and then I saw my dad in tears. It was pretty special.”

Mays threw 13 touchdown passes in 10 games this season and also rushed for six scores. He threw 20 touchdown passes in his career.

Mays signed with Youngstown State after a standout career at Urbana. At the time of his graduation, he ranked eighth in Ohio history in touchdown passes (113) and ninth in passing yards (9,647).