Central Michigan players sprinted onto the field, celebrating a dramatic overtime victory.
On the opposite sideline, Toledo, which had just suffered its second consecutive loss and fourth of the season, was a combination of disbelief and dejection.
As the Rockets walked out of a frenzied Kelly/Shorts Stadium, freshman cornerback Quinyon Mitchell saw a young fan leaning over the railing by the UT tunnel and handed him his gloves. It was a kind-yet-unremarkable deed that happens hundreds of times throughout the country each Saturday.
This occasion was different, though, because the boy Mitchell gave his gloves to had lost his mother to cancer Sept.