Sports

BYU Football Scores Wide-Open Touchdown As Elon Musk Launches Literal Rocket Behind Them

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BYU Football Rocket Launch SpaceX
Getty Image / iStockphoto

BYU rolled into Orlando on Saturday as the 11th-ranked team in college football and quickly established its dominance over UCF. In doing so, the Cougars experienced a literal rocket launch directly over their shoulders after finding the end zone during the second half.

It was one of the coolest moments of the entire season!

UCF considers itself the “future of space exploration” and is located just 35 miles from Kennedy Space Center. The school is the top workforce supplier to the aerospace industry.

In addition to its classroom connection to outer space and NASA, the athletic department has a pretty incredible relationship as well. The way that the football stadium, known as ‘The Bounce House,’ is positioned makes it so launches at Cape Canaveral happen in the distance beyond the 50-yard-line.

Images from the launches are truly remarkable!

However, it was a different team that stole the show on Friday. BYU experienced something that has, quite literally, never happened before in college football history.

Tight end Mata’ava Ta’ase scored a wide open touchdown with seven minutes left in the third quarter.

In that exact moment, Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, launched its Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. It will carry 22 Starlink satellites into into outer space and release them into orbit.

The rocket launch timed perfectly with the Cougars touchdown.

Players returned to the sideline right as Falcon 9 peaked above the far side of the stadium.

Every single person in attendance, on both sides, stopped what they were doing to take a look.

College football really doesn’t get much cooler (or less normal) than that right there.

Some schools have fireworks at the ready for when their team scores a touchdown during home games. In this instance, BYU celebrated its potential game-sealing touchdown — on the road — with a rocket blasting off into space. The Cougars could not have timed their scoring drive any better.

Had Ta’ase crossed the goal line just a few seconds sooner or a few seconds later, the rocket would’ve been too high or low in the sky for it to be in celebration. Incredible scenes!