Big kicks, big misses and big returns: special teams creating game-changing moments in the CFP

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Missed kicks and makes. Big returns. Shaky nerves.

Special teams have produced some nerve-wracking, game-changing and game-clinching moments so far in the College Football Playoff.

The potential for more blink-of-an-eye touchdowns and knee-knocking pressure on late game field goals gets even bigger heading into the semifinals with Notre Dame-Penn State on Thursday night at the Orange Bowl and Ohio State-Texas on Friday night at the Cotton Bowl.

Notre Dame seems to have resolved its kicking struggles just at the right time.

Fighting Irish kicker Mitch Jeter, a graduate transfer from South Carolina, missed two games in the regular season with a hip injury and was just 8 of 15 on field goals heading into the quarterfinal against Georgia. Then he nailed kicks of 44, 48 yards, and 47 yards to become the first kicker in playoff history to make three from 40 yards or longer in a single game.

Texas' Bert Auburn could use a boost of confidence like that. His 66 career field goals is a record at a school that has produced future pro standouts Phil Dawson, Justin Tucker and Cameron Dicker. But he is just 16 of 25 this season, including a 6-of-14 mark beyond 40 yards.

In the quarterfinal win over Arizona State, he missed twice in the final 2 minutes of regulation. The first, from 48 yards, went wide right. Before he lined up 38 yards out with 3 seconds left, coach Steve Sarkisian tried giving him a pep talk. The ball doinked off the left upright. Texas prevailed in double overtime.

Auburn sent the SEC championship game into overtime with a tying kick in the final seconds. Teammates insist they believe he can deliver another big kick if needed.

“He’s made a lot of amazing kicks for us in the past. He’s going to come up big when we need him,” Texas defensive back Jahdae Barron said. “So, if he could just block out the noise. He knows we’re riding with him. We’ve got his back through it all. That’s what the culture is here.”

Texas and Notre Dame both scored on kick returns in the quarterfinals.

The Longhorns' Silas Bolden returned the first punt of the game 75 yards for a touchdown and a 14-3 lead against Arizona State. A senior transfer from Oregon State, the speedy Bolden hasn't delivered as much as hoped as a receiver, where he has 22 catches for 243 yards, but he finally broke off the big play in the return game.

It was a Notre Dame kickoff return against Georgia that swung the game for the Irish.

Jaydon Harrison's 98-yard return to open the second half stretched Notre Dame's lead to 20-3 and stunned the Bulldogs, who had been tied 3-all in the final minute before halftime.

A Jeter field goal and a Beaux Collins touchdown catch made it 13-3 before Harrison delivered. Fifteen seconds into the second half, Notre Dame led 20-3.

Notre Dame closed out the win with a little special teams trickery.

Notre Dame had a fourth-and-short deep in his own territory when coach Marcus Freeman sent the punt team out before running all 11 players off the field and sending in the offense.

Surprised, Georgia raced to match up and then jumped offside as the play clock ticked down. Notre Dame got the first down and kept the ball for another five minute, bleeding away the game clock.

“We practiced it to a point where I felt like we couldn’t get it wrong,” Freeman said. “I thought they did a great job of not panicking, which the whole point of that is trying to get some other panic.”

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Notre Dame's Jayden Harrison (2) returns a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown during the second half against Georgia in the quarterfinals of a College Football Playoff, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

A judge barred the Trump administration on Thursday from immediately moving to shut down a small federal agency that supports investment in African countries on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington issued the order hours after the filing of a lawsuit by the president and CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation.

Ward Brehm said in a complaint that he directed his staff on Wednesday to deny building entry to staffers from billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and Pete Marocco, the deputy administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

DOGE and Trump do not have the authority to shut down the agency, which was created by Congress, Brehm said in the complaint.

The order from Leon, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, bars Brehm from being removed or DOGE from adding members to the board over the next few days.

Brehm also said that days after President Donald Trump targeted the agency in a Feb. 19 executive order that aims to shrink the size of the federal government, staffers from DOGE tried to access the organization's computer systems.

“When USADF learned that DOGE was there to kill the agency, USADF staff refused DOGE access to cancel all grants and contracts,” said the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement, “Entitled, rogue bureaucrats have no authority to defy executive orders by the President of the United States or physically bar his representatives from entering the agencies they run.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration mandated DOGE and Musk, the world’s richest man whose businesses have federal contracts, to root out waste, fraud and abuse and to help reduce the nation’s debt load.

Brehm said in his complaint that DOGE and Marocco, a Trump political appointee helping shutter USAID, also recently targeted the Inter-American Foundation, a federal agency that invests in Latin American and the Caribbean.

On Tuesday, DOGE said on X that all but one employee at IAF had been let go and its grants cancelled, including funding for alpaca farming in Peru, for vegetable gardens in El Salvador and for beekeeping in Brazil.

Trump is also targeting the U.S. Institute of Peace, a Washington-based think tank, and the Presidio Trust, which oversees a national park site next to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Both entities, which were created by Congress, continue to operate and say they are compiling information requests from the White House.

The National Endowment for Democracy, a private nonprofit that helps combat authoritarianism around the world, sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, saying in a complaint that it had been denied access to its funding, “something that has never occurred before in the Endowment’s forty-two-year existence.”

In 2023, it reported issuing $238 million in grants, including through the International Republican Institute, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio formerly served as a board member.

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Elon Musk departs the Capitol following a meeting with Senate Republicans, in Washington, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)