Most Chippewa football fans were spending Christmas Eve 2014 with family and friends. They watched with growing frustration as the Chippewas fell well behind in the first-ever Popeyes Bahamas Bowl.

The game quickly became hard to watch. The Chippewas struggled in the first half. By halftime, the game was well out of hand. As the second half opened, things got even worse.

It was an all-too-familiar feeling. The Dan Enos-led program had coasted to a mediocre regular season record, yet found itself in the national spotlight. It appeared the Chippewas were about to blow it again.

But a few fortunate bounces and some pretty shaky Western Kentucky University defense led to an FBS-record seven passing touchdowns by CMU quarterback Cooper Rush, and the Chippewas found themselves one score away from tying the game late in the fourth quarter. They had the ball, but with mere seconds on the clock and horrible field position, things remained bleak.

Then the unthinkable happened. The stage was set for a CMU football to reclaim a presence in the national spotlight. This scenario was different. The way CMU's brand found its way into households across the country this time was totally unique to anything that happened throughout professional or college sports that year.

The result of the play now nominated by fans nationwide as one of the best in 2014 somehow has out-shined the eventual outcome of the game. It earned CMU football a trip to the biggest sports network in the world’s annual awards show.

For a few hours on Christmas Eve, it seemed everyone was talking about CMU football.

The national sports audience was already aware of the underdog Chippewas and their undying desire for national college football relevance well before the Bahamas Bowl kicked off.

A video of the team’s celebration on the day it was announced they were going to Nassau was an immediate YouTube sensation.

There is something we, the general sports-crazed consumers of mainstream media, can relate to in the 2014 CMU football team.

Life is dynamic. A football game is an emotional roller coaster. No matter what hurdles you face, or how far behind you feel, giving up never gets the job done.

Sometimes you need to try something so ludicrous and far-fetched. It might just be crazy enough to work and trying gives you a chance at achieving your dream.

That’s the mental factor in play that has earned CMU football a trip to the ESPYS. It is by far the most emotionally stimulating moment of the four plays up for nomination.

For CMU, its kitchen-sink mentality that day paid off. These Chippewas are headed to Los Angeles as a result.

Here we are, more than half a calendar year after the laterals and leaping touchdown run that made sports fans everywhere ask each other: “Did you see that crazy play at the end of the Bahamas Bowl?”

Regardless of whether or not CMU walks away with the ESPY for “Best Play," the Flying C imprint has already been left on the subconscious of the American sports world.

Mid-major college football programs need to do something extraordinary to reach national pertinence. The Chippewas used the cliché last-ditch effort to give themselves a shot at winning a football game in the most improbable way.

What the men on the field that day might not have realized as they celebrated their last touchdown of the season is something much more valuable than six points had been achieved.

The Chippewas called the play Hurricane and its result had instantly taken the American sports world by storm.