Thomas DeCoud!

A friend of my brother's who is a sports writer in the Chicago area, saw Marshawn Lynch's TD reception last night on a ESPN highlight and said, "Man, he's good."

We in Bear Territory agree.

On the other hand, Thomas DeCoud is great.

Watch this highlight at ESPN (first, they show Lynch TD #1, and then...):

UCLA is punting (it's late in the third quarter, and this is only the second punt of the game by either team), and they make the mistake of punting it right to DeSean Jackson, who had already returned two punts for TDs this year (plus a third one last year: his first collegiate touch ever was a 49-yard punt return for a TD). Jackson starts left, but there are a couple of Bruins there. He goes right, and there are three guys bearing down on him: #2 sophomore WR Ryan Graves, and twin linebackers Kyle (#54) and Korey (#55) Bosworth. All three were in great position to tackle Jackson.

Thomas DeCoud had other ideas.

The best part was the crowd noise: the entire stadium gasped at DeCoud's hit, and it took a while for the crowd to realize that Jackson was still running.

DeCoud knocked both himself and Korey Bosworth down, and neither played again. They were both down for a very long time; Bosworth had a concussion and fell a second time walking off the field. He was able to return to LA with the team, but it was pretty scary for a while. Today's papers report that DeCoud didn't even known Jackson had scored until Jackson thanked DeCoud for the block after DeCoud returned to the sidelines.

Jackson said he didn't even see the block, but he heard it.