The football, launched twisting from the fingertips of Pitt quarterback Bill Stull, spiraled 40 yards into the cold damp of a late November Pittsburgh night. Receiver Jonathan Baldwin, running a post pattern, streaked down the right sideline, past the flatfooted Notre Dame cornerback tasked with the unenviable assignment of covering him solo.
Three yards short of the goal line, Baldwin slowed to adjust his timing, held off the Irish corner with his 6’5”, 225 pound frame, and then laid out horizontally, corralling Stull’s perfectly placed throw beyond the reach of the Irish corner - who was so appreciably overmatched that he hadn’t yet turned around to find the ball as it landed in Baldwin’s hands. This second quarter touchdown catch - prominent among the 2009 season’s enduring SportsCenter highlight clips - was one maybe a handful of collegiate receivers in America could have made, but it was the athleticism of Baldwin’s leap and body control that the Notre Dame player couldn’t match.
“We keep running routes,” says Baldwin, a sophomore, “and as the game goes on, I can feel defensive backs get weaker because they don’t want to jam us anymore. That’s because of James.”
