I read the article.
Trailing by 7 in the game’s final minutes, the Huskers punted the ball back to the Spartans. The problem? Nebraska’s punt defense went the wrong way. Michigan State had two returners back deep, and it fooled the Huskers. While Nebraska went right, the ball went left and into the arms of star receiver Jayden Reed. He did the rest, easily taking the ball to the house and tying the game.
From what I understand . . . MSU didn't fool/decoy NU. The punt was supposed to go to the right from the get-go. The coverage was set to the right, the punter rolled right and was supposed to kick to the right side of the field . . . and the punt went left by mistake.
Now if you want to give MSU credit for having 2 return men back (something that isn't really all that unusual) and they benefitted from NU's UNspecial teams and the punter doing the opposite of what he was specifically instructed to do, that's fine. But the article makes it sound like MSU suckered the NU into the return. From what I understand, the punter just screwed up and YOLO'd it to the wrong side of the field.
Expert recap and game analysis of the Michigan State Spartans vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers NCAAF game from September 25, 2021 on ESPN.
www.espn.com
Nebraska coach Scott Frost said punter Daniel Cerni was supposed to kick it to the other side of the field.
“We have guys at the university specifically for the reason to punt it,” Frost said. “And we had a couple of 10-yard punts that almost cost us, and right when we needed it the most we kicked it to the wrong side of the field. Some of the coverage guys didn’t see it and it cost us the game.”