When Philadelphia quarterback Nick Foles walked towards the offensive line and started checking off a crucial fourth-and-goal play from the New England one-yard line in Super Bowl LII Sunday night, Hunter Spivey quickly noticed what was about to happen.

He knew Foles was not checking the play.

Unlike most of America, and the world, that was watching on television, the Valdosta (Ga.) High School football coach new exactly what was about to happen, and he should because he is the architect of what is being called the greatest play call in Super Bowl history.

Before Clemson first ran what is known in these parts as “Detroit” in the Tigers’ win over Georgia Tech back in 2012, Spivey first ran it as a two-point play when he was the coach at Gray Collegiate Academy in West Columbia, S.C.

Spivey first used the play back in 2011, and like it has for everyone since, it worked to perfection. So when Spivey saw Foles start to walk down the line barking out the call, which really was the snap count to begin the play, he knew the Eagles were going to score.

“There was no doubt that it was going to work,” he said.

So how did this all happen? How did former Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris come across “Detroit,” the name Spivey gave it because the D in “Detroit” stands for direct snap? How did this play become so popular that it has been run over and over and over again from high school football fields, to Clemson’s Death Valley and now in the Super Bowl?

It all started in Greenville, S.C., in 2012 when Morris and Spivey struck up a conversation at a football coaches’ clinic.

“We were talking and somehow two-point plays came up,” Spivey recalled. “I told him that I got one that I had ran five or six times, and I said, ‘It has worked every time.’”

Morris was intrigued so he asked Spivey to tell him, but telling a coach a play and showing it to him are two different things, so Spivey grabbed the only thing he could, a napkin that was sitting on a table.

“Without drawing it up, you know how football coaches are, you will forget it,” Spivey laughed. “You have to draw it up. You have to get it on the board. Well, there was no board around so what better thing to do then to draw it up on a napkin.

“So I drew it up on a napkin and we talked about it and Chad said, ‘Man, I like that one.’”

Hunter Spivey, who played and coached at Newberry College as well, first came up with “Detroit” in 2011. He told for Clemson offensive coordinator, now Arkansas head coach, Chad Morris about the two-point play in 2012 at a coaches’ clinic in Greenville, S.C. (Photo courtesy Amy Spivey)

So, Spivey gave Morris the napkin and the two spoke about it for a little while longer, and some other things, before they had to leave.

Spivey did not hear from Morris for a couple of weeks, but then as Clemson was about to begin fall camp, Morris called Spivey to talk about the play a little more.

“He asked me to coach him up on it,” Spivey said. “My wife, Amy, will never forget it because she was sitting there listening to me. I was on the phone for like 20 minutes trying to coach him up on the timing of it and how you do it and how you set it up and all of that kind of stuff.

“That was kind of it. We hung up. I was expecting him to run it in the Auburn game, the first game of the season that year, but he never ran it.”

But Morris did install it into the Tigers’ playbook, as one of their two-point plays. He introduced it to his offensive team in camp.

“Basically, it is a play that is kind of a one shot deal,” said Clemson co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott, who was Morris’ wide receivers coach at the time. “You knew you could run it about once a year at the most. So, it was something that ever since we put it in we practice it every week and really just kind of held it for the right moment, whether it was in a big game, to win a game or a big two-point play. It was something that we practiced for a long time before we ever chose to run it for the first time.”

When Clemson started practicing the play, the offense first started running it without a defense and later progressed to using it against the scout team.

“I don’t think we ever ran it against our defense in a scrimmage situation or anything like that,” Scott said chuckling when thinking about trying to practice the play against Brent Venables’ defense. “I think just the timing of the whole play … Tajh (Boyd) did a really good job of getting comfortable of where he was moving and just the cadence and the snap count, there are a lot of different variables that have to go on. Everything has to work out at the same time for the play to be able to work.”

The first couple of times Clemson ran the play in practice it did not go quite as smoothly as the coaches wanted it to, but it was something over time they got very comfortable with and had a lot of confidence they could execute it when that moment came.

That moment came in Game 6 at home against Georgia Tech in 2012. Following a touchdown that gave the Tigers a 5-point lead with 10:29 to play, Morris called in “Detroit” as the Tigers tried to take a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter.

At the time, Spivey was attending the South Carolina-Georgia game where a friend invited him and his wife to come and join them. Spivey did not go into watch the game because he wanted to watch the Clemson game instead. So, he was watching the Clemson game at tailgate right beside where he was tailgating.

“I remember after Clemson scored and I saw what the score was, I said, ‘Amy, he might go for two here. Come here! Come here and watch this with me.’ As soon as they lined up in the formation, I’m like, ‘he is going to run the play’ and sure enough he ran it and of course Tajh (Boyd) was wide open and they scored.”

Clemson ran the play again in the 2014 Orange Bowl against Ohio State, but the play did not work because the boundary side receiver did not sell the play well enough, allowing the defensive back to get his head turned around and to come over and knock the ball away from Boyd.

Though Clemson has not run “Detroit” since the 2014 Orange Bowl, it has been run by several teams in the NFL and in most cases it has worked. The Chicago Bears have run it and even called it the “Clemson Special.” The New England Patriots ran it in 2015 against the Philadelphia Eagles and called the play “Clemson” and then of course the Eagles’ returned the favor in Sunday’s Super Bowl for a pivotal touchdown just before halftime.

“My phone blew up,” Spivey said. “I got a lot of text messages from friends and coaches who know the story or who I have shared the play with and they were all congratulating me.”

For Spivey, who loves coaching football as much as anything, it was a proud moment for him. He was also happy for Clemson because he knows that is where the play became popular and where most people recognize it from.

“It all started on a napkin, man,” Spivey said. “There have been some great plays drawn up on a napkin. I can promise you that buddy!”

—Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports