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A run-of-the-mill extra-point attempt for Minnesota to take a four-touchdown lead over Rutgers was anything but ordinary on Saturday. As the Gophers trotted out their special teams unit, they were led onto the field by redshirt sophomore Casey O'Brien, the team's holder, who was making his collegiate debut.

O'Brien's debut isn't the story, though. It's the odds he beat to get there: beating cancer four times.

"It means the world to me," he told the Big Ten Network after the game. "There's been so many ups and downs and nights in the hospital and surgeries and everything like that that's gone into this moment. This is what I dreamed about, and tonight it got to come true."

O'Brien underwent numerous rounds of chemotherapy and more than a dozen surgeries in total to battle a cancer diagnosis and get to this point. He's now been cancer-free for more than a year and worked his way into a role with the football team. It's an incredible story, and one that makes you want to root for him. So, appropriately, the response by his teammates and by his head coach was an emotional one.

Minnesota went on to win 42-7 and move to 7-0 for the first time since 1960. Coach P.J. Fleck shared a bit on the incredibly emotional debut for O'Brien.

"He's an unbelievable person and he's been through a whole lot. When you think courage, you think Casey O'Brien," Fleck said. "No one can ever take away that he played college football in the Big Ten. No one can ever take that away from him."