Samuel Holsomback ('22) and his wife, Avery, were ready to watch the Mean Green football team play its big game against the University of South Florida Oct. 10.

They had arrived at sold-out DATCU Stadium 15 minutes before the Friday night game.

Just the day before, Avery -- 38 weeks pregnant -- was at a check-up, and the doctor said there were no signs that the baby was coming soon.

"Avery went to the bathroom closest to the gate," Samuel says. "I'm just waiting on her outside, and she comes out. And she was like, 'Guess what?' And I was like, 'I don't know, what do you mean?' And she says, 'My water broke.' I was excited, but I was like, 'Oh, no, it's at the worst possible time.' Not for the game, obviously, but the traffic. How are we going to make it to the hospital?"

As the crowd was streaming to the stadium, they were heading in the opposite direction -- getting a few curious looks.

But they made it to the Grapevine hospital with no issues.

"I'm naturally pretty calm all the time, so I was like, this is just another thing, we'll make it," Avery says. "Sure enough, we took the express lane to get there, because he was freaking out. We were flying, like, 90 down the express lane with our flashers on to make sure that we got there."

Once they got to the hospital, the staff discovered their situation.

"A male nurse came in and said, 'Let me turn on the game,'" Samuel says. "I wasn't going to turn on the game, because she's in labor, but the male nurse was like, 'No, no, no.' I think he also wanted to watch, secretly, so he put the game on."

Baby Evelyn arrived 20 hours later.

The Mean Green experienced their first loss in an otherwise stellar season. The Holsombacks' story grabbed attention through Samuel's social media posts and a story on the NBC DFW station.

Samuel, a computer science major who works as a software engineer, frequently attended Mean Green football games as a student.

"They're very good this year, and I wanted to see them play a ranked team because I've never seen that happen before," Samuel says. "That was our first game together."

"It was going to be," Avery says.