MIAMI (AP) — Here’s how New Orleans kicker Thomas Morstead spent the final 20 minutes of halftime at the Super Bowl: He sat silently at his locker.

“I wasn’t worried,” Morstead said Sunday night. “I was just terrified.”

The Indianapolis Colts wouldn’t have known it. With one squibbed kick, Morstead — a punter by trade — booted himself into the collection of Super Bowl plays that’ll be shown for years and years to come.

Saints coach Sean Payton told Morstead with 20 minutes left in the extended halftime that the special play he’d worked on for the grand total of the last 1 1/2 weeks — an onside kick, something he’d never tried before — would be how New Orleans opened the second half against the Colts.

Morstead handled the surprising call flawlessly. The Saints got the ball and a Super-sized shot of momentum, then became NFL champions for the first time a little while later.

“It was telling because when Coach called that play, it made sense to me,” Morstead said.

It all happened by accident.

When the Saints’ regular placekicker, Garrett Hartley, was suspended for the first four games of the regular season for using a banned stimulant, they brought 45-year-old veteran John Carney back to the team. Hartley eventually won his job back and Carney was released, but retained as a kicking consultant.

And it was Carney who told the Saints to use Morstead’s powerful right leg on kickoffs.

At the time, who could have known what a genius idea that was?

When the second half began, Morstead — who booted a kickoff deep while warming up for the second half, making sure the Colts saw him do so as if nothing unusual was about to happen — angled the ball low off the ground, to his left, then ran over to the spot where it was recovered.

Saints ball? Colts ball?

From the stands, the 1-minute scrum for the ball as officials tried to sort it all out had to have seemed like an eternity.

On the field, it was worse.

“When I hit it, it bounced off somebody, Chris Reis recovered it, then it kind of squirted between his legs and then he recovered again right before the dogpile happened,” Morstead said. “I went over there trying to pull guys off, and then I got pulled off by somebody ... and I hear a referee saying, ’Blue ball, blue ball,’ like the Colts recovered. That’s when I tried pulling guys off again.”

Morstead was certain Reis had the ball. Sure enough, he did ... and the rest, that’s Saints history.

“Absolutely not,” Morstead said when asked if his kick won the Super Bowl. “It was one small win, and a whole bunch of those added up to a big win.”

———

FLIPPING OUT: It might be the most bizarre streak in NFL history. The NFC champion has now won the Super Bowl coin toss an astounding 13 consecutive times.

And this time, it even came with a trophy.

New Orleans won the coin toss Sunday night — and left with a much bigger prize. A 31-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts was only the fourth for the NFC in those 13 years.

The New England Patriots were the last AFC club to win the coin toss, losing the Super Bowl in 1997 to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, 35-21.

———

RECORD WATCH: Everyone knew that Drew Brees and Peyton Manning were good.

They didn’t disappoint.

Brees and Manning combined to complete 63 of 84 passes, their combined success rate of 75 percent setting a Super Bowl record — one of many that went into the books Sunday night.

Among the others:

— Saints kicker Garrett Hartley became the first player to make three field goals of 40 yards or longer in a Super Bowl.

— The Saints tied a record by winning the Super Bowl after trailing by 10 points, joining only the Washington Redskins, who were down 10-0 against the Denver Broncos before turning that title game into a 42-10 rout.

— Indianapolis’ 96-yard scoring drive in the first quarter tied a Super Bowl mark.

— The teams combined for 37 rushing attempts, matching a record low.

— Brees tied another record by completing 32 passes. ———

ELITE COMPANY: Peyton Manning missed a chance to join a very small Super Bowl club Sunday night.

Entering this year, only six quarterbacks had won at least two Super Bowls without a loss.

That number stayed at six, too.

The Colts’ 31-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints meant Manning — who led Indy past the Chicago Bears in 2007 — couldn’t join Terry Bradshaw (4-0), Joe Montana (4-0), Troy Aikman (3-0), Jim Plunkett (2-0), Ben Roethlisberger (2-0) and Bart Starr (2-0) as the only signal callers to win multiple Super Bowls without losing a title game.

———

NOTEWORTHY: Peyton Manning has 5,164 yards passing in the postseason, joining Brett Favre (5,855) and Joe Montana (5,772) in the career playoff 5,000-yard quarterback club. ... Dallas Clark caught seven passes for 86 yards, and the Colts’ tight end is now the top receiver at his position in postseason history with 64 catches and 847 yards. ... Drew Brees’ 32-for-39 night was the second-most accurate in Super Bowl history, behind Phil Simms’ 22 for 25. ... Brees became the fifth quarterback to finish a postseason with at least eight touchdown passes and no interceptions. Like him, the four others — Joe Montana, Phil Simms, Steve Young and Troy Aikman — won the Super Bowl that season.