In Part 2, I looked back at eight college football moments that happened before the dawn of social media that would have been all across people’s timelines. Of course, that list barely touched on an extensive history of the sport pre-social media. I gathered eight more college football events that would have blown up the internet, starting off with a top five college football moment of all time.
Young Goes for the Corner
Twitter was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006, meaning the 2006 Rose Bowl is barely eligible for this list. This classic is one of the greatest games of all time, and there were plenty of moments that would have gone viral. But in a game between two teams that were the wire-to-wire No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country, the game came down to several key decisions. First, USC went for it on fourth-and-2 at the Texas 45. With a three-peat on the line and Heisman winner Reggie Bush watching from the sidelines, bruising LenDale White was stuffed after gaining only a yard. Texas and Heisman runner-up Vince Young was left with 56 yards, two timeouts and 2:09 left trailing 38-33. It could have been 38-37, but in the second quarter David Pino missed an extra point, then at the beginning of the fourth quarter he missed a 31-yard field goal attempt.
After the first two plays on the drive went nowhere, a seven-yard pass along with a facemask resulted in a first down. Brian Carter, who finished his three-year career at Texas with 21 receptions for 310 yards and a single touchdown, caught a nine-yard pass followed by Young running for seven yards, slipping out of a tackle easily and ducking out of bounds. On first-and-10 from USC’s 30-yard line, Young found a crossing Carter for 17 yards. An incomplete pass, a five-yard Young run followed by a Texas timeout, then another incompletion set up the play of the game. Staring at a fourth-and-5 at the USC 8 with 19 seconds left, Young took the snap, felt pressure from the left and took off right, easily reaching the end zone for the go-ahead score. Before the two-point conversion attempt, USC made a questionable decision to call its final timeout. It didn’t help on the play as Young burrowed up the middle for a 41-38 lead.
After a short kickoff, Matt Leinart dumped off to Bush, who raced up the right sideline before stepping out at the Texas 43 with eight seconds left. With plenty of time to set up a quick pass then a game-tying field goal, the play instead got extended out and Leinart’s pass well short of the end zone sailed over his receiver’s head, sealing the Longhorns’ national championship. One has to wonder if having the final timeout would’ve helped.
USC’s win streak ended at 34. Meanwhile, Young finished with 467 total yards and three touchdowns all on the ground, and a total seven rushing touchdowns in back-to-back Rose Bowls.
Sam “Bam” Cunningham Runs Over All-White Alabama
It’s only right to give a timeline of American history around this time. No. 3 USC’s 1970 visit to Birmingham, Ala., to play the 16th-ranked Crimson Tide took place 15 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the same city; seven years after Alabama Governor George Wallace said “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”; six years after the Civil Rights Act was signed; and only two years after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
USC came in with a fully-integrated team, including a fully Black backfield led by bruising tailback Sam “Bam” Cunningham. While Alabama did have one Black player in Wilbur Jackson, freshmen were varsity-ineligible at the time and regardless, the Alabama fanbase and school’s administration were against integration. So Jackson was relegated to the stands to witness a historic event. After USC outrushed Alabama 485-32, it was a dominating 42-21 win for the visitors. All six Trojan touchdowns were by Black players, with Cunningham leading the way with 135 yards and two touchdowns on only 12 carries. After the game, Alabama’s head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant thanked USC head coach John McKay for bringing the team into the Deep South. Bryant had Black players at his previous job at Maryland, but of course Alabama was less receptive to the idea. That was until Cunningham and USC ran over the Crimson Tide and showed them how wrong they were.
The U
In Part 2 of this series, I wrote about the 1984 Orange Bowl and Nebraska’s failed two-point conversion attempt. In it, I mentioned how this game helped launch “The U.” This breaks away from all the other moments in this series as this was not a singular moment. Instead, it was an era of Miami dominance. Across two decades under four different coaches, the Hurricanes had two Heisman winners, 15 top 10 finishes in the AP poll, four national runner-up finishes, and five national titles. But the bigger impact was how loud, brash and countercultural the team was. If you were a Hurricanes fan, you loved them. If you were not a Hurricanes fan, you hated them. Most of all, “The U” was nationwide. People across the nation flashed the “U” hand sign, wore the orange and green, and rallied behind ‘Canes. It ended how it began — in a ball of fire. After Nevin Shapiro told the NCAA about his impermissible benefits for Miami’s football and men’s basketball team, Miami crumbled. But the foundations for the collapse were established in 2004 — the team’s first year in the ACC. Since joining the ACC and tougher competition, the Hurricanes have not been able to compete, with their best season being a 10-3 2017 season that finished with an Orange Bowl loss. But Hurricanes fans will always have “The U” and the cultural impact those teams had.
First SEC Championship Game
Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., played host to the first ever conference championship game between undefeated No. 2 Alabama and No. 12 Florida. It was a historic moment but also a perilous one for the idea of a conference championship game. Before, Alabama would have been locked in to play No. 1 Miami for a title. However, this extra game put not only the Crimson Tide’s chances at risk, but it also put the SEC’s chances of claiming a national championship for its conference at risk. For most of the game, it appeared that the conference’s gamble was going to backfire.
Alabama gave up a 21-7 second half lead, and it appeared Florida would spoil the party. But with 3:16 left in the game, Shane Matthews dropped back, looked to his right and threw to a comeback route only to have Alabama’s Antonio Langham jump the route. Langham read it all the way, picking off the wobbly pass and taking it 27 yards the other way, cutting back to avoid Matthews’ tackle attempt and scoring to take a 28-21 lead. On the Gators’ final drive, Matthews tried to pass over the middle but the ball was tipped at the line and went skyward. A mass of bodies converged on the ball and linebacker Michael Rogers survived getting clobbered by a teammate to pick off the pass and seal the game.
In the immediate aftermath, Alabama would go on to stifle Miami and Heisman-winning quarterback Gino Torretta in the national championship game, picking him off three times to win 34-13. In the long run, the success of the game helped launch more conference games, changing the landscape of the sport forever.
Bluegrass Miracle
Things looked grim for the defending SEC champion No. 16 LSU Tigers. After the Tigers took a 24-14 lead early in the fourth quarter against the hometown, unranked Kentucky Wildcats, the lead melted to a 27-27 tie. With just over a minute to go, LSU was forced to punt from its end zone, and Kentucky returned the punt just past LSU’s 40-yard line. To make it worse, a facemask penalty on the tackle marched off five more yards. After getting down to the LSU 11 with 15 seconds left on a run, there was confusion and Kentucky burned its last timeout instead of spiking the ball. Head coach Guy Morriss decided to take the field goal instead of risking running more time off the clock or taking a penalty. LSU’s Nick Saban tried to ice the kicker, but the officials didn’t grant the timeout and the kick was good, and it looked like the upset was sealed after the squib kick and coverage was perfectly executed, with Devery Henderson having to duck out of bounds at his own 14-yard line. With the announcers already awarding Kentucky a victory and the home crowd beginning to fill up behind the end zones and the sidelines ready to rush the field, a delay of game penalty pushed the ball back even further. Marcus Randall passed to Michael Clayton, who caught the pass at the LSU 26, immediately fell down, and the Tigers called their last timeout with two seconds on the clock. The Wildcats jumped the gun and gave Morriss a Gatorade bath, but the game was basically over, so it didn’t seem out of place.
LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher called down from the coaches box “Dash Right 93 Berlin.” Three receivers lined up right, one went left and a running back was left in to block. At the snap, Randall rolled right and launched the ball from his 18-yard line. It sailed through the air and was tipped by a Kentucky player inside the Wildcats’ 25-yard line. At this point, Kentucky fans began to rush the field, but Henderson split two defenders to catch the deflected pass and raced into the end zone for the 33-30 win. It was chaos, as some fans were on the goal posts celebrating, others were confused and walking off the field, the stadium fireworks that had started during the play were going off, and LSU’s sideline was either running around or dogpiling on Henderson.
This was the peak of LSU’s season as it faltered to a 1-3 record, including a Cotton Bowl loss to Texas to finish 8-5. But the “Bluegrass Miracle” is still talked about to this day and is the main teaching tape to defenders to knock passes down on Hail Marys.
Frank Reich’s First Comeback
If things looked grim for the Tigers in the previous event, the Terrapins were basically dead. Trailing 31-0 going into halftime of a 1984 game against the Hurricanes, it appeared that No. 6 and defending national champion Miami was going to coast to victory. In a last ditch attempt, the Terps turned to senior quarterback Frank Reich, who had been the starter until a Week 4 injury to his shoulder. Now bringing Reich off the bench, Maryland hoped he could spark something. He did more than that, going 12 of 15 for 260 yards and three touchdowns with another keeper on the ground. But it took a game-winning tackle by Maryland’s Keeta Covington on a two-point conversion attempt by Miami to seal the biggest comeback in college football history (the 31-point comeback has since been surpassed by Michigan State coming back from 35 points down at Northwestern in 2006).
Miami would stumble in another brutal fashion in its following game on Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary (which I mentioned in Part 1) and ended the season with a loss to UCLA in the Fiesta Bowl. Maryland’s win would help catapult it to an ACC title and a narrow win over Tennessee in the Sun Bowl. Reich would go on to have a successful backup quarterback career, including being the author of one of the greatest NFL comebacks, a playoff victory with the Buffalo Bills over the Houston Oilers after going down 35-3 in the third quarter.
Drew Tate to Warren Holloway in 2005 Capital One Bowl
The 2005 Capital One Bowl was an entertaining game before the final moments. Leading up to the dramatic ending, No. 12 LSU had been trailing No. 11 Iowa 24-12 in the fourth quarter. Marcus Randall, the man who threw the Bluegrass Miracle pass, was benched for freshman JaMarcus Russell. Russell led two key drives, both touchdown passes to Skyler Green. The second came with 46 seconds left, and despite the failed two-point conversion attempt, LSU led 25-24. But with two timeouts left, there was enough time to get into field goal range.
Drew Tate and Iowa started off at their 29-yard line with 39 seconds left. Tate completed an 11-yard pass to Ed Hinkel then a nine-yard pass, the second pass being caught by little-used Warren Holloway. After Holloway’s catch, Iowa spiked the ball. However, it was ruled Iowa hadn’t waited for the ball to be marked ready for play, resulting in a five-yard penalty back to Iowa’s 44-yard line. In the confusion, the clock started again but Iowa did not call timeout. Tate called “all up” sending four receivers vertical. The Iowa radio broadcasters were losing their minds.
“They wind the clock. Nine seconds to play, and Drew Tate doesn’t know that,” said Iowa broadcaster Gary Dolphin. As the final play of Nick Saban’s time as LSU coach unfolded before he would officially take the Miami Dolphins’ head coaching position, Tate dropped back to his own 37 and tossed a pass downfield. Holloway found himself running free, as LSU was also slightly confused and was not in a prevent defense. Without getting bumped at the line, Holloway raced down the seam and caught the pass in stride at the LSU 16 with two seconds left. At the same moment, an LSU defender came in to make a desperate tackle attempt but was nudged slightly in the back by Hinkel. It was not enough for a penalty to be thrown and Holloway scored, while on certain TV angles Hinkel could be seen crossing the goal line just after Holloway with his arms raised in triumph. Tate raced down the field, hands on his head in shock before he ripped off his helmet to join the dogpile forming in the end zone. Holloway finished his time at Iowa with 33 receptions and 328 yards. And his Hail Mary touchdown? It was the only one of his college career.
BYU’s Miracle Bowl
No. 19 SMU led comfortably over No. 14 BYU 45-25 with about four minutes left in the 1980 Holiday Bowl. Cougars fans began to stream out of the stadium. BYU starting quarterback Jim McMahon, known to be a fiery player, yelled at the fans that the game wasn’t over yet. After a touchdown pass, BYU recovered its onside kick attempt. The Cougars drove down quickly and scored a quick touchdown. The second onside kick was recovered by SMU, but BYU was able to force a punt. With SMU’s Eric Kaifes standing just behind his own 40-yard line, Bill Schoepflin of BYU blocked the punt, giving BYU just enough time down 45-39.
After two incompletions, McMahon took the snap from the 41-yard line and dropped all the way back to around his own 47-yard line then lofted a pass to the end zone. Clay Brown skied over everyone and hauled in the game-tying touchdown with no time left. After Kurt Gunther coolly knocked the extra point through, BYU celebrated an incredible comeback 46-45 after scoring 21 points in the final 2:33 of the game. McMahon finished 32 of 49 passing for 446 yards and three touchdowns and shared the game’s MVP with SMU’s Craig James, who rushed for 225 yards on 23 carries to go with three total touchdowns.
About the author
I’m a Washington Huskies fan who is still amazed but not surprised that we didn’t have more success under Chris Petersen (I blame Jake Browning). Sports are my life. I know nothing else. I graduated from Bethany Lutheran College with a degree in Communication. I’ve been a part of a newspaper since 8th grade, including my college’s official newspaper where I was co-copy editor.
