Everyone remembers "The Play" between Stanford and Cal or Doug Flutie's heave against the Miami Hurricanes. Heck, we are all familiar with Boise State's hook and ladder and subsequent Statue of Liberty or Kordell Stewart's Hail Mary against Michigan, but some great games just slip through the cracks. Here are five such games that, despite their greatness, fell through the cracks and into football obscurity.
September 11, 1999: UNLV-27, Baylor-24
Up 24-21 with :08 on the clock and the ball on the UNLV 8-yard line, Baylor had only to snap the ball and take a knee to claim the victory, but the Bears got a little greedy. Instead of the safe play and the win, Coach Kevin Steele decided to hand the ball off to running back Darrel Bush in an attempt to score again. Bush was valiant in the attempt, struggling to get to the 1, but in an effort to push into the endzone, he coughed up the ball with no time on the clock. UNLV's Kevin Thomas picked up the pigskin in the endzone and was off to the races, much to the chagrin of 30,000 Baylor fans. 99 yards later and completely out of breath, Thomas crossed the goal line and claimed the victory for the Rebels.
Asked later about the decision to go for the touchdown, Bear coach, Kevin Steele, said, "It was just stupid on my part...We got burned and I take full responsibility for that." You think?
December 29, 2006: Texas Tech-44, Minnesota-41
Maybe it's because Texas Tech, NCAA's pinball machine, was involved, or it was the Insight.com Bowl a few days before New Year's, but this game slipped right by most of us into football oblivion. Down 38-7 midway through the third quarter, Texas Tech staged the biggest comeback in Division 1 bowl game history. They scored 31 unanswered points on the Gophers in less than 20 minutes and won the game in overtime. Texas Tech's quarterback, Graham Harrell threw for 445 yards and two touchdowns and his Red Raider teammates were bailed out when kicker Alex Trlica hit a 52-yard field goal on the final play of regulation to send it to overtime. In overtime, Red Raider Shannon Woods scored on a 3-yard run (of all things) to seal the victory.
The loss for the Gophers was the second catastrophic collapse for a Big Ten team that season as just months earlier the Northwestern Wildcats blew a 35-point lead to Michigan State.
October 2, 2004: San Jose State-70, Rice-63
Since eclipsed by Boise State/Nevada and Navy/North Texas in 2007, this game was the highest scoring regulation game in NCAA history to that point. The game will be remembered for the 19 touchdowns, 1089 yards, and the interception return for a touchdown that won it for the Spartans, but the brilliance of this game is in a few of the other stats. Rice ran more than twice the number of plays as San Jose State, 100-49. Of their 100 plays, Rice ran 85 times for 570 yards. San Jose State's third-string quarterback, Dale Rogers, threw for 359 yards and 5 touchdowns on just 10 completions. The San Jose State kicker, Jeff Carr, converted a 35-yard extra point to tie the game at 63-63. Only 4,093 fans attended the game.
San Jose State coach, Fitz Hill, said following the game, "This is one of the wildest things I've seen. The conventional rules of football did not apply. You had to score to win."
November 1-2, 2003: Arkansas-71, Kentucky-63 (7OT)
Yeah, seven overtimes! Fans of these two teams will remember this one for many years to come, but since neither team at the time was ranked, it has become a bit of a footnote in the record books. The allure of this game is heightened when you consider that Arkansas was involved in a 7OT game two years previously against Ole Miss and a 6OT thriller the year before against Tennessee. In all the game took 4 hours, 56 minutes to complete.
Tied at 24 entering overtime, the teams combined for 86 points and 331 yards in the overtime periods (amazing considering the overtimes are played on a 25-yard field). In the 7th overtime, the Razorbacks stopped the Wildcats on the 5-yard line when QB Jared Lorenzen fumbled the snap on a quarterback keeper. In addition to the overtime craziness, the game also featured both teams recovering a blocked punt for a touchdown.
September 9, 2000: TCU-41, Nevada-10
Okay, so maybe this isn't in the nail-biter category that the others are, but rarely has a blowout been so, well, peculiar. Nevada had the ball for three minutes longer than the Horned Frogs, tallied one more first down, won the turnover battle by one, and passed for 206 more yards, but still got blown out. "How?" you might ask. Well, the Horned Frogs defense recorded 15 sacks (four more than any other team ever) for 89 yards in losses. They also excelled in the special teams game with an 85-yard punt return for a touchdown and a 95-yard kick return for a touchdown. Add in 176 yards from LaDainian Tomlinson, and you have the makings of a blowout.
