Phil C
08-27-2003, 11:55 AM
Last week ESPN classics showed the California - Stanford football game played in 1982 which in my opinion is the most incredible ending of any game ever played and there have been lots of them. What was unusual is that California had a two point lead with just over a minute left and Stanford had the ball on about it's 13 yard line with 4th and 17 and John Elway (the great Denver QB) threw for the first down and Stanford moved inside the Cal 20 yard line and ran a play and then called time out with 8 seconds left. Stanford kicked a field goal and with 4 seconds left started to celebrate the victory and ran onto the field. The Refs penalized them 15 yards which meant they had to kick from the 25 yard line which was still no problem because with four seconds left there wouldn't have been enough time for Cal to return it far enough up field and get out of bounds and kick a field goal. So Cal had to go all the way. Standford kicked off and Cal got it just over the 50 yard line and started lateraling it off to each other five times. Incredible they pulled it off. The Stanford band was out on the field already playing and celebrating and the last Cal player had to dodge two band members and he ran into one of them in the endzone with his momemtum. You really have to see the play to believe it because it is beyond description. If you have never seen this play you need to see it because it is so incredible. The thing that sticks to me was not the 15 yard penalty Standford got which was foolish but still with just 4 seconds left for Cal to get the kickoff back in field goal range before time ran out was just so very unlikely. But I think where Stanford goofed was really the play before they got the winning kick. The ran the ball to the middle of the field and when the runner was down they called time out with 8 seconds left. They should have waited till it got down to 4 seconds left and called time out and the Ref would have stopped it before time ran out. Then their field goal would have used up the last 3 or 4 seconds and there would have been no kickoffs. Of course looking back on it it is easy to see such things and of course had it happened that way we would not have had this the greatest last play (in my opinion) in football ever.