Let’s be honest: Thanksgiving weekend is an endurance test.
From the stress of pre-holiday prep to the dinner conversations with people you don’t see (or care to see) all that often to the glorious, gluttony of the big meal itself, it’s no wonder a late-afternoon nap often is in order.
That applies to the excess of football as well. Several days packed from noon to midnight with high-stakes, hatred-fueled action can take it out of a person. That is, until a rivalry game matches — or exceeds — the anticipation and delivers a finish that gets you jumping out of your seat in amazement at what you just witnessed.
With those stupefying (or stupor-defying?) moments in mind, we present some of the most fantastic finishes from the biggest Rivalry Week matchups — those unforgettable scenes that keep us coming back for more year after year.
Jump to a rivalry:
Ole Miss-Miss. State | Georgia-Georgia Tech
Texas A&M-Texas | Arizona-Arizona State
Ohio State-Michigan | Clemson-South Carolina
Wisconsin-Minnesota | Florida State-Florida
USC-UCLA | Virginia-Virginia Tech
Alabama-Auburn | North Carolina-NC State
Piss and the Miss in 2019. But in the string of dramatic finishes that runs through this 124-year-old rivalry, the most bizarre ending in Egg Bowl history came 42 years ago this month. In Oxford, at least, it’s remembered fondly as The Immaculate Deflection, even if there was no deflection at all.
Mississippi State and Ole Miss met in the capital city of Jackson as a pair of sub-.500 programs in late fall of 1983. With 24 seconds to play, Bulldogs kicker Artie Crosby lined up for a potential game-winning 27-yard field goal attempt. After leading 23-7 at the 4:54 mark of the third quarter, Mississippi State trailed 24-23 in the game’s final minute after three late turnovers provided the kindling for a 17-point Rebels comeback.
The kick looked good off Crosby’s foot. Mississippi State fans roared. But suddenly, as the ball reached its apex, it seemed to stop, held up by a gust of wind, and pushed wide left. Three years before Diego Maradona’s famous goal at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City was guided by «the hand of God,» a divine force seemingly was on Ole Miss’ side.
«I’ve never seen a kick come backwards in my years of coaching,» Bulldogs coach Emory Bellard said postgame. «It was like something reached down and stopped the ball in flight.»
The Rebels held on for the one-point win, clinching a trip to the Independence Bowl, their first bowl appearance since 1971. Afterward, offensive lineman Frank Harbin summed up the feelings of the fans in Starkville. «I’m sure in a year or two I’ll be able to look back at that kick and laugh,» he said. «But right now, it ain’t too damn funny.» — Eli Lederman
Better known as: Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate
This year’s game: Friday, 3:30 p.m., ABC
Record: Georgia, 72-39-5 (acc. to Georgia); 72-41-5 (acc. to Tech)
Current streak: Georgia, 7
While Georgia’s 44-42 victory over Georgia Tech in eight overtimes last season might have been the wildest contest in the 118-game history of the intrastate rivalry known as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, the most controversial finish happened 25 years earlier.
In the 1999 meeting at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia Tech took a 41-24 lead late in the third quarter. But then Marvious Hester’s muffed punt at Tech’s 10-yard line gave the Bulldogs new life. They scored 24 straight points to take a 48-41 lead with 5:12 to play. The Yellow Jackets answered right back, however, when Heisman Trophy contender Joe Hamilton threw a touchdown to Will Glover with 2:37 remaining.
last year was the 25th anniversary. So for our purposes, we’ll go back to 1963, just six days after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, when No. 1 Texas traveled to 1-6-1 Texas A&M, which was still an all-male military school, in one of the most storied games in the rivalry.
Twice that week, Aggie cadets steernapped the 1,700-pound Bevo VII; the Houston Post called him «ugly but perhaps overly friendly.» They first whisked him away from the State Hog Farm in Austin, and the second time they snatched him from a new secret location; he was later found by a Texas Ranger.
Chris Baldwin’s surrender cobra, isn’t the only time a punting error in a Big Ten rivalry game left one team’s fans in utter disbelief. Ten years earlier, Wisconsin and Minnesota had a midseason meeting at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, renewing the most-played rivalry in the FBS and the battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe.
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Still, Auburn’s comeback win in 1972 was as absurd as it was special. Trailing 16-0 in the fourth quarter, the Tigers got a field goal from Gardner Jett but still had no hope of driving for a pair of scores against Alabama’s mighty defense. But they didn’t have to.
With 5:30 left, Bill Newton got a hand on Greg Gantt’s punt, and the ball bounced perfectly into David Langner’s arms, in stride, for a 25-yard touchdown. Alabama nearly ran out the clock, generating two first downs, but came up short on a late third down, so the Tigers came after Gantt again.
And again, Newton blocked the kick, which bounced into Langner’s arms for a 20-yard score. Jett’s PAT gave Auburn a shocking lead with 1:34 remaining, and because poetry exists, Langner also reeled in the game-clinching interception.
Auburn gained 80 yards in 52 snaps that day but won thanks to the perfect combination of Gantt-to-Newton-to-Langner.
«The last nine minutes were Auburn’s and no finer nine minutes are recorded in the annals of Tiger football,» wrote Millard Grimes in The Opelika-Auburn News. Auburn linebacker Mike Neel was a little more succinct: «The Lord gave it to us.»
At that moment it was difficult to come up with a better explanation. — Bill Connelly
Better known as: Crosstown Rivalry
This year’s game: Saturday, 7:30 p.m., NBC
Record: USC, 51-34-7
Current streak: USC, 2
Though there have been several Crosstown Rivalry games in recent years that have gone down to the wire — USC’s winning field goal in 2000, UCLA’s remarkable 17-point fourth-quarter comeback in 1996 and Jason Leach’s game-sealing interception for USC in 2004 — there is a staunch consensus when it comes to the best finish — and best game — for this rivalry.
In 1967, USC and UCLA entered the game as evenly matched as possible. USC had only one loss on its résumé (3-0 to Oregon State) while UCLA was undefeated but sported a tie on its record. This game would decide not only the conference champion but also the coveted Rose Bowl berth.
At the time, both teams played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, meaning the stands were split quite literally — Trojans fans on the south side of the stadium and Bruins fans on the north side. Both teams had been No. 1 in the country during the season, and the game more than delivered.
UCLA quarterback Gary Beban was nursing a rib injury and had to be helped off the field a few times — it turned out he had a bruise and a piece of detached cartilage — yet he stayed in the game and led UCLA to a 20-14 lead in the fourth quarter.
USC head coach John McKay noticed that UCLA kicker Zenon Andrusyshyn’s field goals were hit with a low trajectory, so he put 6-foot, 8-inch Bill Hayhoe in the middle of the line. Hayhoe helped block two field goals and an extra point on the final Bruins’ touchdown, which kept it a 6-point game.
That set the stage for O.J. Simpson — who would win the Heisman the following year (Beban won it in 1967) — to rip off a 64-yard touchdown run on third-and-7 that sent the crowd into a frenzy and won the game for the Trojans. McKay’s team won by a point and went on to win the national championship.
ABC broadcaster Keith Jackson called it the greatest game he had ever seen. Legendary Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote that he was glad he «didn’t go to the opera, after all» and Sports Illustrated featured the game on its cover. It became one of several college football games over the years that has been dubbed «the game of the century.» — Paolo Uggetti
Better known as: Carolina-State
This year’s game: Saturday, 7:30, ACCN
Record: UNC, 68-40-6
Current streak: NC State, 4
You want fantastic finishes? How about a series of unanticipated terminations, punctuated by an uncharacteristic tantrum?
Less than two months ahead of the 2011 season and less than seven months after beating Tennessee in the Music City Bowl, UNC fired head coach Butch Davis amid ongoing investigations surrounding improper benefits, including allegations of academic fraud by way of «paper classes» for Tar Heel football players. Defensive coordinator Everett Withers was pressed into service as interim head coach and did a nice job of slapping Band-Aids to the hull of Kenan Stadium, rolling the Heels into their Nov. 5 trip down I-40 to NC State with a solid 6-3 record and buzz that he might have earned the full-time gig.
But during a radio interview that week, the Charlotte native and former App State defender said of his employer and the long-bitter «little brother» university on the other side of the Triangle: «I think the kids in this state need to know the flagship school in this state. They need to know it academically. If you look at our graduation rates, as opposed to our opponent’s this week, graduation rates for athletics, for football, you’ll see a difference. … If you look at the educational environment here, I think you’ll see a difference.»
The Raleigh media breathlessly rushed that quote to NC State practice and head coach Tom O’Brien, a stoic former United States Marine who in five seasons with the Wolfpack had never unleashed a Mike Gundy-ish rant. Until then.
«It’s a little tougher here if you actually have to go to school and you’re expected to have a syllabus and go to class, so you know I think that our guys earn everything that they get here,» O’Brien said. «What else did he say?»
O’Brien was told about the flagship comments and Withers making sure to overemphasize «the» in «the University of North Carolina.» TOB didn’t care much for that, either.
«There’s a guy that’s on a football staff that ends up in Indianapolis [at NCAA headquarters]. You take three things that you can’t do in college football. You have an agent on your staff, you’re paying your players, and you have academic fraud. I mean, that’s a triple play as far as the NCAA goes. … If that’s what the people want in their flagship university in North Carolina, then so be it.»
NC State won the game 13-0, its fifth straight over UNC, holding off a pair of fourth-quarter drives that nearly got the Heels back into the contest. At season’s end, Withers was relieved of his duties. One year later, replacement Larry Fedora ended the Heels’ rivalry losing streak with a 43-35 win that helped State’s case to fire O’Brien at season’s end.
None of that matters in the booths of barbecue joints around the Old North State. Tom O’Brien’s rant still does. The fantastic tellings of that story will never be finished. — Ryan McGee
