Radio call of Cal-Stanford kickoff return

[Columbo]

Cal was at the beginning of its fateful 1982 kickoff return with a few seconds on the clock and the play-by-play guy said: "The Bears have to get it out of bounds"

This is incorrect, right?

The clock would stop after a kickoff return, no matter what, in college, right?

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

He probably meant they had to get out of bounds before time ran out. Like, catch it and haul ass out of bounds pronto. There were 4 seconds left, I think. Not enough time for a long return, was the point.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Harmon will probably try to squib it and he does. Ball comes loose and the Bears have to get out of bounds. Rogers along the sideline, another one...they're still in deep trouble at midfield, they tried to do a couple of....the ball is still loose as they get it to Rogers. They get it back to the 30, they're down to the 20...Oh the band is out on the field!! He's gonna go into the endzone!!! He got into the endzone!! [voice quite hoarse at this point] Will it count? The Bears have scored [CANNON GOES OFF] but the bands are out on the field.

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach/the_play.html

 

[HejiraHenry]

One of my favorite SI stories was the year after The Play, talking to most of the principals and breaking down what happened.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

On this topic, so many stories, so little time. The T-shirts were cool too.

 

[Claws for Concern]

Does Joe Starkey still do radio?

 

[Dirk Legume]

Still does Cal football. And Forty Niner football.

 

[OnTheRiver]

There's a sportsbar here in Indiana that has a fantastic poster based on the run back, with it diagrammed like a football play.

Best part, of course, is the "wedge" set up to get through the band.

 

[The Big Ragu]

The Jets tried to do their imitation of the play at the end of their game yesterday. They lateralled it 5 to 10 times before Coles went down. My favorite was when they lateralled it to Nick Mangold, the center, and even though you couldn't see his face through his mask, his body language said, "What the hell do I do with this thing?"

 

[alleyallen]

I was actually very impressed with the Jets' ability to keep that going as long as they did. A couple of times it looked like they might actually make it and from time to time, a handful of the Colt coverage guys were standing around in surprise.