Doc Five: Best College Football Buzzer Beaters – No. 3, Bluegrass Miracle
This offseason we will count down various topics from Monday through Friday, bringing you the top five of the important and definitely some not so important issues in college football. It's the Doc Five, every week until we will thankfully have actual games to discuss.
THE BEST COLLEGE FOOTBALL BUZZER BEATERS
NO. 3, THE BLUEGRASS MIRACLE
Not many people think of LSU and Kentucky when they think of some of the great rivalries in the SEC, but in 2002, those two teams played one of the greatest games in SEC history – and by some accounts one of the most embarrassing finishes in Kentucky lore.
It’s not too often that a coach, in this case Kentucky’s Guy Morriss, is given a Gatorade bath in a loss, but no one saw this loss coming.
With 11 seconds remaining, Kentucky’s Taylor Begley kicked a 29-yard field goal to give the Wildcats a 30-27 lead, which sparked mass celebration in the stands and on the sidelines. No one thought LSU had time to come back and win.
But LSU coach Nick Saban is not one to quit with time left on the clock.
The ensuing Kentucky kickoff left LSU on its own 9-yard line. On the first play, quarterback Marcus Randall found receiver Michael Clayton for a pass that would get the Tigers to their own 26 with 2 seconds remaining.
The play was called Dash Right 93 Berlin, and according to Nola.com, coaches would later say the play never worked in practice and Saban never hoped he’d have to use it. Kentucky fans were already coming down from the stands, some were hanging on the goalposts behind Randall. There was no way LSU was going to steal this one from the Wildcats.
The ball was snapped and Randall circled around to give his receivers – Clayton, Devery Henderson and Reggie Robinson - a chance to get downfield. Then he threw the ball as hard and as far as he could. The ball deflected off a Kentucky player between the 30 and 25-yard lines and into the waiting hands of Henderson, who eluded a would-be tackler and ran into the end zone for the game-winning score.
Morriss, still soaked, couldn’t believe it. Kentucky players cried. Fans, oblivious to the final play, still celebrated until they realized the harsh reality. Even the Jefferson Pilot Sports broadcast displayed the final score as "Kentucky 30, LSU 27—FINAL."
LSU radio play-by-play man Jim Hawthorne mistakenly gave the touchdown to Jack Hunt, who wore No. 8, not Henderson, who wore No. 9. His error was later deleted from the archived version of the broadcast.
“I think we practice those kind of plays,” Saban told Nola.com. “There's a little bit of luck when you hit one. Things have to go right for you, the ball has to bounce your way and it did that day. The other thing I remember is we didn't play very well that day and won and we played really, really bad the next week and got beat as bad as we ever got beat. That wasn't a good thing. That was an exciting play. It was fun to be part of a play like that that, that people remember this long.”
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