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ShareThisCheckdowns: ESPN’s 50 Most Painful College Football Outcomes
To whet your appetite for our upcoming S-R College Football site, here's ESPN's countdown of the 50 most painful losses in CFB history, starting with #50 -- last year's controversial Nebraska-Texas Big 12 title game. Where does your school appear in the list of infamy?
This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 11:13 am and is filed under Checkdowns, College. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
How they could leave out the 1980 Holiday Bowl (Miracle Bowl), featuring BYU coming back from a 45-25 deficit with 2:15 to go to beat SMU 46-45 I have no idea....
#14.
The school in which I graduated from does not have a football team, but I did briefly attend WVU. I have still not recovered from their loss to Pitt in 2007.
I don't remember some of these games and of course a lot of them happened before I was born but all the ones I'd remember and saw are there. The Bush Push, Choke At Doak, that RIDICULOUS call at the end of the Canes-Luckeyes game, etc. The one problem I have with the list is that some games, like #3 are ranked too high. If I've never heard of a game and it happened more than 25 years ago then how painful can it really be? And yes, I've heard of most of the games listed that took place before 1980.
#31, as the spoiler.
Ah well, U of A is more of a basketball school anyway. Though at the rate they're going...
I didn't see the 5th down Colorado/Missouri game in that list either.
I like the fact that it mostly promoted national championship chases (where it really stings) over ordinary losses that just happened to be gut wrenching. Missouri's 5th down loss may have stunk for them, but it didn't really change their season. If anything, it was more of a heartbreaker for Georgia Tech, who was unfairly forced to share the national title that year.
All of us have our memories of the most painful football loss we ever felt. By far, the most painful to me, was Notre Dame's loss to Southern Cal on Nov. 28, 1964. Notre Dame hadn't had a winning season in five years when the "Era of Ara" brought hope to the program in 1964. John Huarte, who had completed only 24 passes in two seasons at Notre Dame, was named the starting QB. Running back, Jack Snow, was converted into a receiver. Notre Dame won its first nine games and reached No. 1 in the polls after a tough win over Pittsburgh. You can't imagine the feeling of pride among us Notre Dame faithful. Against Southern Cal, they were 14 point favorites. The Irish dominated the first half and led 17-0. Southern Cal came back in the second half to make it 17-13. A Notre Dame fumble on Southern Cal's nine yard line blunted one drive. Then a Notre Dame TD by Bill Wolski, which would have sealed the win, was nullified on a mysterious holding call. Southern Cal got the ball with 2:10 showing on the clock. A 15 yard Craig Fertig to Rod Sherman 4th down TD pass put Southern Cal ahead at 1:33. Devastated, I watched the final seconds tick down as Huarte tried repeatedly to connect with Snow. To this day, I have nightmares.
John Huarte won the Heisman that year over the likes of Roger Staubach and Joe Namath, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus. The MacArther Bowl Committee awarded its trophey to Notre Dame, but...Fifteen members of the 53 man team, including Alan Page, went on to NFL careers. Three other members played in the CFL and one, Dan McGinn, became a major league baseball pitcher.
It was my favorite football team of all-time.
Ref: John Underwood & Jack Tobin, "A Catch---And Crash Goes Notre Dame", Sports Illustrated, 12-7-64.