Nearly a half-century later, former Notre Dame?coach Ara Parseghian still
believes he made the right decision at the end of what would become the most
famous tie in college football history.
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Max .Even today, Parseghian, 93, doesnt understand why so many
people have questioned his strategy in the final minutes of Notre Dames 10-10
tie against Michigan State?on Nov. 19, 1966.The game ended in a tie, Parseghian
said. We didnt play for a tie.Nearly 50 years ago, No. 1 Notre Dame played No. 2
Michigan State at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan, in what was being
called -- yes, even back then -- the Game of the Century. It was the first time
in the 30-year history of the AP poll that the No. 1 team played the No. 2 team.
Their collective rosters included 25 All-Americans, 10 NFL first-round draft
picks and 31 future pros.Back in an era when the Associated Press and United
Press International released their final polls before teams played in postseason
bowl games, the 1966 Game of the Century was supposed to decide the national
championship.If you look at the talent on those two rosters, I dont know that it
will be ever be duplicated, Notre Dame quarterback Terry Hanratty said. It was
amazing. In that era, those were the two greatest teams to play each other.Thats
what made the controversial ending so anticlimactic. In the end, the Game of the
Century didnt settle much of anything. After 60 minutes of high drama, the
Fighting Irish and Spartans -- and everyone else in America -- were left arguing
about which team was No. 1. Its a debate that still lingers today.It was
probably better for us to have tied that game, because no one has forgotten
about it, Hanratty said. Were still talking about that game. It was 50 years
ago.On Saturday night, No. 12 Michigan State and No. 18 Notre Dame renew their
rivalry after a three-year hiatus. Near the 50th anniversary of their most
famous tie, some of the men who coached and played in the game still remember
vivid details of one of the greatest sporting events in American history.Under
Parseghian, the Fighting Irish were 8-0 and absolutely dominant. Led by
All-Americans Alan Page, Jim Lynch and Pete Duranko, Notre Dame shut out five of
its previous six opponents before playing Michigan State; the opponent that did
score, Navy, had managed one touchdown in a 31-7 loss. The Irish were just as
potent on offense behind the high-flying sophomore duo of Hanratty and end Jim
Seymour, outscoring their first eight foes by a combined score of 301-28.The
Spartans were the defending UPI national champions and had embarrassed Notre
Dame in a 12-3 victory in 1965, holding the Irish to minus-12 rushing yards, 24
passing yards and three first downs, the worst offensive performance in school
history. With All-America defensive end Bubba Smith, linebacker Charles
Thornhill and defensive back George Webster, the Spartans were equally as
menacing in 1966.Amid the Civil Rights Era, Notre Dame and Michigan State
couldnt have looked more different. The Fighting Irish were almost lily-white;
Page was the only African-American player on the team. But Michigan States Duffy
Daugherty was among the first Big Ten coaches to integrate his football team.
The 1966 Spartans had eight black players starting on defense, a black starting
quarterback and two black team captains. In all, their roster included 17
African-American players, including 10 from the South, where colleges still
didnt accept them.All the Southern players, we were outcasts from our own
states, former Michigan State wide receiver Gene Washington, a native of La
Porte, Texas, told ESPN in 2015. All of the states where we were from, they
would not take black athletes. We bonded at Michigan State because we all had
similar stories. We could make a contribution. That was very important to us. We
didnt talk about that all the time, but we knew we had something to prove, and
this is our opportunity.We wanted to be the best in the country.The build-up to
the 1966 Michigan State-Notre Dame game was unprecedented. Under NCAA rules at
the time, college football teams were allowed to appear on TV only three times
every two years and only once on a national broadcast (the rules were in place,
in part, to keep the Fighting Irish from appearing on TV every week). Because
Notre Dames 1966 opener against Purdue had been broadcast nationally, the
Michigan State game could be shown only on regional TV. Instead, ABC planned to
show the Tennessee-Kentucky game to a national audience.Late ESPN analyst Beano
Cook, who was ABCs publicity director for college football at the time, became a
target of much fan outrage.They put my name in a newspaper in Portland last week
as the person to complain to, Cook told the AP in 1966. I received 350 letters,
some telegrams and 10 long-distance phone calls -- some collect -- in three
days, all pleading for a change.According to the Los Angeles Times, an inmate in
a Texas jail wrote to ABC vice president Roone Arledge, telling him: If I werent
here, Id travel to see the game on television, but I wont be out by Nov. 19.A
Florida man even sued the Federal Communications Commission for depriving
Southern citizens of top grade college football.In the end, ABC relented and
blacked out the Michigan State-Notre Dame game in two states, so it could
technically be called a regional broadcast. It would also be the first time a
college football game was broadcast to Hawaii and to U.S. troops in Vietnam.We
knew it was a big game, but back then there wasnt ESPN, Facebook, email or all
of the other media they use to hype things up nowadays, Hanratty said. It was a
big game, but it wasnt even supposed to be a nationally televised game. They
blacked out North Dakota and South Dakota. All of the Notre Dame crazies in
those two states had to scramble somewhere else to watch the game.Tickets to the
game were being scalped for as much as $500 apiece. Former Michigan State
defensive end Phil Hoag remembers being given four tickets for family and
friends to attend. He needed only one ticket for his mother, so he sold the
others to a pair of Sports Illustrated reporters after practice.Somehow, I ended
up on the cover of Sports Illustrated a couple of weeks later, Hoag said. There
was even a photograph of me inside.During the week before the game, Michigan
States students staged a massive bonfire on campus, burning issues of Sports
Illustrated with Hanratty on the cover. Smith, who died in August 2011, recalled
before his death that MSU students gathered outside his dorm room and chanted
his name. Earlier in the week, Notre Dame students had hung him in effigy; a
dummy wearing his green No. 95 jersey was dropped from the gym roof and shredded
to pieces during a pep rally.I was living on the first floor of Wonders Hall,
our dorm back then, just trying to relax when I heard this noise, Smith told the
Los Angeles Times in 1986. I went to the window, pulled up the shades, and there
were a couple thousand students all camped outside. When they saw me, they all
began to chant, Kill, Bubba, kill! Kill, Bubba, kill!George Webster was my
roommate then, and I just said: George, theres some serious energy going down
here. Ive got to take a long walk to think about things.Smith didnt get the same
affection from local police, though. The day before the game, he was pulled over
while driving his Cadillac, which was affectionately known on campus as the
Bubba Mobile. He was arrested for outstanding parking tickets and released later
that day.It was a grandstand play by the police, Smith told the Los Angeles
Times. Those tickets had been around for a while, and they couldve waited
another day or two. When they pulled me over, I was saying to [Spartans
quarterback] Jimmy [Raye], Man, there aint no way theyre going to arrest Bubba
Smith.I was laughing right up until they put the handcuffs on.On the morning
before the game, Notre Dames players and coaches boarded the Grand Trunk
Railroad to make the 150-mile trek to Michigan State. Along the way, Fighting
Irish fans cheered from train stations, waving placards and pompoms. When the
train arrived in East Lansing, a couple of inches of snow covered the platform.
Star halfback Nick Eddy slipped while exiting one of the train cars and slammed
his injured shoulder into a steel handrail. He wasnt able to play in the game.It
would only get worse for the Fighting Irish. On Notre Dames second possession of
the game, a running back delivered a play from the sideline to the huddle:
quarterback draw. Hanratty was surprised by the play selection, but ran it
anyway. He took the snap and tried to run around the edge, but Thornhill stopped
him and Smith slammed him to the ground. Hanratty separated his right shoulder.
Two plays later, the Irish lost starting center George Goeddeke to a sprained
ankle.When I got to the sideline, Ara said, Why in the hell did you run the
quarterback draw? Hanratty said. I told him, Because you called it! He said hed
called a running back draw.Without Hanratty, the Fighting Irish fell behind 10-0
in the second quarter. Spartans fullback Regis Cavender scored on a 4-yard run
to make it 7-0, and then Dick Kenney, a barefoot kicker from Hawaii, made a
47-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead.Somehow, even without three offensive
starters, the Irish werent done. Backup quarterback Coley OBrien, who had been
diagnosed with diabetes the week before, rallied his team late in the second
quarter. He threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Bob Gladieux to cut Michigan
States lead to 10-7, giving the Irish momentum heading into the half. In the
third quarter, Notre Dame kicker Joe Azzaro made a 42-yard field goal to tie the
score at 10.For all its buildup, the Game of the Century was hardly a work of
art by either side. The teams combined for five fumbles, four interceptions and
25 incompletions. It remained a 10-10 tie late in the fourth quarter, after
Azarro missed a second field goal attempt.After Michigan State punted, the Irish
took over at their 30-yard line with about a minute and a half remaining. With
the Spartans crowd booing fiercely, Notre Dame ran the ball up the middle six
consecutive times. After picking up a first down at the Notre Dame 41, OBrien
dropped back to pass and was sacked for a 7-yard loss. The Spartans used their
last timeout, before OBrien sneaked for 5 yards to end the game.The Game of the
Century ended in a 10-10 tie. The next week, Notre Dame blasted No. 10 USC 51-0
on the road.After the game, everybody kind of just stood there and looked
around, Hanratty said. Id never tied a game in my life, so I didnt know how to
react. Nobody knew how to react. Bubba was out at midfield, screaming, Lets keep
playing! Lets keep playing! It was weird.Said Hoag: There was absolutely,
positively no question that [Parseghian] didnt want anything to do with trying
to move the ball in the last two minutes. He didnt want to lose the game. He
wanted to tie the game. He was going to take his chances with USC.Legendary
college football writer Dan Jenkins, who covered the game for Sports
Illustrated, famously wrote that Parseghian chose to tie one for the Gipper.
After the article was published two weeks later, he was swamped by dozens of
letters from irate Notre Dame fans. He framed one particular letter, along with
a photograph of Notre Dame students burning about 1,500 copies of the issue. The
letter read: Notre Dame 51, USC 0. Go straight to hell you lousy son of a
bitch.I think I gave Ara credit at the time for running out the clock because he
felt arrogantly sure that Notre Dame could win the polls with a tie, not just
over Michigan State but also over an undefeated and untied Alabama, Jenkins told
ESPN. But I still think it was chickens---, and I stand by my position that he
tied one for the Gipper.Nearly fifty years later, Parseghian says he wouldnt do
anything different in the final minute. He recalled OBrien needing two insulin
shots on the sideline, and he was worried his backup quarterback was wearing
down.Neither Duffy Daugherty nor I expected a tie or wanted a tie, Parseghian
said. The game ended in a tie in one of the historic games. Strategically, I
knew what I was doing in the game. You have to remember Duffy kicked the ball
back to me. My starting quarterback, starting center, starting left tackle and
all my top guys were over on the bench with me. We hadnt completed a pass in the
last seven or eight attempts.Despite the criticism, Hanratty believes his coach
made the right choice.Ara caught a lot of crap for going for the tie, Hanratty
said. But no one ever talks about Duffy punting the ball back to us. I loved
Duffy, and Michigan State was my second choice in where to go to school. Duffy
was a great human being, but he also punted to us from the 50-yard line with
about a minute and a half to go. He could have easily gone for it, more than we
could have from our 20-yard line. If we screwed up from where we were, we would
have lost the game.In the end, Parseghian made the right calculation. In the
final AP poll, the Fighting Irish received 41 of 56 first-place votes and
finished No. 1, ahead of No. 2 Michigan State and No. 3 Alabama. They finished
in the same order in the final UPI poll.I guess everybody wanted to win the
game, but the bottom line is it wasnt meant to be, Azzaro said. I can remember
talking to Ara about the game at our last team reunion. I told him if I hadnt
missed that second kick, and he hadnt called the end of the game the way he did,
we wouldnt have been sitting there talking about it. That game is going to
outlive me, and hopefully it will outlive you.
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Syracuse connections once again by hiring Rob Moore to take over as receivers
coach.
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http://www.airmax2018outlet.us/ . Any real
chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut
3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start
laying the groundwork. "They are a very good defensive team," Penguins forward
Brandon Sutter said. No. 3 Kentucky | No. 5 Louisville | Full ListNo. 4:
VILLANOVA WILDCATSLast season: 35-5, 16-2 Big EastIt wont be easy for Jay Wright
to replace Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu -- a pair of team-first guys --
from last years national championship team. But he returns three starters --
Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins and Jalen Brunson?-- and three more who played key roles
a year ago in Phil Booth, Mikal Bridges and Darryl Reynolds. The loss of
freshman big man Omari Spellman, who wasnt cleared to play this season by the
NCAA, will have an impact.?-- Jeff GoodmanBest case:?Big East champs, Final
Four, repeat champion. Villanova has established a culture of sustained
excellence, winning 97 games over the past three seasons, and this team will
continue that culture. After cutting down the nets in Houston, Villanova will
win over 30 games again and have an opportunity to return to the Final Four and
give almost any team a run for its money.
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2017 Sale. . Hart will be the team leader, but Brunson and Jenkins
will have to assume star roles of consistency in order to repeat.Worst
case:?First-weekend exit. Villanova will be younger and less proven in certain
positions, especially point guard and pivot. As such, having a tough shooting
night can spell the end of a season in the NCAA tournament, a feeling every
coach knows at one point or another. Who sets the tone daily without Arcidiacono
and Ochefu? Last year, Villanova was collectively tougher defensively and
resolute on the offensive end. This year, that toughness will need to be
developed. Is an early exit expected? No way. Is it possible as the worst case?
Yes.No. 5 Louisville | Full List
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