This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen on a football field, and I’m not just saying it because it involved my alma mater.
The story behind the play.
The Trinity Tigers executed a 15-lateral, “Mississippi Miracle” on the last play Saturday afternoon to score the winning touchdown, stunning the Millsaps Majors 28-24 on the road to stay alive in the chase for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference title.
The play that covered 60 yards was recorded in official statistics as a 44-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Blake Barmore to wide receiver Riley Curry.
But the Tigers, battling the defending conference champions in Jackson, Miss., will always remember it as more than that.
“It was the most remarkable play I’ve ever seen in college football,” Trinity coach Steve Mohr said in a telephone interview.
[…]
Junior receiver Shawn Thompson caught a pass over the middle from Barmore at the Millsaps 44 and started a series of laterals.
It ended with Curry picking up the final lateral off the turf and running for the score, denying what would have been a conference-title clinching victory for the Majors.
“As soon as I saw (Curry) in the end zone, I fell down and started crying,” Barmore said. “I’m kind of a big baby.”
[…]
What made the victory so sweet for Trinity players was that it unfolded at Harper Davis Field, where they lost 34-12 last year and were forced to watch the Majors celebrate an SCAC title.
This time, Trinity (7-1, 4-1) did the celebrating, with players piling on Curry in the end zone. The victory gave the Tigers an opportunity to control their own destiny for the SCAC championship. Millsaps (6-2, 5-1) can only hope that Trinity loses one of its final two games.
If both win out, the Tigers would hold the tiebreaker for the SCAC’s automatic bid to the Division III playoffs.
Woo hoo! Go Tigers! Thanks to Chad Orzel for the heads up.
Kuff, I had no idea that you were a fellow Trinity grad. I’m not going to lie…this clip is the most of a Trinity football game that I ever watched.
SportsCenter was all over this last night.
Duke – Yep, class of ’88. TU was not the sports powerhouse it has morphed into back then – the football team won all of seven games during my time there. But I had fun at the games anyway.
That is one of the coolest highlight reels I have ever seen! WOW! It doesn’t get much better!
That was pretty impressive.
And I wonder, what, exactly, had the coach told them?
I’m another Trinity grad and I was stunned to see the Tigers on ESPN.com yesterday. This play has been nominated for the Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the Week. Other teams nominated this week are Texas, Oregon and BC so Trinity is going against some pretty big schools but if they win it’s worth $5000 to the school.
A bit more back story. The coach for Millsaps is Mike DuBose who was the head coach of Alabama in the late 1990s. DuBose has turned around the Millsaps program a bit although last year’s win came the week after Trinity’s starting QB broke his leg at homecoming in San Antonio.
Fast forward to this year. As the time was running down, the Millsaps crowd was chanting “Same as last year! Same as last year!” I guess we now understand the old axiom “He who laughs last, laughs best.” Now I need to call my niece, who graduated from Millsaps this spring and was at the game to ask her just how the chant goes.
It dawned on me this morning that you’d gone to Trinity, so I had to come over to see what you had to say about this. I saw it on ESPN last night and was amazed. Even the Cal and Stanford grads I know are admitting this one was more amazing than “The band is on the field!”
never seen rugby league or rugby union i assume? players passing the ball is nothing special.
As amazing as the play was (and it was). It is kind of sad that Trinity only made sportscenter in a down year. The very fact that it took a last second play to beat Milsaps is very telling. This program was always the best in the conference and never had the news coverage during there more successful years.