Something Imitating Something

I could give a shit about college bowl season. I know, I know, it's a great tradition and all. But unless you're a big fan of one of the teams involved, it can be surprisingly tough to get into a meaningless exhibition game played in a half-empty neutral stadium.

As for the people who fly halfway across the country to support their team in the Papajohns.com Bowl, they are indisputably deserving of some kind of slap. Pick one out of a hat for all I care, but someone please slap these folks.

But sometime around 9 a.m., I remembered that Boise State had trickified its way to a win over Oklahoma last night in the Fiesta Bowl. The final, in case you missed it, was 43-42 in OT, with Boise taking home the title on a game-winning Statue of Liberty 2-point conversion play.



Ah, the venerable Game-Winning OT Statue of Liberty 2-Point Conversion Play. Is there any football convention more cherished?

The dramatic potential of football has always been its hook. The NFL was put on the map by the 1958 Championship between the Colts and Giants, when Johnny Unitas led Baltimore to a sudden death OT victory on national television. In terms of building a national following (one that would eventually eclipse the far more established field of college ball), Alan Ameche plunging into the end zone was the first salvo.

Most of the famous football moments, the ones you know from heart, derive from last-second drama. The Immaculate Reception. Flutie's Hail Mary. Starr going into the end zone in the Ice Bowl. "The Catch."

Trick plays, though, have only occasionally figured into the mix , depending on how you characterize a play like Cal-Stanford's kick return. There are execptions. We can probably all agree the Music City Miracle was a successfully executed last-second game-winning trick play, just as I can agree to put off bashing my head into a wall until I've finished writing this post.

Still, the dramatic game-ending gadget gag has largely been ceded to Hollywood, the better to play with our expectations and sporting conventions. Boise State's got nothing on the script writers of Southern California.

In other words, the Top 5 Cinematic Game-Winning Plays are ...

Honorable Mention

Jamie Foxx airs it out ("Any Given Sunday"), Operation Mexican Secession ("Little Giants"), Falco doesn't choke ("The Replacements")

No. 5 -- Bakula puts it between the numbers ("Necessary Roughness")

The closest parallel to the Boise State game, as it happens. Plucky Texas State is keeping pace with Texas in the big game, scores a TD to get within one point. Coach Hector Elizondo calls for a fake extra point; QB Scott Bakula picks up the ball and scrambles around in the backfield looking for a receiver.

He finds his man Banks open in the back of the end zone, wearing the same No. 88 jersey worn by the tackling dummy Bakula passed to for years alone back on the farm. The ball comes in like an RPG, and the catch is made. Scene.

No. 4 -- The Hook and Ladder ("Varsity Blues")

Insert index finder into mouth. Tug. Make little kiddy paws up and down. That's the idea!

This was another Hollywood play with something of a real-life antecedent, the ur-example being the stunning H&L for the Dolphins in a 1981 playoff game against the Chargers (Don Strock passing to Duriel Harris, who pitched it back to a sprinting Tony Nathan). The score of that game was 41-38, at that point the highest-scoring postseason contest ever, and the Bolts eventually pulled it out.

But at least Tony Nathan was able to sprint. Nobody has ever accused Ron Lester of being a sprinter, not now nor then. But Billy Bob, the big fella, was the one charged with getting the lateral from Scott Caan, and he makes the catch.

Slowly proceeding toward paydirt, he knocks aside a couple of safeties. Then, he carries about half a platoon of Gilmer High defenders on his back and falls down across the goal line with the weight of the season across his shoulders, allowing James Van Der Beek to go to Brown and never play football again.

No. 3 -- The Home Run Throwback ("2000 AFC Playoffs")

I still get confused sometimes. It did happen, right? Sigh.

No. 3a -- Crewe's Plunge ("The Longest Yard")

The original, you asshole. You thought about it for a moment, and I hate you for it. Disgusting.

Anyway, Burt Reynolds needs the titular yard to beat the guards, and for dramatic reasons, another drop kick is out. So, he looks for a bootleg that isn't there, scrambles around the backfield for a while, and then goes over the top through a trio of linemen, Marcus Allen-style, for the win. Lee Corso almost fell out of his seat applauding.

The warden then almost has poor Burt killed for trying to retrieve the game football, confirming his spot on the short list of all-time evil prison wardens (another discussion in its own right).

No. 2 -- The Halfback Option Throwback ("The Waterboy")

The gutsiest call of all these plays, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, Coach Klein was entrusting the Bourbon Bowl to the arm of a player who may well have never have thrown a football before. You can't see many gridiron minds going in that direction. That's unorthodox.

For another, the Waterboy was targeting his new friend, played by noted Sandler friend/hanger-on Peter Dante; in any number of ways, the man was the least-talented cinematic quarterback any of us will ever see in this lifetime. So, again, a tough call.

But hey, Dan Fouts liked it. Can't hold anything back here.

No. 1 -- The Tec-9 Shuffle ("The Last Boy Scout")

This is cheating in a couple of ways. The play doesn't come at the end of the movie; it comes in the first couple of scenes. The game in question isn't central to the movie; indeed, it's almost a completely incidental throw-in.

The plot value is nearly nil. The general senselessness and gratuitous violence of the scene nicely illustrates why the pic was such a huge flop, even with a smoking young Halle Berry playing a stripper. (She's killed off far too soon ... the movie was made by amateurs).

But in terms of pure drama, nothing tops the end of that game between Chicago and Los Angeles under monsoon conditions at Soldier Field. Drug-addled RB Billy Cole (played by future Tae-Bo legend Billy Blanks!), needing 150 yards rushing on the day to satisfy his gambling masters, takes a pitch from the quarterback and runs left.

The hole he needs isn't there. So he whips out a gun. And starts firing.

A kneecap here, a chest shot there. The free safety takes one between the eyes.

The crowd goes nuts, and the other players stop pursuing him. Blanks trots into the end zone, drops the ball, and looks at the onrush of security and police about to take him down. Looking down the business end of dozens of guns, he puts his own to his head, and right before firing, asks, "Ain't life a bitch?"

If this ever happens in a bowl game, well, maybe my impression of college football will change.