College football’s 150th anniversary: The 150 best moments that stood the test of time

3. The Kick-Six (2013)

Alabama was the two-time defending national champion and the top-ranked team in the country when they traveled to the Plains to face rival Auburn in the 2013 Iron Bowl. The Crimson Tide faced a Tigers squad sitting at No. 4 in the rankings. The winner was destined to play in the SEC championship game, and the loser would fall out of conference and BCS contention.

Auburn scored a tying touchdown with 32 seconds remaining. With one second remaining, Alabama lined up to give kicker Adam Griffith a shot at a game-winning 57-yarder. Griffith, in because regular kicker Cade Foster had already missed three field goals in the contest, dropped the kick short of the uprights.

Chris Davis, positioned in case the kick went short, fielded the ball and dashed 109 yards for a game-winner in the other direction. The reversal of fortunes knocked Alabama from any shot at a three-peat and put Auburn in the SEC championship and the final BCS championship game.

2. Vince Young’s Magic Moment (2006)

The voting wasn’t as close as we tend to think in retrospect. Reggie Bush ran away with the 2005 Heisman Trophy in a landslide, capturing 784 first-place votes to finish nearly 1000 points ahead of Vince Young in the voting. Yet Young certainly had a chip on his shoulder as his Texas Longhorns squared off against the USC Trojans in the BCS national championship at the Rose Bowl.

The instant classic in Pasadena was exciting throughout, but the indelible moment from that night in California is undoubtedly the final Longhorns play. Down 38-33 and facing 4th-and-5 with less than 30 seconds remaining, Young took the snap and found his receivers blanketed by the coverage.

So Young did what he had done throughout the night, tucking the ball and bolting downfield. Racing for the pylon at the goal line, the Longhorns quarterback got a critical block from lineman Justin Blalock on his third trip to the endzone. With 19 seconds left on the clock, Texas added a two-point conversion and wrote their own legendary chapter in the BCS era as Young avenged his Heisman loss on a 200-yard rushing night.

1. The Play (1982)

Given the wealth of memories across college football history, a play would have to be truly memorable to be considered “The Play” among the great moments. The last-second Cal Golden Bears kickoff return to beat Bay Area rival Stanford lives up to that level of memorability. Entering the game 5-5, Stanford was up 20-19 after kicking a field goal that went through the uprights with four seconds remaining. It looked like John Elway had engineered one of the signature comebacks for which he became so famous in the pros and finally earned a trip to a bowl game.

But the Cardinal still had to kick off, and they opted to squib kick the ball to the Golden Bears. Confused and unready for the ball, Cal only had 10 players on the field. Stanford would soon have dozens, but nobody could stop the Golden Bears from stomping on the bowl dreams of their rivals. After several laterals by Cal seemingly stalled, the Stanford band charged the field, thinking the game was over, as did many of the players on the bench.

But Richard Rodgers found a racing Mariet Ford in stride with another lateral, but Ford was slowed by the advancing band and blindly heaved the ball over his right shoulder. Kevin Moen, the original player to touch the ball on the kickoff, nabbed Ford’s prayer at the 25 and bolted for the goal line.

37 years later, it remains one of the most contentious, most unbelievable, and most memorable plays ever to transpire in college football history.