There has been one game all year long that LSU fans have seen on the schedule and wished was not there. Any year but this one is a sentiment I have heard. Why? Because phrases such "It all even Evens Out" is true. When one reads the following article from today's Kentucky paper .I don't think I am alone in getting a bad feeling. Plus Kentucky is good and always gives us fits up there. In essence one hopes that the Cosmos doesn't look down and suddenly says"OOPS need to even that out a tad". Derailing LSU Championship hopes would foot the bill.
Five years removed, one play still haunts
FORMER CATS RELIVE LSU'S 2002 VICTORY
Imagine if the absolute worst moment of your career had been caught on videotape -- then shown over and over and over on national TV for years after it happened.
Welcome to the torment of football's 2002 Kentucky Wildcats.
Five years after it occurred, the last-second Hail Mary pass play that LSU fans named The Bluegrass Miracle is still an open sore for the Kentucky football players who wound up on the wrong end of one of college football's more bizarre endings.
When The Best Damn Sports Show, Period is running one of its ubiquitous countdowns on topics like The 50 Most Spectacular Football Plays, Ellery Moore will watch. Yet when the former Kentucky defensive lineman senses that the countdown is about to hit real close to home, his remote goes into action.
"I definitely go out of my way not to see it," says Moore. "They'll do those countdown shows and I'm like, 'Whoa, we're coming up.' And I switch the channel."
On Saturday, LSU returns to Commonwealth Stadium for the first time since Marcus Randall's thrice-deflected, 75-yard touchdown pass to Devery Henderson on the game's final play foiled what had seemed certain to be a memorable UK upset.
This week, I've been surveying players from that 2002 Kentucky team on how, five years later, they've dealt with the aftermath of what is the single most famous play in UK football history.
The play
Much has been made of how the LSU Hail Mary represented the ultimate act of bad luck in the allegedly cursed history of Kentucky football. But, actually, this was a man-made disaster.
When Randall unleashed his final heave from the LSU 18, the ball came down amid a gaggle of LSU receivers (four) and UK defenders (six) just inside the UK 30. It deflected off the hands of Kentucky free safety Quentus Cumby near the 25. The ball flew through the hands of linebacker Morris Lane. Defensive back Earven Flowers tipped it again on the 21.
LSU's Henderson caught the third deflection, bobbled it near the 15, then split UK corners Derrick Tatum and Leonard Burress on his way to the end zone.
Error one: LSU should not have had time for final plays after Kentucky's go-ahead field goal. Rather than letting the clock run down three or four seconds before calling its final timeout to set up the field-goal attempt, a UK lineman called time with 15 seconds to go.
Error two: Rather than knocking the ball down or just letting LSU catch it and then tackle the receiver, Kentucky defenders appeared to try to catch the ball which created the deflections.
Quentus Cumby, the ex-Kentucky safety who was the first player with his hands on that final pass: "When I was in the NFL with the Packers and (playing) in Canada and even the guys I work with now (Cumby is a scout for the 49ers), they've all given me a pretty good ragging about that play.
"It's always, 'What happened, didn't you know to knock the ball down?'
"And you know what? I don't really have a good answer for that. I just tried to make a play on the ball."
Morris Lane, the former UK linebacker who had his hands on that final pass: "There was sort of a perfect storm of mistakes on that final play. It comes down to a lot of people made mistakes. In retrospect, instead of having two or three guys try to make a play on the ball, we should have just knocked it down or even just let them catch it and take them to the ground. The bottom line is we had the game, and we didn't do what we needed to to finish it. That's what hurts so much."
The immediate aftermath
Almost certainly, the nation's fascination with the Bluegrass Miracle owes as much to the bizarre atmosphere of the final play as to the unlikely TD pass itself.
UK standouts Jared Lorenzen and Antonio Hall doused Coach Guy Morriss with Gatorade before the final play was run.
Operating off a timer, "victory" fireworks went off when the scoreboard clock hit zero -- while LSU was in the process of winning the game.
On the end zone opposite of where LSU scored, oblivious Kentucky fans were tearing down the goal post.
Former Kentucky receiver Gerad Parker: "I was standing on the end of the field where it happened. A lot of our guys weren't even watching as it happened. I remember Coach Morriss. He screamed really loud. I think he screamed 'Nooooo!' I'll never forget that scream."
Ex-Kentucky place-kicker Taylor Begley, whose field goal had moved Kentucky ahead of the nation's No. 16 team 30-27 with 11 seconds left: "I remember after my kick, Tony Neely (the UK football publicist) came up to me on the sideline and says 'A lot of people are going to want to talk to you. Stay with me. Stay with me.' Then that play happens. There's just chaos on the field, and I'm standing there all alone. No one wanted to talk to me."
Former Kentucky receiver Tommy Cook: "I'll tell you what is very vivid, there were all of our fans running on the field. They were slapping us on the back. It was like (the UK players) were the only ones in the entire place that knew what happened. People kept congratulating me, and I'd say, 'You know we lost?'"
Derek Abney, the ex-Kentucky receiver and star kick-returner: "I remember this LSU fan running by me wearing some kind of really silly suit, like a cow costume."
A front page Herald-Leader photo the day after the game made "the guy in the cow suit," an LSU student named Joey Herzog who was on the field celebrating, semi-famous.
"Then I saw another LSU fan take a pylon (from the end zone)," Abney said. "I don't know how to explain this, but taking that pylon just enraged me. I was going after that guy. Somebody grabbed me and stopped me. Obviously, what I was really upset about was losing that way. It really hurt."
Five years later
The 2002 Kentucky Wildcats were one of the most popular teams in modern Kentucky football history. With stars like Lorenzen, Abney, running back Artose Pinner and defensive tackle Dewayne Robertson, the '02 Cats gave their fans a feel-good, 7-5 season after the UK program had been engulfed in turmoil and NCAA probation following the collapse of the Hal Mumme coaching regime.
Yet, the '02 Cats are haunted by the knowledge that, if they had just knocked down that pass, they'd have secured an even more prominent spot in UK sports lore.
Knock down that LSU pass, and, in 2002, UK would have had only its fourth eight-win season since Bear Bryant left Lexington in 1953. Knock down that LSU pass, and that nucleus of UK players would have had their first (and, if history stayed the same, only) win over an old-line SEC power.
Ellery Moore: "What bothers me, that was a great game. There were great plays both ways. But nobody remembers how hard we fought to get back in that game, how we rallied in the fourth quarter to put ourselves in position to do something special. It's all about that one play."
Taylor Begley: "You know those highlight film clips they show (on the giant video screens in Commonwealth)? They show the 1984 team (UK's Hall of Fame Bowl champions) and Tim Couch throwing. It would have been nice to see my mug up there for having hit the game-winning field goal in such a big game, I do think about that sometimes."
Former UK cornerback Leonard Burress: "I hope our fans learned a lesson, too. If you're a fan in Commonwealth, your butt doesn't need to be out of your seat until the final ball hits the ground and the clock says zero, zero, zero."
Ex-UK linebacker Ronnie Riley: "Every time I see that play, it hurts. But when people come up to me and ask if I played college football, I tell them you can go on YouTube and see me. And I point them to the clip of that play. I figure it happened, I may as well use it. It's a great icebreaker."
Morris Lane: "You know what I think about? After that game, it was very emotional, guys were just going berserk in our locker room, throwing things. I think about what Coach Morriss said. He said, 'I have no words to make you feel better. No speech prepared for what you guys just went through. But you've got to get ready for the next team you play. They don't care what just happened to you.'
"We did win our next game (41-21 over Vanderbilt). I'm proud of that. In life, sometimes things happen to you that don't seem fair. It's not about what happens to you; it's about how you respond."
Those replays.
ESPN seems to look for the most random of reasons to run replays of Guy Morriss getting his premature Gatorade "victory" bath. So after five years, can the Kentucky players who lived through what was for them a real-life nightmare watch those highlights?
Ronnie Riley: "I've probably seen it at least 30 times. I don't try to avoid it. But I 're-feel it' every time. It hurts."
Taylor Begley: "I've seen it a million times. But I don't need to (see it on TV) for it to come back. I can see it in my mind's eye right now exactly as it happened in real time."
Leonard Burress: "I've probably seen it, I'd say, 20 times. It hurts me every time I see it. It happened on my birthday (Nov. 9). Every year (on my birthday), that's what I think about."
Derek Abney: "I watch it when it comes on. I don't avoid it. I've almost become numb to it, they show it so many times."
Quentus Cumby: "That day was the worst moment of my career. Hopefully, the day will come when I don't have to see that over and over."
Pause.
"But I know that's not going to happen. ESPN and ESPN Classic will never let that happen."
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