You misspelled "how did I get 43 words into the OP and stop just short of “Music City Miracle”.
That wasn’t as egregious as CU coach Bill McCartney’s refusal to forfeit the game to its rightful winner, as the Cornell coach did in an identical situation in a 1940 game. McCartney went on to a career preaching ethical conduct as the founder of Promise Keepers. :rolleyes:
As a Ga Tech alumnus, I will say that Colorado shared the National Championship with Ga Tech. Tech was voted number #1 in the Coaches Poll, Tech was undefeated with one tie (to UNC). FTR, Colorado had one loss (to Illinois) and one tie (to Tennessee).
This 2001 win for Michigan State over Michigan supposedly led to a rule where the timekeeper is part of the officiating crew. I give you The Clock
Oh, and the voice is that of the Michigan radio broadcaster, not the ABC TV crew.
For basketball: The Hershey Hundred
There’s the Choke at Doak, where Florida led Florida State 31-3 in the fourth quarter but had to settle for a 31-31 tie in 1994. :mad: Luckily for me, I was at swim practice and therefore didn’t have to suffer through the fourth quarter.
re: The Raiders/Chargers “Holy Roller” play.
The refs blew it twice, as Bolt-Eater said, and because they didn’t flag Raiders’ RB Pete Banaszak for an illegal forward pass. Banaszak was past the line of scrimmage and yet he illegally threw the ball forward. The fact his throw was an underhand pitch instead of a more normal throw doesn’t change the fact that it was against the rules in place at the time.
Back on topic, there’s the Raiders/Patriots “Tuck Rule” game. I’ve got issues with the refs in that one too but I won’t belabor them here. 
Yes, it was a fifth down, but Colorado spiked the ball on fourth down to stop the clock. It wasn’t as if they were taking five chances to get into the end zone. If they’d run a play instead, they score 95% of the time anyway. It wasn’t that big of a deal in terms of the football played on the field.
Yes, but if Nebraska coach Tom Osborne hadn’t been such a petty bitch by not voting Colorado anywhere in the top 20 on his ballot, Georgia Tech wouldn’t have won the coaches poll.
I’m not going to forfeit because the field was slippery. What a maroon.
Ask a Husker fan, we have the Flea-Kicker in the same Mizzou end zone. The WR kicked the ball as he was falling and other WR caught it. Some say it was a lucky bounce, others say it was illegal to kick it. Probably a bit of both.
It actually didn’t win the game, it only tied it. Both teams still had an equal chance to win in OT.
:rolleyes: (not even going to bother asking for a cite). On an interesting note, Osborne was accused of the same thing when Michigan split the title with NU in 1997. I bet he also helped Bush with Florida in 2000.
Both “instances” were before coaches made their picks public, so I don’t know how “they” could’ve known how he voted.
I watched that, but it seems to be “just” a very well executed play. Why is this in particular a “miracle play”?
The Midnight Miracle. Dolphins @ Jets, Jets came back from 30-7 down in the 4th to win it in overtime. So named because it was the longest game in MNF history, ending at 1:20am on the East coast.
I was actually at that game live, stayed to the end (screaming my lungs bloody) and didn’t get home until after 3am. Showed up to work around 11am on Tuesday to great envy from my coworkers and boss who couldn’t believe I was diehard enough to stay when it was 30-7 in the fourth quarter.
In Super Bowl 34, Mike Jones of the St Louis Rams made “The Tackle” on Titan’s Kevin Dyson to seal the Rams SB victory with no time left on the clock.
Good lord…I can’t believe I left that off my OP.Used it as my Wallpaper for a few years even.
I watched that game with 3 other people.A passed out drunk guy(at the time of the tackle),A former drug addict, turned preacher, and his Chilean wife who spoke very little English and had never seen an NFL game before.Her reaction to my reaction of “The Tackle” was amusing.
There’s “that try” from the 1973 Barbarians v. All Blacks game in Cardiff. 40secs into this video, although it’s worth watching it from the start, just to witness the lamest Haka I’ve ever seen (seriously its like Dads dancing at a wedding, compare to this!), and to see how much rugby union has changed in 40 years :eek:
You normally get flattened after running 2 metres in rugby league.
Cool thread.
Most I can think of have been mentioned. So, I’ll take another direction.
The standard bearers for each sport.
The Immaculate Reception - NFL
Shot heard 'round the world - MLB
Miracle on Ice - Hockey
NBA - I hate the NBA. 
(all I can think of is Havlechek stole the ball!, but I don’t know if any name was given to it)
By the by, Pittsburgh Pirate Bill Mazeroski hit the ultimate walk-off bottom of the ninth homerun in the 1960 World Series against the Yankees. I don’t remember it having any name given to it. Is there one out there? (maybe the smartass NY writers were too busy crying in their typewriters to come up with something memorable)
Heck, if there’s going to be a name given to a miracle NBA play, one of the top contenders has to be Derk Fisher hitting a 3 from an inbounds pass with .4 seconds to go to win a playoff game against the Spurs.
Well - the Spurs were involved, so nothing exciting can be reported. I’d go with either MJ or Reggie Miller with their playoff winning shots. For college - who do you go with? Laetner? Curry? Super Mario? 'Nova?