It was my senior year. Back in those days, getting invited to a bowl game was a true accomplishment. In fact, had they finished 6-5, the Tigers probably would have been sitting home for the holidays. Aside from the big four bowls, teams cut their own deals. When Missouri beat Nebraska, everybody wanted them. Here's an excerpt from the book, complete with some commentary from Keith Jackson, who called the meltdown against Colorado.
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The Powers era began with—what else?—a stunning upset of a top 10 opponent on the road. This time the victim was No. 5 Notre Dame; the Tigers knocked off Devine and the defending national champions in South Bend, 3–0. A defeat at home to top-ranked Alabama followed, and two weeks later Mizzou lost at new No. 1 Oklahoma. But the pollsters rewarded the Tigers for their absurd schedule, and after a 56–14 victory at Kansas State, they were ranked 13th. Powers had his guys playing with a chip on their shoulders. Faurot was rocking. I was finally experiencing, as a student, winning, big-time college football.
Then came the unthinkable, the most crushing defeat I witnessed during my four years as a student. It was homecoming, and Colorado was the unfortunate opponent. An overflow crowd along with an ABC audience watched the Tigers storm to a 27–7, third-quarter lead. Mizzou was loaded on both sides of the ball—tight end Kellen Winslow and running back James Wilder were among the 14 players who would be selected in the next four NFL drafts—and as the Tigers were coasting to their sixth victory of the season, analyst Ara Parseghian told the viewing audience, “I’ll tell you. Anybody who doesn’t think Missouri is for real ...” He stopped in mid-sentence, then praised Wilder, fellow running back Earl Gant and quarterback Phil Bradley. Play-by-play man Keith Jackson, who already had been gushing about the size and physicality of Winslow, Wilder and Gant, added: “I do get the feeling, Ara, that the Missouri people have taken over the line of scrimmage.”
Whoa, Nellie. Slowly, the Buffs chipped away, and with a pair of TDs three minutes apart in the fourth quarter, they led 28–27. Suddenly, a botched snap on the extra-point attempt after Mizzou’s third touchdown loomed large. With less than five minutes remaining, Bradley found Gant streaking down the left sideline a good 15 yards behind the Colorado defense. Gant, however, dropped the perfectly delivered pass. He pounded his right fist into the turf, then lay face down, motionless, for a good five seconds. “Holy cow,” Jackson bellowed. “He drrr-opped it. That will haunt him the rest of his life.”
Unfazed, Bradley moved the Tigers into field-goal range, but with about two minutes left, Jeff Brockhaus, who would kick in the USFL and get a cup of coffee in the NFL, missed a 43-yard field-goal attempt that fluttered and fell a couple of yards short of the crossbar. As the clock wound down and the Buffs celebrated their first victory in Columbia since 1966, a camera caught Gant on the sideline. In his distinctive down-home voice, Jackson said, “The man who’s going to go to the supper table and to bed tonight haunted by the memories of this ball game will be Earl Gant, who was wide open and home free for a go-ahead touchdown for Missouri. He looked up into the sun, took his eyes off the ball (pause) and he drrr-opped it.”
Two days later, Keith Graham, a grad student in the photojournalism sequence, walked over to the Missourian sports desk with a shot he had taken a split second before Brockhaus’ right foot met the football. Something looked amiss, and sure enough, frozen in time was the image of holder Jay Jeffrey placing the ball on the grass, behind the black kicking platform that was used in the day. The tack-sharp, three-column photo ran in the next day’s Missourian — fittingly it was Halloween. Block that kick took on a whole new meaning. Brockhaus deserved credit just for advancing the ball within a couple of yards of the crossbar.
Mizzou was upset again the next week at Oklahoma State, and just like that, a season that two Saturdays earlier appeared certain to end with an invitation to a marquee bowl was in danger of ending before Thanksgiving for the fifth straight year. Though he took his foot off the gas, Powers got on the alumni’s good side with a 48–0 whipping of Kansas at Faurot, and a week later the Tigers headed to Lincoln for a meeting with No. 2 Nebraska. The Cornhuskers were coming off an upset of top-ranked Oklahoma. Only the formality of beating a 6–4 Missouri team stood between the Big Red and a trip to the Orange Bowl to play Penn State for the national championship. Again, the Tigers turned the college football world upside down. They shocked the Cornhuskers, 35–31. The winning touchdown came on one of the most storied runs in the history of the program: a Wilder romp off left tackle that covered all of six yards. Halfway to the end zone, he tossed aside a Nebraska defender as if he were a rag doll. “Did you see that?” analyst Bill Wilkerson shouted on the Tigers’ radio network. “Did you see him take that man and throw him down?” Added equally incredulous play-by-play man Dan Kelly, “You will not believe what Wilder did.” Nor would anyone have believed the Cornhuskers’ fate. Nebraska got its trip to the Orange Bowl, all right — for a rematch with Oklahoma, while the Tigers, suddenly the darlings of bowl reps from coast to coast, accepted an invitation to face LSU in the Liberty Bowl.
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The Powers era began with—what else?—a stunning upset of a top 10 opponent on the road. This time the victim was No. 5 Notre Dame; the Tigers knocked off Devine and the defending national champions in South Bend, 3–0. A defeat at home to top-ranked Alabama followed, and two weeks later Mizzou lost at new No. 1 Oklahoma. But the pollsters rewarded the Tigers for their absurd schedule, and after a 56–14 victory at Kansas State, they were ranked 13th. Powers had his guys playing with a chip on their shoulders. Faurot was rocking. I was finally experiencing, as a student, winning, big-time college football.
Then came the unthinkable, the most crushing defeat I witnessed during my four years as a student. It was homecoming, and Colorado was the unfortunate opponent. An overflow crowd along with an ABC audience watched the Tigers storm to a 27–7, third-quarter lead. Mizzou was loaded on both sides of the ball—tight end Kellen Winslow and running back James Wilder were among the 14 players who would be selected in the next four NFL drafts—and as the Tigers were coasting to their sixth victory of the season, analyst Ara Parseghian told the viewing audience, “I’ll tell you. Anybody who doesn’t think Missouri is for real ...” He stopped in mid-sentence, then praised Wilder, fellow running back Earl Gant and quarterback Phil Bradley. Play-by-play man Keith Jackson, who already had been gushing about the size and physicality of Winslow, Wilder and Gant, added: “I do get the feeling, Ara, that the Missouri people have taken over the line of scrimmage.”
Whoa, Nellie. Slowly, the Buffs chipped away, and with a pair of TDs three minutes apart in the fourth quarter, they led 28–27. Suddenly, a botched snap on the extra-point attempt after Mizzou’s third touchdown loomed large. With less than five minutes remaining, Bradley found Gant streaking down the left sideline a good 15 yards behind the Colorado defense. Gant, however, dropped the perfectly delivered pass. He pounded his right fist into the turf, then lay face down, motionless, for a good five seconds. “Holy cow,” Jackson bellowed. “He drrr-opped it. That will haunt him the rest of his life.”
Unfazed, Bradley moved the Tigers into field-goal range, but with about two minutes left, Jeff Brockhaus, who would kick in the USFL and get a cup of coffee in the NFL, missed a 43-yard field-goal attempt that fluttered and fell a couple of yards short of the crossbar. As the clock wound down and the Buffs celebrated their first victory in Columbia since 1966, a camera caught Gant on the sideline. In his distinctive down-home voice, Jackson said, “The man who’s going to go to the supper table and to bed tonight haunted by the memories of this ball game will be Earl Gant, who was wide open and home free for a go-ahead touchdown for Missouri. He looked up into the sun, took his eyes off the ball (pause) and he drrr-opped it.”
Two days later, Keith Graham, a grad student in the photojournalism sequence, walked over to the Missourian sports desk with a shot he had taken a split second before Brockhaus’ right foot met the football. Something looked amiss, and sure enough, frozen in time was the image of holder Jay Jeffrey placing the ball on the grass, behind the black kicking platform that was used in the day. The tack-sharp, three-column photo ran in the next day’s Missourian — fittingly it was Halloween. Block that kick took on a whole new meaning. Brockhaus deserved credit just for advancing the ball within a couple of yards of the crossbar.
Mizzou was upset again the next week at Oklahoma State, and just like that, a season that two Saturdays earlier appeared certain to end with an invitation to a marquee bowl was in danger of ending before Thanksgiving for the fifth straight year. Though he took his foot off the gas, Powers got on the alumni’s good side with a 48–0 whipping of Kansas at Faurot, and a week later the Tigers headed to Lincoln for a meeting with No. 2 Nebraska. The Cornhuskers were coming off an upset of top-ranked Oklahoma. Only the formality of beating a 6–4 Missouri team stood between the Big Red and a trip to the Orange Bowl to play Penn State for the national championship. Again, the Tigers turned the college football world upside down. They shocked the Cornhuskers, 35–31. The winning touchdown came on one of the most storied runs in the history of the program: a Wilder romp off left tackle that covered all of six yards. Halfway to the end zone, he tossed aside a Nebraska defender as if he were a rag doll. “Did you see that?” analyst Bill Wilkerson shouted on the Tigers’ radio network. “Did you see him take that man and throw him down?” Added equally incredulous play-by-play man Dan Kelly, “You will not believe what Wilder did.” Nor would anyone have believed the Cornhuskers’ fate. Nebraska got its trip to the Orange Bowl, all right — for a rematch with Oklahoma, while the Tigers, suddenly the darlings of bowl reps from coast to coast, accepted an invitation to face LSU in the Liberty Bowl.
