this is why I brought it up
very true, a loss to NC State might have fired up Clemson or could have deflated them completely
Opinion-What was the single biggest play of the college football season?
- Thread starter Alasippi
- Start date
They were a very different team after the loss to Pitt - a much better team offensively and defensively. I would bet that the loss got them back on track - brought the team back together and helped them buckle down. I would also bet that this happens sooner if they lose sooner. That was a very good football team.
As a Clemson fan, I will respond with something a little different.
While the NC State missed kick was huge, there's no way to know if we would've beaten Pittsburgh at home after that with the division on the line.
I will actually say the biggest play was the 4th down stop against Louisville to preserve that win. If we don't make that stop, Louisville wins our division and we don't make the ACC championship game. Even if they go on to lose to both Houston and Kentucky, we are left with another Ohio State/Penn State-type situation. And if Louisville wins our division, then Alabama is celebrating 17.
While the NC State missed kick was huge, there's no way to know if we would've beaten Pittsburgh at home after that with the division on the line.
I will actually say the biggest play was the 4th down stop against Louisville to preserve that win. If we don't make that stop, Louisville wins our division and we don't make the ACC championship game. Even if they go on to lose to both Houston and Kentucky, we are left with another Ohio State/Penn State-type situation. And if Louisville wins our division, then Alabama is celebrating 17.
Great post - there is so much that happens during a football season. It all matters. Alabama doesn't get the chance to win it in 2015 if not for a miraculous play by Arkansas against Ole Miss late in the season. Had that play failed, Clemson might be celebrating back to back championships right now.
I didn't think of this but this is true
Y'all lose to Louisville you don't play for the title. Then who knows what happens
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I'm glad someone other than me noticed this. There was never a replay of what happened and Herby never said what he did, nor did anyone else for that matter, and Payne just kind of jogged off the field and nobody was shown getting onto him, so it had to be a bogus penalty to continue Clemson's drive.
As 92tide said when I brought this up - paraphrasing - we'd have committed a false start penalty anyway.
That's true, because you really do make different decisions when you're a one-loss team (if the playoff is your goal) than if you're highly ranked and have a slight margin for error. They might have gone for it on some fourth downs or other stuff in that situation.
Of course, everyone here is arguing based on ALABAMA assumptions - the national championship. But there might possibly be another one that had more of a long-term effect than any other: the final play of the LSU-Auburn game is going to affect the sport and the SEC for years.
If LSU wins that game then Auburn is 1-3, and I honestly think that Malzahn is on the hottest of seats although I doubt they fire him at that point in time. When LSU fired Miles the next day, it set off a series of dominoes that led to Ed Orgeron winding up a head coach in the SEC (where he already failed once), got Cam Cameron fired (putting him in line for possibly being the Tide OC), led to season-long rumors about Lane Kiffin going POSSIBLY to LSU as the new OC, and enabled Leonard Fournette to sit out a bowl game. Rumors also erupted about Tom Herman to LSU, which set off a bidding war with UT and LSU for an unproven at that level head coach.
People forget that LSU was only three plays from being in the national title discussion. One could also argue that their pick at the end of the Wisconsin game had a snowball effect.
Another big play was the fourth down failed conversion by Louisville vs Clemson (as already noted). It would have been VERY interesting to see whether Ohio State or Clemson got picked in that circumstance......or both......and then Penn State is probably in the tournament as well.
"Single biggest play" is like "greatest player," the context of what you're asking matters. If you're talking about "what play contributed the most to the eventual national championship winner" then we can take our pick (pardon the pun) from several plays in the Alabama-Clemson game. If you mean "most significant overall," you have to define "overall" and that can be something other than "who won it all."
The last play of the LSU-Auburn game not only involved those teams, it got other teams dragged into "what if" scenarios regarding coaches, both head and coordinators. It got Auburn's kicker some national press, saved Malzahn for now, blew Miles apart, got Orgeron a trial job, got Cam Cameron fired, set in motion Fournette sitting out the Citrus Bowl, got Herman, Jimbo Fisher, Lane Kiffin awash in coaching rumors, and helped contribute to the demise of Charlie Strong at Texas (I do think he was probably gone anyway but the fact that LSU might steal Herman from them undoubtedly made that call all that much easier).
Two things
Scarborough breaking his leg because we seemed to completely abandon the run after that
And the personal foul against payne
Scarborough breaking his leg because we seemed to completely abandon the run after that
And the personal foul against payne
By this u would say the gaming winning play of the 2013 championship was more importAnt than the kick 6.
Alabama probably would be in the title game and probably would have won that game but b/c of that play Auburn goes to the title game and lost.
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A couple of points in response here:
1) The comparison is asymmetric because in one case you're comparing the BCS era of TWO teams in a title game with the playoff era of four. So just because the logic works in one case doesn't mean it will work in the other. The Kick Six would be more of a footnote to history given that Alabama probably makes a four-team playoff even with it occurring.
2) The biggest play of 2013 wasn't even the Kick 6, it was the Prayer at Jordan-Hare. If Georgia doesn't tip the ball, Auburn loses and Alabama goes to the BCSNCG after beating Missouri EVEN IF the Kick Six happens. I've said more than once that as awesome a game as that Iron Bowl was for non-Alabama fans, I wouldn't have minded it so much if Auburn had already lost to UGA and we still were alive. Setting aside our emotions as fans, it was one helluva game, and I knew that when people up north were talking about it in August during the thick of the baseball season.
Why does BCS era matter for this.
Still in the title game.
As for the biggest play it was an example, i wasn't calling it the biggest play of the season.
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When you have to use the word probably twice, it is telling. Whatever play we decide on has to come from that game - chaos theory eliminates plays from previous games.
Because the path to get INTO the title game is harder than before.
In fact - if you want to use THAT argument then the Kick Six doesn't even apply.
The biggest play of 2013 has to be Michigan State stopping Braxton Miller on fourth and 2 at the Mich St 38-yard line.
Because even WITH the Prayer and WITH the Kick Six....Auburn doesn't make a two-team national championship game if Ohio State beats Michigan State, plain and simple.
But that potentially becomes a different argument when you have a semi-final to get through.
The problem here is the SEC myopia that permeates this board far too often. OTHER plays do matter. The problem I have with making the Kick Six the biggest play is this.....unless Griffith makes the 57-yard field goal, the game is still tied.
We cannot assume either that Alabama would have won (in fact, we probably would have lost given how we played that day) or that we would have beaten Mizzou. I think if we had lost on the Kick Six but still played Mizzou, we maul them and maul FSU and everyone is talking about three-peat.
But the title of the thread is "single biggest play of the college football season" and you're the one who introduced 2013.
We rushed seven times for 58 yards after that.
We passed ten times, Hurts was 4 for 9 for 82 yards and Stewart threw one for 24 yards.
We only had seventeen plays after that.
The pass-run split was 10-7, which is actually a good split but......we basically hit three thundering plays and looked mediocre the other 14.
A lot of people also believe that Alabama controlled the ball more in the 1st half, and that is also inaccurate. Alabama had 2 possessions in the entire game which lasted 2 minutes or more - one in the 1st half, and one in the second half. The harsh reality is that Alabama didn't change anything late in the game. You ran your offense. Sadly your offense simply didn't use any clock, even on scoring drives.
I think the biggest play for us this year, was after the Anderson fumble recovery in the first half, on the very first play Cam jumped, it cost us 5 yards and turned an almost sure TD into a FG, as we would have secured the next first down without the penalty. This in my opinion cost us big time the rest of the way.
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