September 9, 2020 • 43 mins
The Miracle Bowl. Without a doubt, the 1980 Holiday Bowl is one of the top three college football bowl games of the past 40 years. Eric Dickerson and Craig James, the 'Pony Express' of SMU, owned the first 56 minutes. And then Jim McMahon led BYU on a once-in-a-lifetime comeback, complete with a touchdown that probably shouldn't have counted, a Hail Mary that defies explanation, and the beginning of a college football debate that we're still having in 2020. Oh, and the luckiest guy at the game may have been the play-by-play announcer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
(00:20):
Greetings and Welcome Inside Special Teams, the podcast where me,
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon go over special teams from
specific years in sports. We're going back into the nineteen
eighties now, which is a fun time to go. There
were so many wide open, fun games to get to.
And this week we're gonna look back at what many
people say could be the greatest college football game of
(00:43):
the past fifty years, and the eight Holiday Ball also
known as the Miracle Bowl, a game which pitted the
b YU Cougars against the s m U Mustangs. This
is the early days of the Pony Express and Greg
James and Eric Dickerson and Lance mclaney at quarterback against
the b YU Cougars and Jim McMahon. This back when
b y U was the Boise State of college football,
(01:06):
where every year b y you would win a lot
of games in the Whack and there would be the
question of do they deserve to win a national championship
or not? And we debated, debated, debated. This is a
big five six year run for b y U and
one future podcast we'll get into the year they actually
did win the national title. But this game, a forty
five win by b y U over s m U,
(01:28):
had absolutely everything in it, including the late comeback by
Mike Harmon's favorite NFL quarterback of all time, Jim McMahon.
Well he does rank up there. Any guy that will
rock aheadman that questions authority and that the NFL commissioner
is all good by me. Blank you rose element or
headband with your name on it. Think about it. That
was the first time you had helicopters going over and
(01:49):
trying to get pictures of what was going on, or
at least that's as early as I remember it. But
as you say, I mean this, this was the B
y U squad that perennial double digit victories and always
the hand ringing of all right, we keep them out right,
And then you started doing all this other math and
as they kept changing the systems, you kept opening the
(02:10):
door just a little bit. Yeah, they were the They
were the original of the outside the Power five conferences.
How legit are they? And you know they with the
offense they had. Lavell Edwards was an incredible head coach.
You talked about their schedule, all right, they're playing teams
in the whack. They would get outside the whack once
in a while, but is it enough to really show
(02:31):
them and and and spotlight them as one of the
best teams in college football? And honestly, this game is
the one that really put them on the map because
at this point, the Holiday Bowl is only in its
third season, right, the hollidayall the b y U tradition
there there every year they play in the middle of December.
That was a Holiday Bowl. But it's only in its
third year. You know, the whack champion is committed to
go there. And this is b y U winning its
(02:54):
fifth straight conference title. But they hadn't won the Holiday
Bowl yet. You know, this is the year they started out.
They lost opening week to New Mexico, which they finished
four and seven. You look back and go, how the
hell did that happen? One? They lost in New Mexico
opening week? How the hell did they pull that off? Yeah,
going back through that game, I mean, you had a
(03:14):
bunch of sacks, so I mean that that was commonplace,
so you know, offsetting your rushing total, but the rushing
attack didn't exist. They had fifteen penalties for a hundred
and twenty two yards. Uh, so you hang a star
on that one. But you know they won the turnover
battle in a big way. Five the two the final there,
(03:35):
but it didn't matter. Uh New Mexico just enough to
eke out of victory Jim McMahon and with with a
single well, I had two touchdowns on the day, but
just a bunch of field goals. A guy named Pete
Parks for the victory. Just uh. He's a legend and
I'm sure they bronzed his foot and put it in
a trophy case at the end of the season. Go
(03:56):
and see how good they were and how prolific they were.
We got him and t J. Pete Parks and wrecked
B y U Week one with okay um nicely done.
It was a question of whether you were going to
go there huh, or were you gonna go and uh
turn it into Peter Parker Oregon Parks Department. I could
have done that too. That's good to no summer job
(04:18):
for Parks departmentalizing the win over B y U. So
if B y U somehow wins that game, we're having
the National Championship conversation for b y U four years
earlier for a maybe not four maybe not. Maybe they
win that one and then somewhere they slip up down
the road. But if you beat a four and seven
team and you win the rest of your games, you're
(04:39):
having the national champion conversation. Because they were that good.
They blew out everybody they played. They led college football
in total offense over five hundred yards a game, scoring
forty six points a game, passing yards four nine yards
a game. I mean, people forget how good and prolific
Jim McMahon was. We remember him as this great leader
and and emotionally what he was for the Chicago Bears.
(05:02):
But in college, I mean he was throwing for forty
touchdowns in four thousand yards. I mean he had a
phenomenal collegiate career. Steve Young was a freshman backup on
this team. Andy Reid was on the offensive line, Bart Oates,
Visa Kahemma, Tom Homeoll, Kyle Winningham, who was now the
head coach at Utah. But McMahon was the star of
(05:22):
this team, and he winds up going number five overall
of the Bears a couple of years later. But he remember,
he came into the league like he's gonna be the
next big superstar. He's gonna be Dan Marino, the numbers
he putting these electric numbers he's putting up in college,
he's gonna do in the NFL. That was the hype
around Jim mcmah one. Well, and that curiosity of how
that was gonna work, because at that point you still
(05:44):
got a couple of years of Walter Baton left right
as you're flowing through, and it's always been a run
heavy offense. Looking most we don't need to go into
a deep dive of Bears quarterbacking through the years, and
now the Vince Evans years. Well, I mean, look, when
when it's all done. As much people as people hate
on Jay Cutler, you can make the argument pretty easily
(06:06):
he was the best quarterback they've seen since Sid Luckman.
But McMahon with the the braggadocious style. But I mean
go back to his stats, as you mentioned, forty seven touchdowns,
and this is the thing that's that's the curiosity for me.
Forty seven touchdowns, eighteen picks in his junior year. But
he completed almost sixty of his throws plus yards. And
(06:31):
then he comes back and in that eighty in the
eight one season, complete sixty of his passes again, thirty
touchdowns seven picks. So I mean you're talking about winging
it around, uh and getting after it. Certainly for Chicago
fans they're expecting big things of an aerial assault. But
(06:52):
we also know that's where wide receivers go to die. Right.
How many guys have been quoted as saying that through
the years and why it's difficult to get people to
come play at a frozen Chicago lakefront for half of
your season. So, but Jim McMahon always a character and
plenty of stories in the Naked City with him. So
(07:15):
b YU comes into this game eleven and one MAC
champions and they take on SMU eight and three in
the Southwest Conference. And this was the early days, as
I said, of the Pony Express, the most famous team
in SMU history. Craig James went on to the NFL
and you see him announcing everywhere. And Eric Dickerson, who
went on to a Hall of Fame career in the
(07:36):
National Football League. The Eric Dickerson friend of our show.
Eric Dickerson, we have him on all the time, gave
us big headlines a couple of years ago with some
fun stuff he made. He exacted some change in Los Angeles,
got his revenge on on on Jeff Fisher, that's for sure.
But this was the most prolific running offense in college football,
(07:57):
and you have the most prolific passing offense in college football.
I mean, the Pony Express was really both of them.
You you think, well, was it really Dickerson was the
main guy. No, it wasn't. All right this year when
they were both sophomores, right, this is the first year
of their breakout years. James ran for eight hundred ninety
six yards five yards to carry, six touchdowns. Dickerson was
very similar yards five yards per carry, five touchdowns. Their
(08:21):
true breakout, which we'll get into later on, was a
year away, but they really shared the load throughout the time.
So that's why this was the pony that both of
them who could just stop, you know, both of them
with with different skill sets and and Dickerson was so
powerful and so smooth, and James was so tough and
he was deceptively fast, and you couldn't stop s m U.
(08:42):
And they got into bigger, let's say, controversies and bigger
play on the field in subsequent years. But this was like, Okay,
they got something special going on here at s m U.
As far as getting off the field and winning games,
I was staying away from controversy. That's something completely different.
But you could tell on the field, Okay, they're really good.
(09:02):
They got something going on here. Yeah, we can get
back into controversies, death penalties and others. Put that down
for a future Special Team podcast. But I mean you
look at it here. You mentioned mclenny and Mike Ford,
the other quarterback. I mean they combined to throw forty yards. Yeah,
right now, leven touchdowns, nine interceptions between them. That's how
(09:25):
much in a season lied up in this season in
a season no exactly. Uh Ford completed of his past
attempts mcillanny five not three, not not looking to chuck
it down field doing that two step well, I mean
kind of like you would do in if you want
(09:46):
to do a little bit of line Danson and stuff.
So it is the Miracle Bowl is all said to
go what it's known now as well, specifically for b
y U teams. I don't think they say the same
thing at s m U. The comeback for the ages,
we get into it, how it happened and how maybe
it shouldn't have happened. Coming up next on Special teams
(10:23):
the game on Miss lou Sports Network announcers Ray Scott
and Grady Alderman. The Holiday Ball featuring the b y
U Cougars against the SMU Mustangs. We thought we'd see
a lot of offense in this game, and early on
and for most of the game we did, and most
of it came from s m U. It was a huge,
high scoring game and SMU controlled this game deep into
(10:46):
the fourth quarter. Craig James goes off two five yards
rushing in this game. Eric Dickerson runs for a hundred
and ten. You can see the highlights and see the
story of this game many places on the internet. It
was an unstoppable night for their running game. They got
up nineteen nothing seven. They were up forty five five
(11:07):
after james Is forty two yard touchdown run with four
minutes to go. So think about this, this is where
are jumping off point is. Craig James runs for a
forty two yard touchdown with four minutes left and they
lead the game forty five four minutes left to go.
SMU total runs for three yards. B y U runs
(11:29):
from minus two. That's the that's the end of the game.
S m You finished with fifty three yards passing. And
just to to tell you how offense, how much offense
you could have running the football. STU was everything on
the ground, nothing through the air. B y U was
the opposite, And until this point in the game it
was all SMU. They ran all over b y U.
(11:49):
And you have a twenty point lead with four minutes
left to go. Fans are leaving the stadium at this
point because all right, it's over, We're done. Look, this
game's in San Diego and it's an easy your commute
for b y U fans and still less you can
get there, but it's Dallas compared to Utah, and fans
were leaving and Jim McMahon starts screaming at the fans
the game isn't over now. A as big a B
(12:12):
y U fan as I might have been, I looked
and said, dude, come on, man, really, what's in that
gator right on the sideline. We're down by twenty. We've
been terrible all night. All right, we've scored a seven, six,
and six in each quarter. We're really gonna win this game, McMahon,
What is wrong with you? And well, Jim McMahon turned
out to be right. But still at the time I
would have started winging it around. What are you doing
(12:32):
right away than you mentioned some of the stats. I mean,
when you go through and you get to the endpoint
of this game, total net yards, there's a two yard differential, right, SMU,
two more yards? You would think the run game of
Dickerson and James, the way they've dominated they ran the
ball sixties six times, time of possession and a number
(12:56):
of plays, there's not a whole lot of differential. Number
of offensive plays was a difference of four. It was
very Look, it's a game on the scoreboard, right, one
team runs one too, it was. It was even all
the way. It's about as even a classic and a
comeback game as you could possibly Yet there's no one
number that stands out so far over the rest. Well
mc mahn's passing yards, what about Craig james rushing yards?
(13:18):
I mean you can you can go back and forth
with all of that thing all day. It was that
equal a game, well, just fantastic on its display, right,
because now we celebrate what they get called as the
lesser Bowl games, the afterthoughts or the for gamblers only,
I think is the subtitle for a lot of it
anymore or the obviously the Alma maters people get excited.
(13:41):
Don't don't come at me at Swollen Dome if you
feel like you need to. But the idea being that
the throw is But as long as there's some scoring,
you're gonna tune in, especially games for Christmass. This is
the beginning of the Bull season because the Holiday Bowl
was always the week before Chris Miss. This game was
on December, so it was the beginning of the Bull
(14:03):
season when you have that excitement level of okay, we
got college football with everybody's close to getting time off.
I'm gonna be off and be home with my family.
And you know, then you get into the bowl games
after the twenty five when you're off from work and
you get to see this. But you know there's a
special spot for the Holiday but hey, it's one of
the first big early Bowl games, and you know, people
who were watching on ms lou Sports, hey, you got
(14:26):
an absolute thriller. I may or may not have enjoyed
a Holiday Bowl win in my recent past from my
all my mother. So here's where we're at SMU with
the lead, four minutes left to go. B y U
gets the ball back and they drive down the field.
Not surprising, McMahon throws a touchdown to Matt Braga, and
(14:48):
if you see this play, you can see clearly the
ball hits the ground. Should not have been a touchdown,
but in eighty without the benefit of replay or the
referees in the right spot, this counts McMahon cell cell cell. Baby.
McMahon is running against his body, so he's not running
to the right, he's running to the left, so he's
(15:09):
got a square his shoulders and throw and McMahon even says, Hey,
the one thing I could do better than anybody at
quarterback was roll out and throw the football because I
learned for a very young age how to square my
shoulders and throw while I'm running, So I knew I
I I did that great. And I think he wanted
to do that more with the Chicago Bears and on
in his career. But this play, you can see it's
(15:29):
on display. He's running away from his power and he
throws a laser that only goes in one spot where
his player is gonna get it or it's gonna hit
the ground, and it's low to the ground and you
can see Brod gets his hand under it. But you
see the ball bounce and helmet ground but still, hey,
the arms go up, touchdown, b y U. This makes
it forty thirty two. And at this point it's like, Okay,
(15:51):
you had a touchdown, but you know you're still down
by thirteen, with you know, under three minutes left to go,
this game really isn't gonna happen for you. Still thinking
you're gonna be stay able to alter away, especially with
that run game the way it's been in the number
of yards that you we've seen churned away from James
and Dickerson over the course of the day. But if
you've got a guy with no conscience, and that's the
(16:11):
one thing with McMahon us as a quarterback, if he
had it in his hands, willing to wing it at
any time. Now he mentioned his career with Chicago Bears
goes back to personnel and who do you trust uh
in that whole thing, because Willie Galt was fast, but
you know a lot of times he wouldn't close the hands. Dude,
(16:32):
you had kend Marjoram. Come on, man, you had kid. Yeah,
no celebrating him. Uh, well, you know, get a way
to get the obscure Bears tight end. You want to
get Emery Moore head in while I was sure a
former Giant, former bear, Emory moorehead nicely done? Was he
married to ag this morehead? You know? For the purposes
(16:54):
of this conversation, happy nuptials. So b y U scores
a touchdown for thirty two. They on side kick, and
they do an on side kick where it's the kicker
who kicks it about ten yards in front of them,
and the players run up to form that protective cone.
So as soon as the ball gets past the ten
yard line, either the kicker or the player next to
(17:15):
him can jump on the football. This works to perfection
because SMU doesn't have anybody near the football, so be
why you recovers it works. They drive down the field
a touchdown run by Scott Phillips makes it nine, and
oh my goodness, this is now a game. They try
the on side kick again and if it works once,
why not try it again? Right, instead of a different
(17:36):
once kick, We're gonna do it again. So they do
the exact same kick, except this time SMU and you know, listen,
Ron Meyer was a pretty good head coach. Uh, he says, listen,
if they do that again, I'm sure he said. If
they do that again, run forward and get the ball
before it goes ten yards, And that's exactly what happens.
They run the same on side kick to SMU. Players
jump forward before the ball goes ten yards, they jump
(17:58):
on it. They haven't, And you think this game is over.
This has been fun by b YU. They're back within
a touchdown, but really this is gonna be it now
because SMU has the running backs. They've been doing it
all night long, and this game is over. Well, you
think you'll be able to salt it away. You just
need the possession. How do you not cover up on
side kicks? Repeatedly? Is uh? But you'd be fired on
(18:18):
the spot now with the coverage. I mean you'd have
a fall guy, special teams guy would go, and probably
another assistant coach just for giggles. But you know, watching
the the replays of this and and the highlights as
you roll through, it's it's always the curiosity, like the
kickers not being sneaky. Oh no, no, no, this is
(18:40):
this is what we're doing. Yeah, that's not one of
those misdirection where we're gonna start running one way and
start running the other way. No, I'm just gonna do
it this way, and it works great the first time.
He let's do it again, Well, except this time they're ready.
Ever expect us to do that again? That would be
too stupid, So let's do it. Uh. So SMU has
the ball and okay, it's easy for them to run
out the clock. Except it's not. They can't get a
(19:00):
first down. Eric Dickerson is tackled as he tries to
take a sweep outside on third down. So now they
have to punt. But it shouldn't really matter, right because
SMU was punting with thirteen seconds left in the game,
and they shouldn't have to worry about it. Right, there's
less than twenty seconds to go. We just punt the
ball down, it's all you know. No team in night
(19:20):
could go down the field in ten seconds without time outs.
All you gotta do is punt the ball away. But
if you ask Jim Harball, hey, how easy is it
to just pump the ball and win a football game
over Michigan State? Uh? Too soon? Too soon for that one,
doesn't No? No, Well, well I'll just hell her to
skip over this party. Listen to the first segment, then
(19:41):
skip a little bit in the beginning of the second
then listen at the end. So all they gotta do
is punt the ball down field, except they can't. Be
Yu gets through. A couple of guys get through, and
they blocked the punt. With thirteen seconds left, they have
the ball at s m us forty one yard I mean,
if you're Smu which grabbed the ball, take one step
(20:03):
in punt even if it goes twenty yards. What do
you you? You have the ball where the middle of
the field. The ball is gonna be at the twenty
yard line. All you gotta do is punet So just
don't worry about getting it getting just grab it one
to kick it even if it goes just pass the
line of scrimmage. More time is gonna take off the clock.
There's gonna be ten seconds left. They're gonna have the
ball at their own thirty yard line. The game is over.
But they get through, they block it, and now b
(20:25):
y U has it thirteen seconds left and they're at
the forty one yard line. They have time for a
couple of plays and the gut untouched. Yeah, it's it's
amazing how how you blow that that blocking coverage right
there when you should have everybody's in. Nobody gets in,
We don't don't don't have to worry about anybody releasing.
We want to make sure we protect the punter because
we just got a punnet. That's all we have to
(20:46):
do is but they you know, your returners set up
on the ten yard line. Man, everything is set up perfectly,
and then you completely biff a blocking assignment. Unbelievable. So
now thirteen seconds left and McMahon, you're thinking, Okay, this
could really be a miracle for thirty nine. But what
are they gonna do. First play, McMahon throws a crossing
(21:08):
pattern incomplete across the field. All right, Well, that that
didn't work. Second play was a hail Mary. McMahon throws
it down and it's not even close, and you could
tell already the celebration looks to be going on with
s m U. There's time for one more play. And
now before the result of this play, we get to
results of this play, they have one last chance and
(21:28):
it's another hail Mary, because you have to at this
point because there's no other time left. McMahon throws this
ball down field and this is where when I see
him play. If you want to say what did McMahon
look like in in college, if I wanted to get
an opinion, he looked a lot like Jimmy Garoppolo. And
we talked about Garoppolo a lot on the show, and
that Garoppolo sometimes doesn't really step into his throws, as
(21:49):
I said, a lot of times, I think he is
shying away. He can't step in and take the big hit.
He doesn't want it. He's not a guy that's gonna
sacrifice his body for a big throw. But his arm
is so strong, he's got such strong hips. He just
kind of slings it and the ball gets out pretty fast.
That's kind of how Jim McMahon throws this hail Mary downfield,
and he throws it a little bit earlier because he
can sense the rush coming from his left. He doesn't
(22:10):
step into it, but he just kind of hips it
and he throws it up. But it's a big, regular
hail Mary throw. But that's the remind of you of
you see him throw It's, yeah, he's got that hip
action move and he throws a little bit early, just
like Garoppolo likes to do, and he gets the ball
to the end zone. So if I'm thinking of who
McMahon was like in college because clearly he was a
different guy in the NFL, not as dynamic, and Garoppolo
(22:31):
at least has some dynamic games. That's kind of what
he reminds me of with his body type because he
was still really thin at this point. He was able
to move a bit. He got out and threw outside
the tackles a lot Garoppolos, who he kind of reminds
me of here. Yeah, I mean that that's an app comparison.
I think we see with Garoppolo there's a big arm,
just a question of sometimes, as you said, either doesn't
want to step into the throw and take the extra hit,
(22:53):
yet he'll take the extra hit on the sideline. And
McMahon was the same way, right. That's that's the funny thing, right,
is he's a guy that would tuck the ball and
trying to get the extra yards. And we we saw
many a defender to have their way with him both
as a runner and in the pocket, oftentimes after the
place should have been blown dead. But and I'm thinking
(23:17):
about you Packer fans right there. But the the idea
with Garoppolo, it's the same, right, runs a bit and
has that he just flips it right. That risk action
that we talk about in that arm strength, I mean,
the stuff you can't teach, and that it's just a
matter of the fundamentals from there. With McMahon, that never materialized.
(23:39):
He was a great leader and winner, but not a
guy that could stay healthy. And we've already seen Garoppolo
go down once for you know, not getting out of bounds.
We'll see how he his career unfolds as as it
rolls through, whether he starts wearing headbands and just speaking
out against anybody his nightlife. I mean we've seen him
(24:00):
a little loose there. Yeah, but yeah, the the effortless throws,
I mean just kind of flipping it to the end
zone from midfield from McMahon. Here something Bears fans are
scratching their heads, going where was where was this guy?
Where was this guy? I wish we didn't see more
of this. So time back in now to the final
play of the game where McMahon drops back and it's
(24:22):
a quicker hail Mary throw when you see it now,
generally a quarterback drops back. He buys enough time for
his receivers to all get downfield so it can be
a true jump ball in the end zone. You want
a deflection. You want a tall player down there and
be able to go up and grab it. So usually
the plays take a little bit longer to develop and
everybody gets down there and you jump. McMahon throws this
(24:42):
ball early because he's got the rush coming and and
he chucks it up and because he throws it early,
this place succeeds. Clay Brown is a tight end and
he's running right down the middle of the field and
he's run by two defenders who are chasing him. They
haven't gotten to the end zone yet to be able
(25:03):
to stop and turn around because mcman has thrown this
ball pretty fast. And now you have the two defensive
backs who are in the middle of the end zone
looking up at the ball coming down. So picture this.
You have the receiver them. It's like it's like the
five how the dice are on a on the number
five on on a diet. You have the two dots
on the top, the dot in the middle, and then
the two dots on the bottom. This is what it
(25:23):
looks like. So you have two players who haven't had
a chance to get to the end zone to turn
and look up, so they're out of the play, and
now you have the two defensive backs who had lined
up there and they see the ball coming towards them.
Brown runs and he stops in front of them and
turns around, and there's not a lot of time the
dbs don't move in jostle for better position. They allow
Brown to get down, stop in front of them, and
(25:45):
turn around, and he does a great job blocking them
away from the ball. Look, he's a tight end, he's big.
He goes up and it's not even a difficult play.
The defensive backs kind of just go up with their
arms up and they're behind the ball, so they can't
do anything, and Brown comes down with it. Touchdown. Game
is tied. Everybody's running on the field, Lavellawards running around
(26:06):
and saying, we have the extra point, we have the
extra point. But here's a hail Mary touchdown, and the
people in the stands left in the stands are going
nuts because now you have had a deficit with four
minutes left to go, completely erased and an extra point
away from winning this game. It was amazing. But sometimes
when you throw the ball up a little bit earlier,
(26:28):
you can get things and catch the defense a little
bit off guard and that's what happened here. I've now
probably watched this play forty times in preparation for this podcast,
and for the life of me, I don't know what
the dvs are doing. They're just standing there. I'm gonna
I'm gonna stand here, but like they totally misjudge the
arc of the ball and are still backpeddling. Now forget
(26:50):
the linebackers and everything that that he dusts off the line,
and we'll we'll get to the where are they now
of Mr Brown here in a little bit. But it's
just incredible because it's one guy against five, right, There's
no other receivers in this play, right, I said, It's
just said, well, hey, hope for a tip ball, and
(27:10):
here we are. It's literally one guy in between us
sea of opponent jerseys and the referee comes over definitively like, yeah,
he got you. And you can just see all the
defenders looking at each other. How did you not get
a hand on the ball? Where were you? Guys? Nobody
was looking for the ball coming up because they were
all I'm sure they were all surprised it was coming
(27:32):
out this early. Nobody ran, there was no help, there
was no It was a very fast, hail Mary from
drop back throat and here's a catch. It was. It
was stunning how quick it was. And now here you go.
You still have to calm down and kick the extra point,
all right, and and look back in extra points were
still automatic. But this is still college. There's a lot
of pressure their kids, except the they line up out
(27:55):
there for the extra point. Kurt Gunther makes it on
the final play by you wins. The total number of
yards passing for Jim McMahon is at four forty six,
and they win a game that many people will tell you, boy,
this is the most exciting finished, the most exciting bowl
game ever. And I can't tell you you're wrong. This
win really put b y U on the map as boy,
(28:15):
not only are they a really good team, but look
how exciting they are and and and b y you
really took off from here. Twenty one points in the
final four minutes, one on side kick, one defensive stop,
three touchdowns and you turn a forty five loss where
you could easily just said, you know what, we're done,
we're going home. It's not our game. We're gonna be
(28:36):
eleven and two. Everything is gonna be fine. And instead
you have McMahon, the legend of McMahon yelling to the
stands the game's not over yet, and he goes and
wins this game. At this point, walking around campus and
and and and teams have to be looking at him, going, boy,
this guy can do anything. Whatever he says, I'm gonna
follow him. And and the the leader Jim McMahon is
now born into public consciousness. Well, I mean that's a
(28:58):
big deal in nineteen eight. Do you imagine this guy
on a televised game in two thousand twenty, Right, this
is the anti Matt hassleback, we want the ball and
we're gonna win. This is a guy that says we're
down twenty we're coming back to get this game, so
shut up, sit down and enjoy it and backs that up.
(29:20):
I mean, you become a legend on so many other levels.
I mean, McMahon for the time because we didn't have
the same level of coverage, right, so you didn't know
all about him because you're thinking, this guy's at b
y U, this guy's be with you, especially as you
got to know Jim McMahon a little more as you
got to the draft process and his arrival to Chicago,
(29:43):
that just a different cat, you think a guy like this.
He showed up for the first uh, his first meeting
with coaches in Chicago, drinking a beer because he was
so happy to be out of the strict regime that
he had at b YU. I'm gonna bring a beer
to my first meeting with my coach, if I'm not mistaken.
His big thing was he always had one of those
little coolers, like the little like lunch ones that had
(30:05):
space for six beers like that. That was his his accompaniment,
gonna take it with just a character man. He was
remember training camp and watching kids like he was the
pie piper looking up at him as a hero. Me,
I'm a nerd. I'm I'm looking for the you know,
the the lineman, the wide outs and everybody else. I'm
not going where the rest of the crowd is because
(30:26):
I can go talk to these other guys as a
kid where rev Story almost ran me over and gave
me the best life advice Smith, never stand in front
of the polling guard. Oh that's that's good advice. Well
you got that too, so certainly in that process. But
I got a great little uh Kurt Gunther story for you.
(30:48):
Here me now It's like, how is he in the
moment they're kicker? Dave Taylor was rudely ineligible. So Gunther
sophomore walk on, literally pulled out of stats one one.
This was he was studying accounting. Uh. So he goes
to the season Oprah forgets his helmet. Somehow his helmet
kids forgotten. I'm a kicker, right, I don't need a helmet, right,
I could just tuck with somebody. They get get a
(31:10):
guy with a friend of the program on a private
jet to get him his helmet. You know, when he
first started kicking for them, which is great, not for
this game, but just the general of here's my genesis.
But because of this, he ends up getting two years
on scholarship and the bonus to finish his accounting dud.
(31:32):
So he ends up getting the third year to to
help finish his course of studies. So like just a legend.
I found some great stories on him. Uh, just talking
about how odd it was becoming the walk on because
they suddenly needed a kicker and getting this opportunity, and
he's now part of one of the big moments in
college football history. B y U wins the Miracle Bowl.
(31:55):
Coming up next, a little where are they now? More
on Jim McMahon, more and what happened to s mu
and maybe how the luckiest guy involved in this game
was the play by play guy. It's coming up next
on Special Teams, the aftermath of b y U Win.
(32:26):
Let's begin with the final call of the Jim McMahon
Hail Mary. Ray Scott play by play guy gets to
call this game. Here's the thing. He had just called
a big Minnesota Vikings win over the Cleveland Browns a
few days ago that ended with Tommy Kramer throwing a
Hail Mary to a mad Rashad that put the Vikings
(32:47):
in the playoffs. So he gets to call back and
very famous hail Mary. So you've seen it many times,
and maybe we'll do a future Special Teams on that
game because that was a fun game. We'll just talk
about a mad rash Yeah, very good. I remember when
on Mad Rashad hosted the Mole on ABC. Uh. So
he gets to call that hail Mary. He calls this
(33:09):
Hail Mary, and his call is we've done it again.
So this is what the guy gets, like seven days,
I'll do this game. Yeah, I'm gonna do B y
U at smut and he gets to call one of
the greatest college football games of all time. So maybe
the luckiest guy was a play by play guy. Uh
So next for these teams, SMU explodes in one absolutely explodes,
(33:31):
Dickerson explodes, James explodes. It's everybody's exploding. Dickerson runs from
nine touchdowns yards and Craig James has twelve hundred yards
and nine touchdowns. This was the hey, we are here
moment for SMU. But because they're on probation, they couldn't
play in a bowl game, they couldn't play for the
(33:53):
national championship. And this is how SMU of the early
eighties is remembered. The Pony Express, how good Dickerson and
Craig James were, and all the corruption that didn't involve
in SMU becoming the next level program. The death penalty
that came years after for their football program was a
really big It was the biggest story in college football
in the early nineteen eighties. This is what happens to
(34:14):
s m U as a result. But b YU they
take it in the other direction. Suddenly b y U
is on the national stage and it's all the big
teams in college football and it's b YU here. They
are winning this big game, putting up all these points,
and like we said earlier, this culminates in then winning
the national championship in four So clearly this came a
big jumping off point. However, SMU gets derailed because of
(34:35):
the probation and b y U continues to grow their legend. Yeah,
the legend of when you look at Lavella edwards career
from nineteen seventy two to two thousand one place, twenty
nine years to fifty seven, one oh one and three,
and you look at all those double digit win campaigns
(34:56):
that started nine seventy nine, they go eleven and one,
they go twelve and one here, eleven in two, et cetera.
Like now, think of the payouts and the attempts to
lure him away, right and and the gamesmanship that would
be going on of come on, except they lived at
the Holiday Bowl. I mean they had they had to
(35:18):
reservations every year they had to play there was That's
the way it was, and this is kind of why
they were the first Boise State team of the early eighties. Well,
what can we do? How much can we put them
into the National Championship conversation, you know, and look at
their first ball win. If this was into two Bowl
games before that, they lost both of them, and then
(35:40):
they lost in the Tangerine Bowl. I missed the Tangerine ball,
Tangerine Bow, the Blue Bonnet Ball. I missed those balls. Yeah,
they got absolutely obliterated by Oklahoma State in the nine
Tangerine Bowl down in Orlando. I missed the Blue Grand game.
We've already done a special teams podcast. I lament the
loss of the Blue Gray Game, so I'll continue to
(36:04):
do so. It was great for Christmas Day. If this
was a more widely recognized game that that that came
to everybody off the top of their heads, it wouldn't
need to be propped up. But clearly the last forty years,
of the three best Bowl games, you could possibly say,
it's this game, it's Texas USC National Championship and oh five,
and it's Oklahoma Boise State a couple of years later,
(36:27):
and that's the order. Those are the games. Those are
the three best Bowl games of the past forties. This
one sneaks in because it's eight, but Oka twenties, what
we're doing, I mean, there's other ques beat beating up
on Utah Bowl a couple of years ago was good.
I'll say that's number four, then that'll be the fourth. Thanks,
But clearly those are those are the three and and
(36:48):
And that's how b y U was, you know, was
able to just like I said, start their legend. But
this game was just so good and they had another
great year the year after. McMahon has one more year
and he goes to the NFL, you know, fifth overall
pick of the Bears, and he never materialized into being
that big, pure passer. Now, granted, he was never asked
(37:10):
to be the savior because he joined a team that
had a great rushing attack that was building a tremendous defense.
So hey, don't screw it up and make clutch plays
when you have to. McMahon's career was then became as
a leader. He would make clutch plays. But for a
guy who threw forty seven touchdowns this year in college football,
he never threw for more than fifteen touchdowns in a
(37:31):
season in the NFL. I mean, I get it wasn't
the age of the quarterback, but never more than fifteen
touchdowns in a season in the National Footballie from a
guy taking number five overall was it worth it for
the Bears. Sure, eighty five Bears win their legendary McMahon's
a legend, but boy out out of the number five
overall pick, and that's a quarterback you kind of want
more than fifteen touchdowns in a season from and some
(37:54):
years it was eleven touchdowns twelve nine touchdowns. He just
had the just never really material and that kind of
prolific passer. Sixty seven and thirty for his career. As
a start, he was forty six and fifteen for the Bears,
about fifty eight percent completion rate, just a little over
a one to one touchdown to interception ratio. But I
(38:15):
don't want is he couldn't stay healthy. You go through
the game logs eight three fourteen games, eight four nine games,
five thirteen games, eleven starts, eighty six six games, eighty
seven seven games. You get the point. Only three more
times in his career when he hit double digit games played,
(38:35):
and that was once he was in San Diego for
a year, and then a year in Philadelphia and then
a year in Minnesota when he started doing the Shaquille
O'Neil kind of thing. We need that veteran quarterback to
help bring a guy along who's a good break class
and glass in case of emergency. Guy. So went from
the Bears to the Chargers, to the Eagles, to the Vikings,
(38:57):
to Arizona to the Packers. Uh where again he he
he gets to win again. But it's which is always curious.
But yeah, back to quarterback for yeah, yeah, I mean
so for all of it. He just he just couldn't
stay healthy. But a beloved icon in Chicago. Whenever he
does a spot or shows up at a charity event,
(39:19):
everybody wants a piece of them just because you know
that year, I mean, unfortunately fans and for me, other
than a Rex Grossman led appearance against Peyton Manning where
the highlight was Prince singing in the rain, sure, uh there,
there's not been a lot to cheer about there, you know.
And McMahon also goes down, is this is one of
the first quarterbacks that teams would say, a prolific guy
(39:43):
in college in a wide open offense is not going
to translate to success in the NFL. And then quarterbacks
like this had to fight against that stigma for a while.
And McMahon was one of those first time forty seven
touchdowns over thirty touchdowns the senior years. There for seventy
seven touchdowns his final two years. And he gets to
the NFL and it's okay, he's not the guy we
thought he was because he comes from a quirky offense
(40:03):
that does things a little bit differently. He's not from
one of the Power five big conferences, and and that's
something that was a general belief by many NFL t this.
So he started to see guys come out of these
spread offenses and really light him up in the past
few years of the National Football League. All right, So
coming off this game, he mentioned some big players, some
Super Bowl winning head coaches. How about somewhere are they now?
(40:24):
Mr Harman, we go to Vasikahema. He is your sports
director and anchor NBC ten in Philly. I gotta take
the chuck off them's been there a long time doing that.
He ran a put back for a touchdown in this game.
Earlier in we didn't get to talk about him a
lot because it was in the first three quarters when
b Yu was getting drugged. But he did have a
big punt return for a touchdown in this game early on.
(40:46):
There you go, Scott Phillips, Uh, it would eventually become
a fourth round pick for Seattle. He's a wealth management
advisor for Northwestern Mutual. Matthew Braga, who we talked about
with a big play and one that shouldn't uh. He
now sells medical devices, so you know he he was
able to sell that catch and now he doesn't work
(41:07):
from Medtronic. Hey, listen, I can sell anything. I sold
that touchdown in the ADI Holiday Ball. All right, what
do I need to buy? What do you need to buy?
I can sell you anything. Well, and then you've got
Homo who is the A D at b y U.
He was a college football head coach for a while. Yeah,
now he's six years with the forty Niners as a
safety and then coached at b y U and Stanford
(41:29):
with the forty niners again as a position coach, and
then at cal UH and now he's the A D.
On the other side, you look at some SMU. You
mentioned Lance mclaney good at the two Step s VP
real Estate and Contracts for Lincoln Property Company. Michael Charles
biz systems consultant for McDonald's, Lee Spivey insurance broker, and
(41:54):
then Richard Neely Family Trust Private Equity real estate on
the guys getting into real estate, you know, taken advantage
of those big swaths of land in Texas. Can you
tell me that story about the Yes, I will you
gonna buy this house? Yes? If you tell me that story?
All right, where do you want me? What did you
guys really do to get you know? The title? East?
Come on so there. It is one of the best
(42:15):
college football games of all time. At worst, it's the
third best bowl game of the past forty years. That's
how big it was. The Miracle Bowl won by b
y U over SMU. I'm Jason Smith, He's Mike Carmen.
Our show is heard on Fox Sports Radio Monday through Friday,
ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven
to eleven on the West Coast. You have an idea
(42:37):
for a future Special Teams podcast, hit us up on
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(43:02):
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will love you forever and ever and ever. Special Teams
(43:26):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
(00:20):
Greetings and Welcome Inside Special Teams, the podcast where me,
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon go over special teams from
specific years in sports. We're going back into the nineteen
eighties now, which is a fun time to go. There
were so many wide open, fun games to get to.
And this week we're gonna look back at what many
people say could be the greatest college football game of
(00:43):
the past fifty years, and the eight Holiday Ball also
known as the Miracle Bowl, a game which pitted the
b YU Cougars against the s m U Mustangs. This
is the early days of the Pony Express and Greg
James and Eric Dickerson and Lance mclaney at quarterback against
the b YU Cougars and Jim McMahon. This back when
b y U was the Boise State of college football,
(01:06):
where every year b y you would win a lot
of games in the Whack and there would be the
question of do they deserve to win a national championship
or not? And we debated, debated, debated. This is a
big five six year run for b y U and
one future podcast we'll get into the year they actually
did win the national title. But this game, a forty
five win by b y U over s m U,
(01:28):
had absolutely everything in it, including the late comeback by
Mike Harmon's favorite NFL quarterback of all time, Jim McMahon.
Well he does rank up there. Any guy that will
rock aheadman that questions authority and that the NFL commissioner
is all good by me. Blank you rose element or
headband with your name on it. Think about it. That
was the first time you had helicopters going over and
(01:49):
trying to get pictures of what was going on, or
at least that's as early as I remember it. But
as you say, I mean this, this was the B
y U squad that perennial double digit victories and always
the hand ringing of all right, we keep them out right,
And then you started doing all this other math and
as they kept changing the systems, you kept opening the
(02:10):
door just a little bit. Yeah, they were the They
were the original of the outside the Power five conferences.
How legit are they? And you know they with the
offense they had. Lavell Edwards was an incredible head coach.
You talked about their schedule, all right, they're playing teams
in the whack. They would get outside the whack once
in a while, but is it enough to really show
(02:31):
them and and and spotlight them as one of the
best teams in college football? And honestly, this game is
the one that really put them on the map because
at this point, the Holiday Bowl is only in its
third season, right, the hollidayall the b y U tradition
there there every year they play in the middle of December.
That was a Holiday Bowl. But it's only in its
third year. You know, the whack champion is committed to
go there. And this is b y U winning its
(02:54):
fifth straight conference title. But they hadn't won the Holiday
Bowl yet. You know, this is the year they started out.
They lost opening week to New Mexico, which they finished
four and seven. You look back and go, how the
hell did that happen? One? They lost in New Mexico
opening week? How the hell did they pull that off? Yeah,
going back through that game, I mean, you had a
(03:14):
bunch of sacks, so I mean that that was commonplace,
so you know, offsetting your rushing total, but the rushing
attack didn't exist. They had fifteen penalties for a hundred
and twenty two yards. Uh, so you hang a star
on that one. But you know they won the turnover
battle in a big way. Five the two the final there,
(03:35):
but it didn't matter. Uh New Mexico just enough to
eke out of victory Jim McMahon and with with a
single well, I had two touchdowns on the day, but
just a bunch of field goals. A guy named Pete
Parks for the victory. Just uh. He's a legend and
I'm sure they bronzed his foot and put it in
a trophy case at the end of the season. Go
(03:56):
and see how good they were and how prolific they were.
We got him and t J. Pete Parks and wrecked
B y U Week one with okay um nicely done.
It was a question of whether you were going to
go there huh, or were you gonna go and uh
turn it into Peter Parker Oregon Parks Department. I could
have done that too. That's good to no summer job
(04:18):
for Parks departmentalizing the win over B y U. So
if B y U somehow wins that game, we're having
the National Championship conversation for b y U four years
earlier for a maybe not four maybe not. Maybe they
win that one and then somewhere they slip up down
the road. But if you beat a four and seven
team and you win the rest of your games, you're
(04:39):
having the national champion conversation. Because they were that good.
They blew out everybody they played. They led college football
in total offense over five hundred yards a game, scoring
forty six points a game, passing yards four nine yards
a game. I mean, people forget how good and prolific
Jim McMahon was. We remember him as this great leader
and and emotionally what he was for the Chicago Bears.
(05:02):
But in college, I mean he was throwing for forty
touchdowns in four thousand yards. I mean he had a
phenomenal collegiate career. Steve Young was a freshman backup on
this team. Andy Reid was on the offensive line, Bart Oates,
Visa Kahemma, Tom Homeoll, Kyle Winningham, who was now the
head coach at Utah. But McMahon was the star of
(05:22):
this team, and he winds up going number five overall
of the Bears a couple of years later. But he remember,
he came into the league like he's gonna be the
next big superstar. He's gonna be Dan Marino, the numbers
he putting these electric numbers he's putting up in college,
he's gonna do in the NFL. That was the hype
around Jim mcmah one. Well, and that curiosity of how
that was gonna work, because at that point you still
(05:44):
got a couple of years of Walter Baton left right
as you're flowing through, and it's always been a run
heavy offense. Looking most we don't need to go into
a deep dive of Bears quarterbacking through the years, and
now the Vince Evans years. Well, I mean, look, when
when it's all done. As much people as people hate
on Jay Cutler, you can make the argument pretty easily
(06:06):
he was the best quarterback they've seen since Sid Luckman.
But McMahon with the the braggadocious style. But I mean
go back to his stats, as you mentioned, forty seven touchdowns,
and this is the thing that's that's the curiosity for me.
Forty seven touchdowns, eighteen picks in his junior year. But
he completed almost sixty of his throws plus yards. And
(06:31):
then he comes back and in that eighty in the
eight one season, complete sixty of his passes again, thirty
touchdowns seven picks. So I mean you're talking about winging
it around, uh and getting after it. Certainly for Chicago
fans they're expecting big things of an aerial assault. But
(06:52):
we also know that's where wide receivers go to die. Right.
How many guys have been quoted as saying that through
the years and why it's difficult to get people to
come play at a frozen Chicago lakefront for half of
your season. So, but Jim McMahon always a character and
plenty of stories in the Naked City with him. So
(07:15):
b YU comes into this game eleven and one MAC
champions and they take on SMU eight and three in
the Southwest Conference. And this was the early days, as
I said, of the Pony Express, the most famous team
in SMU history. Craig James went on to the NFL
and you see him announcing everywhere. And Eric Dickerson, who
went on to a Hall of Fame career in the
(07:36):
National Football League. The Eric Dickerson friend of our show.
Eric Dickerson, we have him on all the time, gave
us big headlines a couple of years ago with some
fun stuff he made. He exacted some change in Los Angeles,
got his revenge on on on Jeff Fisher, that's for sure.
But this was the most prolific running offense in college football,
(07:57):
and you have the most prolific passing offense in college football.
I mean, the Pony Express was really both of them.
You you think, well, was it really Dickerson was the
main guy. No, it wasn't. All right this year when
they were both sophomores, right, this is the first year
of their breakout years. James ran for eight hundred ninety
six yards five yards to carry, six touchdowns. Dickerson was
very similar yards five yards per carry, five touchdowns. Their
(08:21):
true breakout, which we'll get into later on, was a
year away, but they really shared the load throughout the time.
So that's why this was the pony that both of
them who could just stop, you know, both of them
with with different skill sets and and Dickerson was so
powerful and so smooth, and James was so tough and
he was deceptively fast, and you couldn't stop s m U.
(08:42):
And they got into bigger, let's say, controversies and bigger
play on the field in subsequent years. But this was like, Okay,
they got something special going on here at s m U.
As far as getting off the field and winning games,
I was staying away from controversy. That's something completely different.
But you could tell on the field, Okay, they're really good.
(09:02):
They got something going on here. Yeah, we can get
back into controversies, death penalties and others. Put that down
for a future Special Team podcast. But I mean you
look at it here. You mentioned mclenny and Mike Ford,
the other quarterback. I mean they combined to throw forty yards. Yeah,
right now, leven touchdowns, nine interceptions between them. That's how
(09:25):
much in a season lied up in this season in
a season no exactly. Uh Ford completed of his past
attempts mcillanny five not three, not not looking to chuck
it down field doing that two step well, I mean
kind of like you would do in if you want
(09:46):
to do a little bit of line Danson and stuff.
So it is the Miracle Bowl is all said to
go what it's known now as well, specifically for b
y U teams. I don't think they say the same
thing at s m U. The comeback for the ages,
we get into it, how it happened and how maybe
it shouldn't have happened. Coming up next on Special teams
(10:23):
the game on Miss lou Sports Network announcers Ray Scott
and Grady Alderman. The Holiday Ball featuring the b y
U Cougars against the SMU Mustangs. We thought we'd see
a lot of offense in this game, and early on
and for most of the game we did, and most
of it came from s m U. It was a huge,
high scoring game and SMU controlled this game deep into
(10:46):
the fourth quarter. Craig James goes off two five yards
rushing in this game. Eric Dickerson runs for a hundred
and ten. You can see the highlights and see the
story of this game many places on the internet. It
was an unstoppable night for their running game. They got
up nineteen nothing seven. They were up forty five five
(11:07):
after james Is forty two yard touchdown run with four
minutes to go. So think about this, this is where
are jumping off point is. Craig James runs for a
forty two yard touchdown with four minutes left and they
lead the game forty five four minutes left to go.
SMU total runs for three yards. B y U runs
(11:29):
from minus two. That's the that's the end of the game.
S m You finished with fifty three yards passing. And
just to to tell you how offense, how much offense
you could have running the football. STU was everything on
the ground, nothing through the air. B y U was
the opposite, And until this point in the game it
was all SMU. They ran all over b y U.
(11:49):
And you have a twenty point lead with four minutes
left to go. Fans are leaving the stadium at this
point because all right, it's over, We're done. Look, this
game's in San Diego and it's an easy your commute
for b y U fans and still less you can
get there, but it's Dallas compared to Utah, and fans
were leaving and Jim McMahon starts screaming at the fans
the game isn't over now. A as big a B
(12:12):
y U fan as I might have been, I looked
and said, dude, come on, man, really, what's in that
gator right on the sideline. We're down by twenty. We've
been terrible all night. All right, we've scored a seven, six,
and six in each quarter. We're really gonna win this game, McMahon,
What is wrong with you? And well, Jim McMahon turned
out to be right. But still at the time I
would have started winging it around. What are you doing
(12:32):
right away than you mentioned some of the stats. I mean,
when you go through and you get to the endpoint
of this game, total net yards, there's a two yard differential, right, SMU,
two more yards? You would think the run game of
Dickerson and James, the way they've dominated they ran the
ball sixties six times, time of possession and a number
(12:56):
of plays, there's not a whole lot of differential. Number
of offensive plays was a difference of four. It was
very Look, it's a game on the scoreboard, right, one
team runs one too, it was. It was even all
the way. It's about as even a classic and a
comeback game as you could possibly Yet there's no one
number that stands out so far over the rest. Well
mc mahn's passing yards, what about Craig james rushing yards?
(13:18):
I mean you can you can go back and forth
with all of that thing all day. It was that
equal a game, well, just fantastic on its display, right,
because now we celebrate what they get called as the
lesser Bowl games, the afterthoughts or the for gamblers only,
I think is the subtitle for a lot of it
anymore or the obviously the Alma maters people get excited.
(13:41):
Don't don't come at me at Swollen Dome if you
feel like you need to. But the idea being that
the throw is But as long as there's some scoring,
you're gonna tune in, especially games for Christmass. This is
the beginning of the Bull season because the Holiday Bowl
was always the week before Chris Miss. This game was
on December, so it was the beginning of the Bull
(14:03):
season when you have that excitement level of okay, we
got college football with everybody's close to getting time off.
I'm gonna be off and be home with my family.
And you know, then you get into the bowl games
after the twenty five when you're off from work and
you get to see this. But you know there's a
special spot for the Holiday but hey, it's one of
the first big early Bowl games, and you know, people
who were watching on ms lou Sports, hey, you got
(14:26):
an absolute thriller. I may or may not have enjoyed
a Holiday Bowl win in my recent past from my
all my mother. So here's where we're at SMU with
the lead, four minutes left to go. B y U
gets the ball back and they drive down the field.
Not surprising, McMahon throws a touchdown to Matt Braga, and
(14:48):
if you see this play, you can see clearly the
ball hits the ground. Should not have been a touchdown,
but in eighty without the benefit of replay or the
referees in the right spot, this counts McMahon cell cell cell. Baby.
McMahon is running against his body, so he's not running
to the right, he's running to the left, so he's
(15:09):
got a square his shoulders and throw and McMahon even says, Hey,
the one thing I could do better than anybody at
quarterback was roll out and throw the football because I
learned for a very young age how to square my
shoulders and throw while I'm running, So I knew I
I I did that great. And I think he wanted
to do that more with the Chicago Bears and on
in his career. But this play, you can see it's
(15:29):
on display. He's running away from his power and he
throws a laser that only goes in one spot where
his player is gonna get it or it's gonna hit
the ground, and it's low to the ground and you
can see Brod gets his hand under it. But you
see the ball bounce and helmet ground but still, hey,
the arms go up, touchdown, b y U. This makes
it forty thirty two. And at this point it's like, Okay,
(15:51):
you had a touchdown, but you know you're still down
by thirteen, with you know, under three minutes left to go,
this game really isn't gonna happen for you. Still thinking
you're gonna be stay able to alter away, especially with
that run game the way it's been in the number
of yards that you we've seen churned away from James
and Dickerson over the course of the day. But if
you've got a guy with no conscience, and that's the
(16:11):
one thing with McMahon us as a quarterback, if he
had it in his hands, willing to wing it at
any time. Now he mentioned his career with Chicago Bears
goes back to personnel and who do you trust uh
in that whole thing, because Willie Galt was fast, but
you know a lot of times he wouldn't close the hands. Dude,
(16:32):
you had kend Marjoram. Come on, man, you had kid. Yeah,
no celebrating him. Uh, well, you know, get a way
to get the obscure Bears tight end. You want to
get Emery Moore head in while I was sure a
former Giant, former bear, Emory moorehead nicely done? Was he
married to ag this morehead? You know? For the purposes
(16:54):
of this conversation, happy nuptials. So b y U scores
a touchdown for thirty two. They on side kick, and
they do an on side kick where it's the kicker
who kicks it about ten yards in front of them,
and the players run up to form that protective cone.
So as soon as the ball gets past the ten
yard line, either the kicker or the player next to
(17:15):
him can jump on the football. This works to perfection
because SMU doesn't have anybody near the football, so be
why you recovers it works. They drive down the field
a touchdown run by Scott Phillips makes it nine, and
oh my goodness, this is now a game. They try
the on side kick again and if it works once,
why not try it again? Right, instead of a different
(17:36):
once kick, We're gonna do it again. So they do
the exact same kick, except this time SMU and you know, listen,
Ron Meyer was a pretty good head coach. Uh, he says, listen,
if they do that again, I'm sure he said. If
they do that again, run forward and get the ball
before it goes ten yards, And that's exactly what happens.
They run the same on side kick to SMU. Players
jump forward before the ball goes ten yards, they jump
(17:58):
on it. They haven't, And you think this game is over.
This has been fun by b YU. They're back within
a touchdown, but really this is gonna be it now
because SMU has the running backs. They've been doing it
all night long, and this game is over. Well, you
think you'll be able to salt it away. You just
need the possession. How do you not cover up on
side kicks? Repeatedly? Is uh? But you'd be fired on
(18:18):
the spot now with the coverage. I mean you'd have
a fall guy, special teams guy would go, and probably
another assistant coach just for giggles. But you know, watching
the the replays of this and and the highlights as
you roll through, it's it's always the curiosity, like the
kickers not being sneaky. Oh no, no, no, this is
(18:40):
this is what we're doing. Yeah, that's not one of
those misdirection where we're gonna start running one way and
start running the other way. No, I'm just gonna do
it this way, and it works great the first time.
He let's do it again, Well, except this time they're ready.
Ever expect us to do that again? That would be
too stupid, So let's do it. Uh. So SMU has
the ball and okay, it's easy for them to run
out the clock. Except it's not. They can't get a
(19:00):
first down. Eric Dickerson is tackled as he tries to
take a sweep outside on third down. So now they
have to punt. But it shouldn't really matter, right because
SMU was punting with thirteen seconds left in the game,
and they shouldn't have to worry about it. Right, there's
less than twenty seconds to go. We just punt the
ball down, it's all you know. No team in night
(19:20):
could go down the field in ten seconds without time outs.
All you gotta do is punt the ball away. But
if you ask Jim Harball, hey, how easy is it
to just pump the ball and win a football game
over Michigan State? Uh? Too soon? Too soon for that one,
doesn't No? No, Well, well I'll just hell her to
skip over this party. Listen to the first segment, then
(19:41):
skip a little bit in the beginning of the second
then listen at the end. So all they gotta do
is punt the ball down field, except they can't. Be
Yu gets through. A couple of guys get through, and
they blocked the punt. With thirteen seconds left, they have
the ball at s m us forty one yard I mean,
if you're Smu which grabbed the ball, take one step
(20:03):
in punt even if it goes twenty yards. What do
you you? You have the ball where the middle of
the field. The ball is gonna be at the twenty
yard line. All you gotta do is punet So just
don't worry about getting it getting just grab it one
to kick it even if it goes just pass the
line of scrimmage. More time is gonna take off the clock.
There's gonna be ten seconds left. They're gonna have the
ball at their own thirty yard line. The game is over.
But they get through, they block it, and now b
(20:25):
y U has it thirteen seconds left and they're at
the forty one yard line. They have time for a
couple of plays and the gut untouched. Yeah, it's it's
amazing how how you blow that that blocking coverage right
there when you should have everybody's in. Nobody gets in,
We don't don't don't have to worry about anybody releasing.
We want to make sure we protect the punter because
we just got a punnet. That's all we have to
(20:46):
do is but they you know, your returners set up
on the ten yard line. Man, everything is set up perfectly,
and then you completely biff a blocking assignment. Unbelievable. So
now thirteen seconds left and McMahon, you're thinking, Okay, this
could really be a miracle for thirty nine. But what
are they gonna do. First play, McMahon throws a crossing
(21:08):
pattern incomplete across the field. All right, Well, that that
didn't work. Second play was a hail Mary. McMahon throws
it down and it's not even close, and you could
tell already the celebration looks to be going on with
s m U. There's time for one more play. And
now before the result of this play, we get to
results of this play, they have one last chance and
(21:28):
it's another hail Mary, because you have to at this
point because there's no other time left. McMahon throws this
ball down field and this is where when I see
him play. If you want to say what did McMahon
look like in in college, if I wanted to get
an opinion, he looked a lot like Jimmy Garoppolo. And
we talked about Garoppolo a lot on the show, and
that Garoppolo sometimes doesn't really step into his throws, as
(21:49):
I said, a lot of times, I think he is
shying away. He can't step in and take the big hit.
He doesn't want it. He's not a guy that's gonna
sacrifice his body for a big throw. But his arm
is so strong, he's got such strong hips. He just
kind of slings it and the ball gets out pretty fast.
That's kind of how Jim McMahon throws this hail Mary downfield,
and he throws it a little bit earlier because he
can sense the rush coming from his left. He doesn't
(22:10):
step into it, but he just kind of hips it
and he throws it up. But it's a big, regular
hail Mary throw. But that's the remind of you of
you see him throw It's, yeah, he's got that hip
action move and he throws a little bit early, just
like Garoppolo likes to do, and he gets the ball
to the end zone. So if I'm thinking of who
McMahon was like in college because clearly he was a
different guy in the NFL, not as dynamic, and Garoppolo
(22:31):
at least has some dynamic games. That's kind of what
he reminds me of with his body type because he
was still really thin at this point. He was able
to move a bit. He got out and threw outside
the tackles a lot Garoppolos, who he kind of reminds
me of here. Yeah, I mean that that's an app comparison.
I think we see with Garoppolo there's a big arm,
just a question of sometimes, as you said, either doesn't
want to step into the throw and take the extra hit,
(22:53):
yet he'll take the extra hit on the sideline. And
McMahon was the same way, right. That's that's the funny thing, right,
is he's a guy that would tuck the ball and
trying to get the extra yards. And we we saw
many a defender to have their way with him both
as a runner and in the pocket, oftentimes after the
place should have been blown dead. But and I'm thinking
(23:17):
about you Packer fans right there. But the the idea
with Garoppolo, it's the same, right, runs a bit and
has that he just flips it right. That risk action
that we talk about in that arm strength, I mean,
the stuff you can't teach, and that it's just a
matter of the fundamentals from there. With McMahon, that never materialized.
(23:39):
He was a great leader and winner, but not a
guy that could stay healthy. And we've already seen Garoppolo
go down once for you know, not getting out of bounds.
We'll see how he his career unfolds as as it
rolls through, whether he starts wearing headbands and just speaking
out against anybody his nightlife. I mean we've seen him
(24:00):
a little loose there. Yeah, but yeah, the the effortless throws,
I mean just kind of flipping it to the end
zone from midfield from McMahon. Here something Bears fans are
scratching their heads, going where was where was this guy?
Where was this guy? I wish we didn't see more
of this. So time back in now to the final
play of the game where McMahon drops back and it's
(24:22):
a quicker hail Mary throw when you see it now,
generally a quarterback drops back. He buys enough time for
his receivers to all get downfield so it can be
a true jump ball in the end zone. You want
a deflection. You want a tall player down there and
be able to go up and grab it. So usually
the plays take a little bit longer to develop and
everybody gets down there and you jump. McMahon throws this
(24:42):
ball early because he's got the rush coming and and
he chucks it up and because he throws it early,
this place succeeds. Clay Brown is a tight end and
he's running right down the middle of the field and
he's run by two defenders who are chasing him. They
haven't gotten to the end zone yet to be able
(25:03):
to stop and turn around because mcman has thrown this
ball pretty fast. And now you have the two defensive
backs who are in the middle of the end zone
looking up at the ball coming down. So picture this.
You have the receiver them. It's like it's like the
five how the dice are on a on the number
five on on a diet. You have the two dots
on the top, the dot in the middle, and then
the two dots on the bottom. This is what it
(25:23):
looks like. So you have two players who haven't had
a chance to get to the end zone to turn
and look up, so they're out of the play, and
now you have the two defensive backs who had lined
up there and they see the ball coming towards them.
Brown runs and he stops in front of them and
turns around, and there's not a lot of time the
dbs don't move in jostle for better position. They allow
Brown to get down, stop in front of them, and
(25:45):
turn around, and he does a great job blocking them
away from the ball. Look, he's a tight end, he's big.
He goes up and it's not even a difficult play.
The defensive backs kind of just go up with their
arms up and they're behind the ball, so they can't
do anything, and Brown comes down with it. Touchdown. Game
is tied. Everybody's running on the field, Lavellawards running around
(26:06):
and saying, we have the extra point, we have the
extra point. But here's a hail Mary touchdown, and the
people in the stands left in the stands are going
nuts because now you have had a deficit with four
minutes left to go, completely erased and an extra point
away from winning this game. It was amazing. But sometimes
when you throw the ball up a little bit earlier,
(26:28):
you can get things and catch the defense a little
bit off guard and that's what happened here. I've now
probably watched this play forty times in preparation for this podcast,
and for the life of me, I don't know what
the dvs are doing. They're just standing there. I'm gonna
I'm gonna stand here, but like they totally misjudge the
arc of the ball and are still backpeddling. Now forget
(26:50):
the linebackers and everything that that he dusts off the line,
and we'll we'll get to the where are they now
of Mr Brown here in a little bit. But it's
just incredible because it's one guy against five, right, There's
no other receivers in this play, right, I said, It's
just said, well, hey, hope for a tip ball, and
(27:10):
here we are. It's literally one guy in between us
sea of opponent jerseys and the referee comes over definitively like, yeah,
he got you. And you can just see all the
defenders looking at each other. How did you not get
a hand on the ball? Where were you? Guys? Nobody
was looking for the ball coming up because they were
all I'm sure they were all surprised it was coming
(27:32):
out this early. Nobody ran, there was no help, there
was no It was a very fast, hail Mary from
drop back throat and here's a catch. It was. It
was stunning how quick it was. And now here you go.
You still have to calm down and kick the extra point,
all right, and and look back in extra points were
still automatic. But this is still college. There's a lot
of pressure their kids, except the they line up out
(27:55):
there for the extra point. Kurt Gunther makes it on
the final play by you wins. The total number of
yards passing for Jim McMahon is at four forty six,
and they win a game that many people will tell you, boy,
this is the most exciting finished, the most exciting bowl
game ever. And I can't tell you you're wrong. This
win really put b y U on the map as boy,
(28:15):
not only are they a really good team, but look
how exciting they are and and and b y you
really took off from here. Twenty one points in the
final four minutes, one on side kick, one defensive stop,
three touchdowns and you turn a forty five loss where
you could easily just said, you know what, we're done,
we're going home. It's not our game. We're gonna be
(28:36):
eleven and two. Everything is gonna be fine. And instead
you have McMahon, the legend of McMahon yelling to the
stands the game's not over yet, and he goes and
wins this game. At this point, walking around campus and
and and and teams have to be looking at him, going, boy,
this guy can do anything. Whatever he says, I'm gonna
follow him. And and the the leader Jim McMahon is
now born into public consciousness. Well, I mean that's a
(28:58):
big deal in nineteen eight. Do you imagine this guy
on a televised game in two thousand twenty, Right, this
is the anti Matt hassleback, we want the ball and
we're gonna win. This is a guy that says we're
down twenty we're coming back to get this game, so
shut up, sit down and enjoy it and backs that up.
(29:20):
I mean, you become a legend on so many other levels.
I mean, McMahon for the time because we didn't have
the same level of coverage, right, so you didn't know
all about him because you're thinking, this guy's at b
y U, this guy's be with you, especially as you
got to know Jim McMahon a little more as you
got to the draft process and his arrival to Chicago,
(29:43):
that just a different cat, you think a guy like this.
He showed up for the first uh, his first meeting
with coaches in Chicago, drinking a beer because he was
so happy to be out of the strict regime that
he had at b YU. I'm gonna bring a beer
to my first meeting with my coach, if I'm not mistaken.
His big thing was he always had one of those
little coolers, like the little like lunch ones that had
(30:05):
space for six beers like that. That was his his accompaniment,
gonna take it with just a character man. He was
remember training camp and watching kids like he was the
pie piper looking up at him as a hero. Me,
I'm a nerd. I'm I'm looking for the you know,
the the lineman, the wide outs and everybody else. I'm
not going where the rest of the crowd is because
(30:26):
I can go talk to these other guys as a
kid where rev Story almost ran me over and gave
me the best life advice Smith, never stand in front
of the polling guard. Oh that's that's good advice. Well
you got that too, so certainly in that process. But
I got a great little uh Kurt Gunther story for you.
(30:48):
Here me now It's like, how is he in the
moment they're kicker? Dave Taylor was rudely ineligible. So Gunther
sophomore walk on, literally pulled out of stats one one.
This was he was studying accounting. Uh. So he goes
to the season Oprah forgets his helmet. Somehow his helmet
kids forgotten. I'm a kicker, right, I don't need a helmet, right,
I could just tuck with somebody. They get get a
(31:10):
guy with a friend of the program on a private
jet to get him his helmet. You know, when he
first started kicking for them, which is great, not for
this game, but just the general of here's my genesis.
But because of this, he ends up getting two years
on scholarship and the bonus to finish his accounting dud.
(31:32):
So he ends up getting the third year to to
help finish his course of studies. So like just a legend.
I found some great stories on him. Uh, just talking
about how odd it was becoming the walk on because
they suddenly needed a kicker and getting this opportunity, and
he's now part of one of the big moments in
college football history. B y U wins the Miracle Bowl.
(31:55):
Coming up next, a little where are they now? More
on Jim McMahon, more and what happened to s mu
and maybe how the luckiest guy involved in this game
was the play by play guy. It's coming up next
on Special Teams, the aftermath of b y U Win.
(32:26):
Let's begin with the final call of the Jim McMahon
Hail Mary. Ray Scott play by play guy gets to
call this game. Here's the thing. He had just called
a big Minnesota Vikings win over the Cleveland Browns a
few days ago that ended with Tommy Kramer throwing a
Hail Mary to a mad Rashad that put the Vikings
(32:47):
in the playoffs. So he gets to call back and
very famous hail Mary. So you've seen it many times,
and maybe we'll do a future Special Teams on that
game because that was a fun game. We'll just talk
about a mad rash Yeah, very good. I remember when
on Mad Rashad hosted the Mole on ABC. Uh. So
he gets to call that hail Mary. He calls this
(33:09):
Hail Mary, and his call is we've done it again.
So this is what the guy gets, like seven days,
I'll do this game. Yeah, I'm gonna do B y
U at smut and he gets to call one of
the greatest college football games of all time. So maybe
the luckiest guy was a play by play guy. Uh
So next for these teams, SMU explodes in one absolutely explodes,
(33:31):
Dickerson explodes, James explodes. It's everybody's exploding. Dickerson runs from
nine touchdowns yards and Craig James has twelve hundred yards
and nine touchdowns. This was the hey, we are here
moment for SMU. But because they're on probation, they couldn't
play in a bowl game, they couldn't play for the
(33:53):
national championship. And this is how SMU of the early
eighties is remembered. The Pony Express, how good Dickerson and
Craig James were, and all the corruption that didn't involve
in SMU becoming the next level program. The death penalty
that came years after for their football program was a
really big It was the biggest story in college football
in the early nineteen eighties. This is what happens to
(34:14):
s m U as a result. But b YU they
take it in the other direction. Suddenly b y U
is on the national stage and it's all the big
teams in college football and it's b YU here. They
are winning this big game, putting up all these points,
and like we said earlier, this culminates in then winning
the national championship in four So clearly this came a
big jumping off point. However, SMU gets derailed because of
(34:35):
the probation and b y U continues to grow their legend. Yeah,
the legend of when you look at Lavella edwards career
from nineteen seventy two to two thousand one place, twenty
nine years to fifty seven, one oh one and three,
and you look at all those double digit win campaigns
(34:56):
that started nine seventy nine, they go eleven and one,
they go twelve and one here, eleven in two, et cetera.
Like now, think of the payouts and the attempts to
lure him away, right and and the gamesmanship that would
be going on of come on, except they lived at
the Holiday Bowl. I mean they had they had to
(35:18):
reservations every year they had to play there was That's
the way it was, and this is kind of why
they were the first Boise State team of the early eighties. Well,
what can we do? How much can we put them
into the National Championship conversation, you know, and look at
their first ball win. If this was into two Bowl
games before that, they lost both of them, and then
(35:40):
they lost in the Tangerine Bowl. I missed the Tangerine ball,
Tangerine Bow, the Blue Bonnet Ball. I missed those balls. Yeah,
they got absolutely obliterated by Oklahoma State in the nine
Tangerine Bowl down in Orlando. I missed the Blue Grand game.
We've already done a special teams podcast. I lament the
loss of the Blue Gray Game, so I'll continue to
(36:04):
do so. It was great for Christmas Day. If this
was a more widely recognized game that that that came
to everybody off the top of their heads, it wouldn't
need to be propped up. But clearly the last forty years,
of the three best Bowl games, you could possibly say,
it's this game, it's Texas USC National Championship and oh five,
and it's Oklahoma Boise State a couple of years later,
(36:27):
and that's the order. Those are the games. Those are
the three best Bowl games of the past forties. This
one sneaks in because it's eight, but Oka twenties, what
we're doing, I mean, there's other ques beat beating up
on Utah Bowl a couple of years ago was good.
I'll say that's number four, then that'll be the fourth. Thanks,
But clearly those are those are the three and and
(36:48):
And that's how b y U was, you know, was
able to just like I said, start their legend. But
this game was just so good and they had another
great year the year after. McMahon has one more year
and he goes to the NFL, you know, fifth overall
pick of the Bears, and he never materialized into being
that big, pure passer. Now, granted, he was never asked
(37:10):
to be the savior because he joined a team that
had a great rushing attack that was building a tremendous defense.
So hey, don't screw it up and make clutch plays
when you have to. McMahon's career was then became as
a leader. He would make clutch plays. But for a
guy who threw forty seven touchdowns this year in college football,
he never threw for more than fifteen touchdowns in a
(37:31):
season in the NFL. I mean, I get it wasn't
the age of the quarterback, but never more than fifteen
touchdowns in a season in the National Footballie from a
guy taking number five overall was it worth it for
the Bears. Sure, eighty five Bears win their legendary McMahon's
a legend, but boy out out of the number five
overall pick, and that's a quarterback you kind of want
more than fifteen touchdowns in a season from and some
(37:54):
years it was eleven touchdowns twelve nine touchdowns. He just
had the just never really material and that kind of
prolific passer. Sixty seven and thirty for his career. As
a start, he was forty six and fifteen for the Bears,
about fifty eight percent completion rate, just a little over
a one to one touchdown to interception ratio. But I
(38:15):
don't want is he couldn't stay healthy. You go through
the game logs eight three fourteen games, eight four nine games,
five thirteen games, eleven starts, eighty six six games, eighty
seven seven games. You get the point. Only three more
times in his career when he hit double digit games played,
(38:35):
and that was once he was in San Diego for
a year, and then a year in Philadelphia and then
a year in Minnesota when he started doing the Shaquille
O'Neil kind of thing. We need that veteran quarterback to
help bring a guy along who's a good break class
and glass in case of emergency. Guy. So went from
the Bears to the Chargers, to the Eagles, to the Vikings,
(38:57):
to Arizona to the Packers. Uh where again he he
he gets to win again. But it's which is always curious.
But yeah, back to quarterback for yeah, yeah, I mean
so for all of it. He just he just couldn't
stay healthy. But a beloved icon in Chicago. Whenever he
does a spot or shows up at a charity event,
(39:19):
everybody wants a piece of them just because you know
that year, I mean, unfortunately fans and for me, other
than a Rex Grossman led appearance against Peyton Manning where
the highlight was Prince singing in the rain, sure, uh there,
there's not been a lot to cheer about there, you know.
And McMahon also goes down, is this is one of
the first quarterbacks that teams would say, a prolific guy
(39:43):
in college in a wide open offense is not going
to translate to success in the NFL. And then quarterbacks
like this had to fight against that stigma for a while.
And McMahon was one of those first time forty seven
touchdowns over thirty touchdowns the senior years. There for seventy
seven touchdowns his final two years. And he gets to
the NFL and it's okay, he's not the guy we
thought he was because he comes from a quirky offense
(40:03):
that does things a little bit differently. He's not from
one of the Power five big conferences, and and that's
something that was a general belief by many NFL t this.
So he started to see guys come out of these
spread offenses and really light him up in the past
few years of the National Football League. All right, So
coming off this game, he mentioned some big players, some
Super Bowl winning head coaches. How about somewhere are they now?
(40:24):
Mr Harman, we go to Vasikahema. He is your sports
director and anchor NBC ten in Philly. I gotta take
the chuck off them's been there a long time doing that.
He ran a put back for a touchdown in this game.
Earlier in we didn't get to talk about him a
lot because it was in the first three quarters when
b Yu was getting drugged. But he did have a
big punt return for a touchdown in this game early on.
(40:46):
There you go, Scott Phillips, Uh, it would eventually become
a fourth round pick for Seattle. He's a wealth management
advisor for Northwestern Mutual. Matthew Braga, who we talked about
with a big play and one that shouldn't uh. He
now sells medical devices, so you know he he was
able to sell that catch and now he doesn't work
(41:07):
from Medtronic. Hey, listen, I can sell anything. I sold
that touchdown in the ADI Holiday Ball. All right, what
do I need to buy? What do you need to buy?
I can sell you anything. Well, and then you've got
Homo who is the A D at b y U.
He was a college football head coach for a while. Yeah,
now he's six years with the forty Niners as a
safety and then coached at b y U and Stanford
(41:29):
with the forty niners again as a position coach, and
then at cal UH and now he's the A D.
On the other side, you look at some SMU. You
mentioned Lance mclaney good at the two Step s VP
real Estate and Contracts for Lincoln Property Company. Michael Charles
biz systems consultant for McDonald's, Lee Spivey insurance broker, and
(41:54):
then Richard Neely Family Trust Private Equity real estate on
the guys getting into real estate, you know, taken advantage
of those big swaths of land in Texas. Can you
tell me that story about the Yes, I will you
gonna buy this house? Yes? If you tell me that story?
All right, where do you want me? What did you
guys really do to get you know? The title? East?
Come on so there. It is one of the best
(42:15):
college football games of all time. At worst, it's the
third best bowl game of the past forty years. That's
how big it was. The Miracle Bowl won by b
y U over SMU. I'm Jason Smith, He's Mike Carmen.
Our show is heard on Fox Sports Radio Monday through Friday,
ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven
to eleven on the West Coast. You have an idea
(42:37):
for a future Special Teams podcast, hit us up on
Twitter at how about a Fresca Mike at Swollen Dome,
don't forget give us a big review here. Give us
five stars if you love it. If you hated it,
still give us five stars. We won't tell anybody. We'll
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(43:02):
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will love you forever and ever and ever. Special Teams
(43:26):
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