Avoiding Bluegrass Miracles
September 15th, 2008 at 10:53 amBy Chris
Lost in USC’s crushing of Ohio State and the ligaments of Charlie Weiss’ knee, the University of Kentucky football team is now 3-0. No, they haven’t played, well, anybody — but then again, neither has sixth-ranked LSU, so I’m not going to throw them under a bus because their pre-conference schedule isn’t a top-ranked endeavor.
Speaking of LSU, last Saturday, Kentucky beat Middle Tennessee 20-17 to run their record to its current mark, but not before almost reliving the Bluegrass Miracle provided by LSU when Nick Saban was still there. You know the story — UK thought victory was in its grasp, as did their fans. So as LSU is lining up for their last gasp play, Kentucky fans begin storming the field as the UK players douse their coach with Gatorade.
The problem was, while all this celebrating was going on, LSU decided they’d complete a Hail Mary pass to score and snatch Kentucky’s victory from the jaws of the Tigers’ demise, like so:
If I’m not mistaken, that particular play won the ESPY for play of the year.
Now, fast forward to last Saturday night and Kentucky is just about to close the book on a solid, if unspectacular victory against Middle Tennessee, a team that waxed Maryland the week before. For some reason however, instead of simply running the ball on their last fourth down of the game, Kentucky decides to kick a field goal from inside the red zone, which wound up being a mistake.
The kick was blocked by the Blue Raiders and returned to midfield, which set up the following ending:
Apparently, Kentucky really likes to play with fire — it’s either that, or they wanted Middle Tennessee fans to experience an “oh so close” heartbreak that would stick with them for years. As for Kentucky, a program that’s really trying hard to be taken seriously, had Middle Tennessee pulled off the redux version of the Bluegrass Miracle, it would have completely undone any goodwill the last two bowl game-winning seasons built up.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:04 am
[...] you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!After falling ever so short in their last Hail Mary bid against the University of Kentucky, the Blue Raiders of Middle [...]
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] In 2001, the home-team Tigers needed a late touchdown with only 13 seconds left in the game to come from behind and win, 29-25. The two teams hooked up again in the following season and LSU only needed the college football play of the year to get out of Kentucky with a win, thanks to the Bluegrass Miracle. [...]