Without a doubt, college football provides the most exciting tiebreaker in the world of sports.
When four quarters are not enough to decide a winner, fans buckle up for a ride unlike any other—a back-and-forth shootout that can end in ten minutes or stretch for two hours.
Week six of the college football season featured four games that needed extra periods to decide a winner, with the Georgia-Tennesse matchup proving to be the most exciting and also most important on a national scale. The Bulldogs late-game comeback and dramatic victory against the Volunteers is a perfect example of the perfection of the college football overtime.
After quarterback Aaron Murray led Georgia on a game-tying drive at the end of the fourth quarter to keep his team alive, both sides geared up for the overtime period. 100,000 fans clad in the Volunteers’ trademark orange were going crazy in Neyland Stadium after four quarters of play.
The Bulldogs won the toss at the end of regulation and chose to take the ball after Tennessee, always the smart move in an overtime game.
The Volunteers took four plays to move the ball to the Bulldogs 7-yard line. On second-and-goal, with a potential upset of No. 6 Georgia in sight, Tennessee handed the ball to wideout Pig Howard. Sprinting towards the right side of the endzone, Howard dove and stretched the ball out towards the pylon—touchdown Volunteers, cue the earthquake-inducing cheers of the Tennessee faithful.
But it was too good to be true. Upon further review, the officials determined that Howard lost control of the ball just short of the goal line. Instead of a touchdown, the play was ruled as a touchback, giving Georgia the ball and essentially crushing the Volunteers’ chances for a statement win over their SEC East rival.
The Bulldogs ran three plays, lost two yards and then kicked a 42-yard field goal to finish off Tennessee and escape Knoxville with the win. Just like that, 100,000 fans had their hopes crushed and headed home with nothing to show from five periods of play.
Tennessee’s loss to Georgia exemplified one element of the college football overtime perfectly. Like a shootout in soccer or hockey, the outcome of the game can change in the blink of an eye. Howard scores a touchdown, and the Volunteers have the game won, or the officials overturn the call, the Bulldogs capitalize and the game is over before Volunteer fans can sing one last verse of “Ol’ Rocky Top.”
Like the traditional shootout in hockey or soccer, a college football overtime can also be done in 10 or 15 minutes. But there is something different about breaking a tie in college football. There is always the possibility of witnessing something much more—when a quick shootout turns into an hours-long battle to decide a winner.
For instance, in 2003 Kentucky faced off against Arkansas in what would become the longest game in college football history. The contest ended at 12:01 a.m. after seven overtime periods. That’s right, SEVEN overtimes. The game lasted 4 hours and 56 minutes. The Wildcats and Razorbacks combined for 86 points during those seven overtimes.
I was in the stands in Commonwealth Stadium in my hometown of Lexington for that matchup.
Although my team lost that night, I will never forget the game, the incredible experience, the way both teams toyed with my emotions all night. I went home and passed out due to exhaustion. Granted, I was only 11, but the experience sapped me of everything I had. I poured every bit of my passion for college football, every bit of my enthusiasm as a fan, into that game. Not only did I get to witness one of the most exciting events in sports, the college football overtime, I got to see arguably one of the most exciting college football contests ever played.
Four years later, I would get to see another thriller in Lexington, when the Wildcats took three overtime periods to topple top-ranked LSU. The game ended on a fourth down stop and thousands of fans storming the field to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in Kentucky football history.
There is nothing in the world of athletics that compares to this kind of atmosphere. No other sport has the potential to end in such dramatic, exciting fashion. Basketball overtime games are OK, but tacking on five more minutes of play just isn’t as exciting as shutting off the game clock in preparation for a college football overtime.
Extra innings in baseball drag on and on and on and don’t add any additional novelty to the overtime period. Soccer and hockey shootouts can be exciting, but they end so abruptly that there is little time to build the anxiety and anticipation that come with a college football overtime game. And the NFL is also a letdown—one 15-minute overtime with new rules that very few people understand just doesn’t satisfy the true football fan.
So next time you watch a college football game, either in person or from home, and it goes into overtime, keep watching. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.
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