Dumbest play ever?

[Olympic Fan]

Unbelievable play in Thursday night's Kent State-Towson football opener.

Kent punts, the ball grazes the return man and is picked up on the bounce by a Kent coverage man. He has an open 10 yard path to the end zone, but he's running parallel to the line and instead of turning right toward the end zone, he turns left and starts streaking up the sideline towards his own end zonel.

Okay, that's dumb, but not historically dumb. Somebody runs the wrong way with a fumble from time to time.

What lifts this play to historic levels of stupidty is the reaction of the Towson players. For a moment, it looks like the disoriented Kent player has a clear path to his own end zone and a safety. But not one, but two Towson defenders make heroic efforts to catch him and succeed in knocking him out of bounds!!!

Check out the video:

http://www.yardbarker.com/college_football/articles/msn/kent_states_andre_parker_returns_fumble_58_yards_t he_wrong_way_video/11591632

PS When I watch the replay again, I see another Towson player make a diving tackle attempt about 5-10 yards into the run. Not sure, but I think there are a couple of Kent players blocking for the wrong-way guy.

[jimsumner]

Unbelievable play in Thursday night's Kent State-Towson football opener.

Kent punts, the ball grazes the return man and is picked up on the bounce by a Kent coverage man. He has an open 10 yard path to the end zone, but he's running parallel to the line and instead of turning right toward the end zone, he turns left and starts streaking up the sideline towards his own end zonel.

Okay, that's dumb, but not historically dumb. Somebody runs the wrong way with a fumble from time to time.

What lifts this play to historic levels of stupidty is the reaction of the Towson players. For a moment, it looks like the disoriented Kent player has a clear path to his own end zone and a safety. But not one, but two Towson defenders make heroic efforts to catch him and succeed in knocking him out of bounds!!!

Check out the video:

http://www.yardbarker.com/college_football/articles/msn/kent_states_andre_parker_returns_fumble_58_yards_t he_wrong_way_video/11591632


PS When I watch the replay again, I see another Towson player make a diving tackle attempt about 5-10 yards into the run. Not sure, but I think there are a couple of Kent players blocking for the wrong-way guy.

Somewhere, Wrong-Way Corrigan is smiling.

[grossbus]

fun, but isn't the ball dead where he picks it up? a muff?

[DukieInBrasil]

fun, but isn't the ball dead where he picks it up? a muff?

The announcers said the punt returner touched the ball, so it was live. All the guy had to do was run the other way for a relatively easy score.

[Li_Duke]

I recall a guy at UNC tipping a ball into his own basket.

[sporthenry]

The announcers said the punt returner touched the ball, so it was live. All the guy had to do was run the other way for a relatively easy score.

That is incorrect and the ball was returned to the Towson 7 yard line so in reality, this is a pretty funny story that didn't really hurt anyone but the returner, although the coach looked pretty mad at whoever made the tackle. Since possession was never achieved by the Towson player, it is ruled a muffed punt and while the kicking team can recover it, the ball is dead at that spot. If he possessed it and then fumbled, then it would be a live ball to return for a TD.

[fisheyes]

I recall a guy at UNC tipping a ball into his own basket.

Thanks! I needed that!

[moonpie23]

paratroopers landing at duke?

[UrinalCake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eBrb00pdGw

[jimsumner]

A Georgia Tech player named Lee Goza once took the second-half tip-off against Carolina the wrong way, scoring in Carolina's basket.

Asked about the faux-paux after the game, he quipped that his mother had always wanted him to score for Carolina.

[Olympic Fan]

My favorite part of the Jim Marshall video is after he's taken it in for the safety, one of the San Francisco players comes over and pats him on the back ...

I realize the Kent-Towson play didn't really count (and it hardly mattered as Kent ripped Towson) ... I just thought it was funny how many players were disoriented on the play. In Marshall's case, for instance, he was the only guy who got turned around.

I don't know why, but it reminded me of the dumbest moment in ACC basketball history -- much dumber and much more significant than Goza's wrong-way basket or Zeller's accidental tip-in. Only it was a matchup of coaching stupidty, not any player's gaffe.

It came late in the first half of the 1970 ACC Tournament championship game (back when you had to win the tournament to go to the NCAA). South Carolina, which was hosting the East Regionals the next week and was ranked No. 3 in the nation, had gone through the ACC unbeaten and relatively unchallenged. They would have been a prohibitive favorite again NC State, except that South Carolina star John Roche had sprained his ankle in the semifinals and was really hurting.

Even so, South Carolina took a 24-13 lead with just over three minutes left in the half and seemed to be in control as their 2-1-2 zone had State absolutely baffled. At that point, Norm Sloan did what I thought was a dumb thing -- he ordered his team to pull the ball out and just hold it until South Carolina came out of their zone.

Just two years earlier, Sloan had done that to Duke in the ACC Tournament, resulting in a 12-10 win. But State was never more than 3 points down in that one. I thought at the time that Sloan was crazy -- with Roche limping, McGuire (who never had a bench) would have LOVED to shorten the game. And up 11 points -- that was a huge lead in the circumstances.

But just when I was condemning Sloan for his stupidity, McGuire topped it. After letting State hold the ball for two solid minutes, he ordered his team to switch to the man-to-mn and press. State caught SC in transition between the zone and man and found Van Williford for a layup. Joe Dunning stole the inbounds pass and scored and suddenly it was a 7-point game and the Coliseum was roaring and all the momentum at halftime was on State's side. As we know, State came back and won in double overtime, denying South Carolina a chance to compete for the national title.

I'll always believed that it was because when McGuire saw Sloan running the wrong way, he made a spectacular flying tackle to save his opponent from his own stupidity.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Fred Brown's "pass" to James Worthy is probably at the top of the list of most painful to watch.

[75Crazie]

The number of humerous things that happened in this play is astounding:

The ball hits the punt receiver as he is waving his teammates away from the ball.
The defender picks up the ball and runs with it (not really humerous, but still something he isn't allowed to do).
The recoverer starts to run the wrong way.
The kicking team players start to block the receiving team's players as he is running the wrong way.
The receiving team players try to tackle the guy as he is running towards his own endzone.

Any one of these is funny. The combination is legendary.

[cmccoy11]

Kent read. Kent write. Kent State.
And I'm allowed to say that because I'm a Kent State Alum. :p

[JNort]

They guy who ran the wrong way made a boneheaded decision by going the wrong way but the dumbest play is the other team trying to tackle him! You let him go you get 2 points and the ball back!

[miramar]

The number of humorous things that happened in this play is astounding:

The ball hits the punt receiver as he is waving his teammates away from the ball.
The defender picks up the ball and runs with it (not really humorous, but still something he isn't allowed to do).
The recoverer starts to run the wrong way.
The kicking team players start to block the receiving team's players as he is running the wrong way.
The receiving team players try to tackle the guy as he is running towards his own endzone.

Any one of these is funny. The combination is legendary.

As I recall, with Wrong Way Corrigan a teammate was yelling at him to stop, but Corrigan thought the guy was shouting encouragement and kept right on going. In this case it seems that nobody realized the mistake and so all 22 guys got into the action. Parker went 58 yards so you would think that somebody would have figured it out in all that time. Instead a teammate (#1) even runs over after Parker is knocked out of bounds to congratulate him and then they run back to the opposite sideline together. Weird stuff.

[jimsumner]

As I recall, with Wrong Way Corrigan a teammate was yelling at him to stop, but Corrigan thought the guy was shouting encouragement and kept right on going. In this case it seems that nobody realized the mistake and so all 22 guys got into the action. Parker went 58 yards so you would think that somebody would have figured it out in all that time. Instead a teammate (#1) even runs over after Parker is knocked out of bounds to congratulate him and then they run back to the opposite sideline together. Weird stuff.

You're perhaps thinking of Wrong Way Riegels.

[sagegrouse]

As I recall, with Wrong Way Corrigan a teammate was yelling at him to stop, but Corrigan thought the guy was shouting encouragement and kept right on going. In this case it seems that nobody realized the mistake and so all 22 guys got into the action. Parker went 58 yards so you would think that somebody would have figured it out in all that time. Instead a teammate (#1) even runs over after Parker is knocked out of bounds to congratulate him and then they run back to the opposite sideline together. Weird stuff.

Wrong Way Corrigan was a pilot, who, when leaving New York after he had been denied permission to fly across the Atlantic, somehow did any way and said he got lost.

From Wikipedia --

"Douglas Corrigan (January 22, 1907 – December 9, 1995) was an American aviator born in Galveston, Texas. He was nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight from Long Beach, California, to New York, he flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland, though his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach. He claimed his unauthorized flight was due to a navigational error, caused by heavy cloud cover that obscured landmarks and low-light conditions, causing him to misread his compass. However, he was a skilled aircraft mechanic (he was one of the builders of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis) and had made several modifications to his own plane, preparing it for his transatlantic flight. He had been denied permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland, and his "navigational error" was seen as deliberate. Nevertheless, he never publicly admitted to having flown to Ireland intentionally."

sagegrouse