Harry Harrison, an All-American defensive back and now a member of the Ole Miss radio team, says he’s thought “1,000 times” through the years about one of the most famous plays in the Rebels’ football history.
It didn’t go the Rebels’ way, although Harrison and his teammates say it should never have been run.
LSU on Saturday will honor former quarterback Bert Jones and running back Brad Davis who produced the winning touchdown in the “clock game,” the Tigers’ 17-16 comeback win over Ole Miss at Tiger Stadium in 1972.
Harry Harrison
LSU had time to run the play because 1 second remained on the clock after Ole Miss had successfully defended the play just prior. That play began with 4 seconds on the clock and took at least 6 seconds to run, contends Harrison, who says the play was timed on film back at Ole Miss “hundreds” of times.
Harrison describes the decisive play in vivid detail in a story that will appear in Friday’s Daily Journal.
Here’s an excerpt:
“He (Davis) did back across the goalline. I saw the officials looking at him, but he never had control of the football. I hit him about the same time (the pass arrived), and we went out of bounds. He never had control of the football and fumbled it out of bounds, of course. They called it a touchdown. To me, it was an incompletion.”
Tortured by the memory, Harrison says he took comfort many years later in a conversation with Jones in which Jones agreed that the winning pass wasn’t caught.
Denham Springs, La., native, Mississippian since 1989 with a stop in Meridian before arriving in Tupelo. Daily Journal beat writer since 1996, covering Ole Miss since 2002. Proud Northeast Louisiana alum. Follow me on Twitter @parrishalford and listen to Kory Keys and myself daily with The Ole Miss Beat on Rebel Sports Radio.
