1982 Cal vs. Stanford: THE BAND IS ON THE FIELD!

On November 20, 1982, the UC Berkeley football team, referred to as Cal, wins an improbable last-second victory over Stanford when they complete five lateral passes around members of the Cardinal marching band, who had wandered onto the field a bit early to celebrate the upset they were sure their team had won, and score a touchdown.
After catching the last pass of the series, Cal’s Kevin Moen careened through the confused horn section and made it safely to the end zone. Then he slammed into trombone player Gary Tyrell. (A photograph from the Oakland Tribune of the jubilant Moen and the terrified Tyrell in the moment just before the collision is still displayed triumphantly all over Berkeley.)
Late in the game’s fourth quarter, with Cal leading 19-17, Stanford quarterback John Elway managed to nudge his team down the field and into field goal range with just eight seconds-a crucial few seconds too many, it turned out-left to play. Mark Harmon (not the actor, who played for UCLA) kicked a 35-yard field goal, and Stanford took a 20-19 lead. The Cardinals flooded the field to celebrate, and the ref ushered them back to the bench and slapped them with a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. As a result, Harmon had to kick off from the 25 with four seconds to play.
Harmon squibbed the kick, and Cal’s Moen scrambled to retrieve it at the Cal 46-yard-line. He considered trying to run the ball for a touchdown-but then, as he wrote later in an alumni journal, “I remembered ‘gra-bass,’ one of Coach Kapp’s training games. It had no rules, just one bunch of guys trying to keep the ball away from another bunch of guys.” So, that’s what he started to do. He pitched the ball behind him to teammate Richard Rodgers, who tossed it to freshman Dwight Garner, who returned it just as two Stanford defenders barreled into him. (Some people still say that he didn’t actually get rid of the ball before his knee brushed the turf. but Garner and his teammates swore that he did.) Then Rodgers lobbed the ball to Mariet Ford, who returned it to Moen by flinging the ball backwards over his shoulder just as he was about to get nailed by three panicking Stanford defenders. Moen caught the ball and bolted for the end zone, 25 yards away.

[@jamesfields2916]

#26 on Stanford Mike Tolliver from Lancaster,Ca. Caught Elway s last collegiate pass and was also the last Stanford player with a chance at making the tackle on the kickoff.

[@jamesfields2916]

You had to see Elway in person to really appreciate how damn good he really was. 4th and 18 from his 12 with less than a minute snd drills a 30 yard pass. Elway also led a late scoring drive against top 10 Arizona State only to see Stanford give up a last second td.

[@TheMrSuge]

Reminds me of the USA Rugby Bronze winning play

[@calbeardude]

I was thinking, "What if Joe Starkey had called the final play of that USA Women's Rugby Sevens bronze medal game at the 2024 Paris Olympics?!"

[@vicanthony5470]

Stanford called timeout with 8 seconds left. Why? All they did was leave time on the clock for a kickoff to Cal. They should have called the timeout at 3 seconds, therefore the FG is the final play of the game. Terrible coaching.