By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU fans know walk-offs.
The Warren Morris two-run home run on June 8, 1996, gave LSU a 9-8 victory over Miami for its third national championship in the greatest moment in college baseball history.
But just six years after that, the LSU football team experienced one of its most famous walk-off wins in history on Nov. 9, 2002, at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky. The 33-30 victory did not win a championship of any kind by any means as it was in the worst season of the coach Nick Saban era. The Tigers lost three of their next four games to finish at 8-5 overall and 5-3 in the Southeastern Conference.
Nevertheless, it is a treasured moment in LSU history because of how strange it was. LSU was done as it fell behind, 30-27, with 11 seconds to go on a Kentucky field goal. After the kickoff and a short completion, LSU was on its 26-yard line with :02 remaining. Kentucky players drenched Kentucky coach Guy Morriss with Gatorade before the next play.
Then, LSU quarterback Marcus Randall, starting because Matt Mauck injured his foot three games before in a 36-7 win at No. 16 Florida, heaved a desperation bomb that was supposed to go to wide receiver Michael Clayton.
But the ball eluded Clayton and three Kentucky defenders on the way to the waiting hands of wide receiver Devery Henderson, who caught it inside the 15-yard line and sprinted the rest of the way for the 74-yard touchdown and 33-30 LSU win.
As Henderson scored, Kentucky fans who had already stormed the field did not realize that they just lost.
“I was about to say, ‘This is Kentucky’s moment.’ And I mean the Kentucky fans were literally over the wall already,” ESPN announcer Dave Neal said on Tiger Rag Radio on Tuesday night. “This is my 29th year of football. I’ve done a lot of games and a lot of game-winning field goals with not time left. But to have a play – a walk off play like that – is such a rarity. I’m just blessed that I was able to see it, because it was absolutely amazing.”
Listen to Neal’s call of the monumental play above by clicking the white arrow in the red box.
“It was surreal,” Neal, who was calling the play-by-play for Jefferson-Pilot that afternoon, said on Tiger Rag Radio. “The LSU fans were going absolutely berserk. But so were the Kentucky fans, except they had not idea they just lost.”
No. 10 LSU (4-1, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) plays at No. 25 Kentucky (4-1, 2-1 SEC) on Saturday (6 p.m., ESPN).
The Tigers have lost each of their games at Kentucky since the Bluegrass Miracle – 43-37 in triple overtime on Oct. 13, 2007, and 42-21 on Oct. 9, 2021.
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