Behind-the-scenes stories of Oklahoma, Nebraska and college football's greatest game
"Holy moly! Man, woman and child, did that put 'em in the aisles! Johnny 'The Jet' Rodgers just tore 'em loose from their shoes!"
"I still get chills listening to that," Rodgers said.
On Thanksgiving Day 1971, Nebraska and Oklahoma achieved "perfection," as reporter Dave Kindred described it in the Louisville Times.
"Sometimes it don't live up to the billing," said Oklahoma halfback Greg Pruitt. "That one did."
Billed as "The Game of the Century," Rodgers' epic punt return for a touchdown -- and Lyell Bremser's indelible radio call -- helped top-ranked Nebraska defeat No. 2 Oklahoma, 35-31, in a classic whose mystique has carried over, well past the life of the rivalry itself. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the game, the Sooners and Cornhuskers will meet again Saturday for the first time since 2010. Their rivalry might effectively be dead. But that game still lives.
"It had everything," said Bill Hancock, who then worked in Oklahoma's communications department before overseeing the Final Four for 13 seasons and becoming the executive director of the BCS and the College Football Playoff since 2009. "A perfect combination of things that made it the biggest game I've ever been associated with, and ever will be associated with."
The showdown featured 17 of the 22 first-team All-Big Eight selections that season and 27 starters who would get drafted into the NFL. The two staffs combined would produce 12 future FBS head coaches, including Barry Switzer, Tom Osborne and Jimmy Johnson.
Oklahoma's wishbone offense averaged 472 rushing yards, an NCAA record that still stands; Nebraska's Blackshirts defense was giving up only six points a game.
That day, 55 million people tuned in to ABC to see what would happen, then a record television audience for a college football game.
The Huskers went on to win a second consecutive national championship that year, crushing Alabama by 32 points in the Orange Bowl. Oklahoma, meanwhile, would go 43-2-1 over the following four seasons, with two national titles.
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