Mississippi State’s practices under defensive coordinator Todd Grantham in 2017 always included one thing.
“The type of guy that Todd is, we’re always doing a fumble circuit or a turnover circuit or something like that every single week,” former MSU defensive tackle Grant Harris said.
But little did Harris and his teammates know that preparation — or lack thereof — would play a role in escorting the Bulldogs into the college football history books.
On Sept. 9, 2017, in a road game at Louisiana Tech, Harris was lined up at 3-tech when an errant snap by the home team whizzed by the quarterback’s head and down the field. It was fumbled, bumbled and kicked more than 65 yards backward from there, resulting in an 87-yard loss for LA Tech and a world of embarrassment for all involved.
Based on interviews from those inside Joe Aillet Stadium at the time, here’s the remarkable history of the 13 seconds of football mania best known as “third-and-93.”
“That’s my top one craziest play of all,” defensive end Marquiss Spencer said. “I think you can’t really top that.”
Fresh off a 49-0 whipping of Charleston Southern in Starkville, Mississippi State made the trip to Ruston to face Louisiana Tech. The red and blue Bulldogs had just beaten Northwestern State handily, setting up a matchup of two 1-0 teams. With an SEC team coming in, Joe Aillet Stadium was packed.
Ben Carlisle, LA Tech beat writer, BleedTechBlue: It was one of the bigger games Louisiana Tech’s ever hosted.
For the home team, it started off well. Jonathan Barnes knocked in a 27-yard field goal, and Kam McKnight punched in a 1-yard touchdown run later in the first quarter. The PAT was blocked, but LA Tech led 9-0. Then Mississippi State struck for 36 unanswered points, highlighted by Jeffery Simmons’ blocked punt and subsequent touchdown return. Nick Fitzgerald passed for three touchdowns and ran for two more, and by the end of the third quarter, MSU controlled the game. The Bulldogs had an insurmountable 57-14 lead.
Carlisle: It was a game that was really out of hand.
Spencer: I was pretty sure that we were going to get the win.
But Louisiana Tech was about to score. Boston Scott was stopped for no gain on first-and-goal from the MSU 6-yard line. LA Tech lined up with quarterback J’Mar Smith in the shotgun and Scott to his right for what seemed to be a passing play. Center Ethan Reed snapped the football too high, and it glanced off Smith’s right hand and skipped past him. The quarterback went into a slide at the 27-yard line, but he couldn’t secure it.
Harris: It’s not your average play, but it’s pretty common, so quarterbacks know to just jump on it and go. Once I saw the ball keep going, I was like, ‘Oh, man.’ It just kept going and going. After that, you find yourself in almost a 100-yard sprint, and you’re just thinking, ‘Man, what is going on?’ Just a routine play that turns into a summer workout.
Spencer was the first one to the football at the 41-yard line. But he had unexpected competition — his own teammate. Maurice Smitherman hit Spencer from the right side, dislodging the ball. At the 49, Smitherman tried to grab it, but he bobbled it. On the other side of midfield, freshman safety C.J. Morgan reached down to scoop it up. Instead, he kicked it. At the LA Tech 37, Morgan got to the ball and kicked it again.
Morgan: Every time I go home, I see my friends from La Tech, and they never let me live it down. Neither does my family. So it’ll definitely be something I remember ’til the day I die.
Carlisle: It really turned into kind of a game of pinball. You kind of look back on it now, and it’s like, ‘Why didn’t that guy pick it up? Why didn’t that guy pick it up? It looks like they’re doing this on purpose.’
Harris: It looks easy, but it’s not, because that ball is moving, and that ball is slippery. Especially when you’re not used to it. As a receiver, as a running back, as a quarterback, you’re used to grabbing the ball every other play or two plays in a row. But when you’re on defense and you’re not really accustomed to grabbing that ball every play, the ball has a mind of its own.
The ball rolls inside the 20, and it becomes a footrace. MSU linebacker Willie Gay Jr. races in from the left; LA Tech receiver Cee Jay Powell comes in from the right. With Gay on top of him, Powell dives on the ball and is marked down at his own 7-yard line.
CBS Sports Network play-by-play commentator Carter Blackburn: “It is finally recovered by Louisiana Tech back at the 7! The greased pig off the snap!”
Spencer: I really thought we were going to get it because Willie was down there. I thought he was about to get it, but the receiver was fast, and he just jumped on the ball.
Harris: By the time I ran all the way down there, I was just gassed. I can remember after running down there, I put my hands on my head. I was just like, ‘Man, I cannot believe this.’ It was freaking rough.
But there was another race barely captured on the CBS broadcast. Defensive end Kobe Jones and defensive tackle Tre Brown sped down the middle of the field, each aiming to keep the other from picking up the fumble. Ultimately, neither got it.
Harris: If you ask them to this day, one would say he won, and the other one would say the other won. If you go back and watch that tape, you can literally see them racing each other like nobody else on the field matters but them and the ball. They’re racing each other, and they just don’t want each other to get the ball. They’re both fighting over the ball.
On the sidelines and in the stands, reactions were mixed as everyone tried to process what had just happened.
Harris: In that moment, I can just remember a couple guys walking to the sideline upset that they can’t get the ball.
Carlisle: The game was a little bit out of hand. The crowd was starting to thin out a little bit. You see that happen, and you’re sitting with your buddies or whoever you’re with at the game, and you’re kind of looking around like, ‘How does that just happen?’
Spencer: On the bench, we were laughing about it.
Harris: It was moreso a funny time on the field because we were up by 30-plus. I’m not going to say we weren’t playing hard, but I think if the game would have been a little closer, I think it would have been a little more serious.
Louisiana Tech had lost 87 yards on the play, setting up the longest remaining distance in college football history. It was third-and-goal from the Tech 7, putting the home team 93 yards away from the end zone.
Austin Williams, Mississippi State wide receiver then redshirting as a freshman: I have not seen third and 93 (before).
Spencer: That’s my first time ever playing third-and-goal on their side of the field.
Harris: I think we were pretty satisfied with the down and distance they had to go to get the first down. We didn’t score the touchdown, but I think we feel pretty good about the negative yardage we gave them.
Carlisle: From Louisiana Tech’s perspective — from a blooper standpoint — it probably would have been best if Mississippi State picked it up and ran it back.
Instead, Scott ran for 21 yards on third down. On fourth-and-goal 72 yards from the end zone, LA Tech’s Brady Farlow punted to the Mississippi State 35-yard line. MSU finished off a 57-21 win.
Harris: I would probably say we had a better outcome, because when they punted, we probably got better field position than we would have gotten if it would have just gone over his head and he fell on it. They almost would have been in position to kick a field goal on their play.
Spencer: If they had scored, we probably would have been upset. Either way, we still would have been up by 40, but we’d be upset because they scored.
Rather than a mere fumbled snap or even a defensive touchdown, “third-and-93” became a highlight-reel play — for all the wrong reasons.
Skip Holtz, Louisiana Tech head coach: It was one of those bloopers. You don’t want it to happen.
Harris: I didn’t really think it was a big deal, to be honest, until I saw it on ESPN Not Top 10. After that, I realized the magnitude of that play.
But apart from the embarrassment, there was a semblance of upside for each team involved.
Carlisle: If you’re a coach, you probably look at the silver lining of it: ‘We hustled, we got to the ball,’ all that type of stuff. It was just a crazy play.
Harris: It just really defines the Mississippi State defense. You have 11 guys going to the ball. Everybody’s hungry. Everybody’s trying to get the ball. That’s just the definition of Mississippi State defense because everybody’s out there hungry. You’ve got three or four guys just trying to grab the ball and take it in for a touchdown.
Four years later, the legacy of “third-and-93” lives on, though not so much within the programs who made it happen.
Carlisle: I think it’s one of those things that they just kind of try to put in the back of their mind — a fluke-type play that will never probably happen again maybe in the history of college football. I think it’s just one of those things where they don’t really discuss it within the building.
Spencer: We don’t talk about it. The game’s over with. That’s in the past, so we really don’t talk about it much.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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