fumblerooski

[Eric the Red]

Tough to say goodbye to football's best play

 

By: LOREN NELSON - North County Times

 

For no good reason and a laundry list of lousy ones, football's greatest play is dead.

 

The fumblerooski has passed away quietly at age 27, the victim of embarrassed coaches and clueless officials who for years have conspired against the most ingenious bit of deception since the Trojan horse.

 

The play was so outlandish ---- it called for the center to place the ball on the ground so a guard could scoop it up and run while his teammates went the other direction ---- there was no way to defend it.

 

 

The self-important NFL, which doesn't allow such foolishness, banned the play in the early 1960s. But the fumblerooski wasn't made famous until the late '70s, when Nebraska coach Tom Osborne stumbled upon it while watching film of a Texas high school recruit.

 

"We practiced it all year long," said Kelly Saalfield, the Cornhuskers center who got the fumblerooski phenomenon started in 1979 during a nationally televised late-season game against Oklahoma. "We actually ran it twice in that particular game. But everyone totally missed the first one that didn't work, including the (TV) cameras.

 

"The play (Cornhuskers guard) Randy Schleusener scored on is the one everyone remembers. I've won a few beers in the bar on that one."

 

The beauty of the fumblerooski was when it worked ---- and it almost always worked ---- some jelly bellied lineman had the honor of chugging untouched and breathless into the end zone.

 

Longtime Torrey Pines High coach Ed Burke, who always has had a taste for trickery, couldn't believe what he was seeing as he watched that 1979 Oklahoma-Nebraska game live.

 

His eyes lit up like a Roman candle when saw Nebraska run it to perfection.

 

"I said to myself, 'We've got to put that puppy in,' " said Burke, whose teams scored so many times on the play over the years he lost count. "Every year, we had guards saying, 'Coach let me be the fumblerooski guy.'

 

"We had a lot of fun with it, but the officials didn't."

 

Seems most refs have the sense of humor of a kumquat.

 

They couldn't stand the fumblerooski. Made them look like stooges. They would be so fooled by the play, they would lose sight of the ball like everyone else. So they would blow the whistle right in the middle of the darn thing.

 

Other times, they wouldn't know it when the play went haywire and would miss a half-dozen infractions. It got so bad they made a rule that coaches had to tell the officials when they were going to run the play.

 

"Even after we told them they sometimes had trouble following it," Burke said.

 

Jerry Diehl, assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, explained the reason for his organization's ban of the play recently to the Los Angeles Times by, in a dizzying bit of misdirection, saying the fumblerooski was both seldom-used and a burden for officials.

 

Then there's this: "It eliminates confusion in a ballgame," Diehl said about the ban, which goes into effect this fall.

 

By Diehl's reasoning, the forward pass is the next play to be decreed off limits. Pass interference can be a pesky rule to interpret. Why burden the poor, overworked officials with such difficult judgment calls? Banning the fumblerooski because it's too confusing makes as much sense as outlawing Tabasco sauce because it's too hot or playing hockey on ice because it's too slippery.

 

The voice of reason in all this comes from the 49-year-old Saalfield, who has a thriving career as, of all things, a football official. Saalfield works games for the Big 12, Arena Football and NFL Europe, none of which allow the fumblerooski.

 

"I say more power to coaches who find a way to fool the other team," Saalfield said.

 

Alas, Saalfield was not consulted when college football banned the fumblerooski in 1993 or when the high school federation killed it for good this January.

 

Unfortunately, we have seen the last of football's most glorious sight, linemen with all the grace and elegance of a hippopotamus lumbering for touchdowns on running plays designed solely for them.

 

"Oh God, I would start getting butterflies and my legs would start seizing up," said former Torrey Pines guard Brian Batson, who scored three times on fumblerooski plays during the 1992 season. "It was like seeing dollar signs. You were so fired up as a lineman to touch the ball."

 

We're going to miss mud-stained trench warriors like Batson getting their unlikely shot at glory. We're going to miss coaches like Osborne and Burke being rewarded for having a sense of flair and an endless imagination.

 

Farewell, fumblerooski.

 

It was a great run.

 

Contact sports editor Loren Nelson at (760) 740-3551 or lnelson@nctimes.com. To comment, go to nctimes.com.

[born red]

Are there any videos of this play when Nebraska ran it?...for those of us who weren't alive at the time...

[bennychico11]

http://www.blacktable.com/munson040616.htm

at the bottom

 

No story about the 37th state would be complete without mentioning the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. Formerly known as the Bugeaters and Rattlesnake Boys, the Cornhuskers are the best team -- make that *teams* -- in the history of college football. Jeff Sargarin's highly scientific and accurate study places the '95 and '71 squads first and second on his list of the all-time best. Think your Alma matter has loyal fans? When a Husker fan bleeds they make sure it's Husker Red and they've made sure every home game's been sold out since 1962.

 

But did you know the Huskers lost the best game in the history of college football?

 

New Year's Day of 1984 found the Huskers in the Orange Bowl trailing the Miami Hurricanes 17-0 with halftime looming and their dreams of a National Championship slipping away. There was no reason to panic. On the sideline coaching the Huskers was Tom Osborne, a man so focused and wise he makes Yoda look like a special needs student with ADHD. Dr. Tom -- he as a PhD in Developmental Psychology -- decided it was as good a time as any to unveil a little something he drew up called the "fumblerooski."

 

The play started with quarterback Turner Gill *placing* the ball on the ground as if he fumbled, then All-American lineman Dean Steinkuhler picked it up and rumbled 19 yards for a touchdown. To say fumblerooski was a surprise is an understatement. Nebraska's offensive was as conservative as its citizens who haven't voted a Democrat to the Whitehouse since FDR. Was Miami fooled? Does a golden retriever look stupid chasing his own tail? The fumblerooski was so dastardly it was eventually banned from college football.

 

Nebraska should have won -- but the Huskers came up a point short, losing 31-30 on a failed two-point conversion in the final seconds of what many experts call the greatest college football game ever.

 

Still the game was not a failure. It was the start of a decade long test of Coach Osborne's Nebraska work ethic and the Husker Nation's patience. In 1995 Osborne got a rematch and won his first of three National Championships over a five-year run in which his teams went a mind boggling 60 and 3 -- and produced the best football team ever.

 

trying to look for a video.

seems so simple that it's a wonder how anyone got confused by it.

[bennychico11]

try this:

http://mynptv.org/osborne/bestplays/bp5.ram

[HSKRNOKC]

They ran it in the 84 orange bowl too. Worked like a charm.

[NU fan in Denver]

It's too bad the officials can't keep up with the play. Always an intertaining play.

[huskertp]

try this:

http://mynptv.org/osborne/bestplays/bp5.ram

What program do I need to run this in??

[bennychico11]

try this:

http://mynptv.org/osborne/bestplays/bp5.ram

What program do I need to run this in??

Real Audio...i don't have it either and don't want it on my computer for various reasons, so I'm assuming the file works...but you can get a free download of the program at http://www.real.com/

[Red Snow Sword: Husker Sentinel]

Alas, Saalfield was not consulted when college football banned the fumblerooski in 1993 or when the high school federation killed it for good this January.

That's a damn shame. DAMN shame.

 

Oh well.

 

Thanks for the vid link -- I'll never be able to see it live, apparently.....

 

 

 

PS: What happens if someone runs the play anyway, despite the ban?

Or, why did they really decide to ban it? Because it caused lots of trouble?

[AR Husker Fan]

Alas, Saalfield was not consulted when college football banned the fumblerooski in 1993 or when the high school federation killed it for good this January.

That's a damn shame. DAMN shame.

 

Oh well.

 

Thanks for the vid link -- I'll never be able to see it live, apparently.....

 

 

 

PS: What happens if someone runs the play anyway, despite the ban?

Or, why did they really decide to ban it? Because it caused lots of trouble?

Running an illegal play (or formation) results in a penalty - think of a "tackle eligible" without declaring the tackle as eligible to the official, or a play that has two consecutive forward passes without a lateral in between.

 

As for why, there's this from the article, above:

 

They couldn't stand the fumblerooski. Made them look like stooges. They would be so fooled by the play, they would lose sight of the ball like everyone else. So they would blow the whistle right in the middle of the darn thing.

 

Other times, they wouldn't know it when the play went haywire and would miss a half-dozen infractions. It got so bad they made a rule that coaches had to tell the officials when they were going to run the play.

 

"Even after we told them they sometimes had trouble following it," Burke said.

 

Jerry Diehl, assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, explained the reason for his organization's ban of the play recently to the Los Angeles Times by, in a dizzying bit of misdirection, saying the fumblerooski was both seldom-used and a burden for officials.

 

Then there's this: "It eliminates confusion in a ballgame," Diehl said about the ban, which goes into effect this fall.