USD Football 1994

Deuces Are Wild! continued one when both offenses are equal," theorized Majors. "It (two-point conversion! is a call and a play where you're work- ing against the percentages. There comes a time to break a tendency, but the odds are against you." Count Majors among the many coaches who believe that a tie is better than a loss. "Going for two is always

Georgia freshman sensation Herschel Walker.) The decision to go for two points in the third quarter attracted the attention of a few Majors watchers. "A good friend of mine, Joe Avezzano (now an assistant coach for the Dallas Cowboys), who had coached with me for 11 years, called me the Monday after that game and said, 'Coach, you went against your axiom there.' I said I knew I had. I always say whenever you're ahead, you should tack on points; let the other team come to us. It was the first time I went against my axiom, and we lost the game." Beyond mere axioms are more tangible guidelines for deciding when to go for two instead of the extra-point kick. Most coaches have charts which outline the different game situations, and what to do when decision time arrives -if it arrives. "You have a chart you go by, so you know before the game what you're going to do," said Jackie Sherrill, the current head coach at Mississippi State who served as Majors' top assistant, first at Iowa State, and then for three years at Pittsburgh. "You know before you go into the game if you're going to kick the extra point or go for two. 11 As a general rule of thumb, both Majors and Sherrill agree that it's very unlikely that a team would go for two points before the fourth quarter- unless it has missed an extra- point kick attempt. Tradition- ally, however, Sherrill's teams have used an unusual offensive line alignment before position- ing itself for the kick. Does this mean there's the possibility ofa two-point play? "Not really," said Sherrill. "We do some things with our linemen where we give some people the freedom to line up offset so if they (defense) don't line up then we automatically snap it and go ahead and run it in; if the defense does what it's supposed to do, then we'll go ahead and kick the extra point." continued

the bold, macho thing to do, 11 admitted Majors, "but after it's all over, and you didn't make it, it's still a loss, and a tie is much better because it counts less against the percentages. One of the few times it (tie) may not be better is when you have to go for two to win a championship." Two of the most famous two-point decisions-where the decision was made to go for two, and the plays weren't suc- cessful-involved identical 31- 30 scores. Each time the team with 30 was the reigning unde- feated top-ranked team in the nation. In the 1984 Orange Bowl, the Nebraska Corn- huskers, one of the best teams in the history of college football not to finish the season as national champion, pulled to within one point of Miami (at the Hurricanes' home stadium), but misfired on a two-point conversion. A tie probably would have kept Nebraska at the top of the rankings. A similar scenario occurred at Notre Dame Stadium on a memorable October afternoon in 1988, when top-ranked Miami visited the Fighting Irish. This time, it was Miami sitting atop the nation's polls with an undefeated ranking. But this time it was the Hurricanes who trailed 31-30 in the closing sec- onds, and Head Coach Jimmy Johnson disdained the tie, decid- ing to gamble for the two-point conversion and a dramatic one- point victory. Instead, the Hur- ricanes returned to Florida with their only loss of the season, and Notre Dame went on to enjoy its most recent national cham- pionship season. One national champion-to-

Mississippi State Head Coach Jackie Sherrill says, "You practice different things for a two-point conversion. ... but it all depends on what the defensive team lines up and does."

be benefited from a missed two-point opportunity in its opening game. The year was 1980, and the Georgia Bulldogs had to rally from a 15-0 second half deficit to defeat Majors' team, then the Tennessee Vol- unteers. Tennessee, which opened the scoring with a safe- ty, added a touchdown and extra point, then another touchdown, for a 15-0 lead, when Majors shunned the kick

conversion and decided to go for two. "We had them (Georgia) 15-0, and our (assistant I coach, who scouted Georgia and knew them very well, said that they always jumped into a certain defense on goal line, only this time they didn't," recalled Majors. "They stopped us, and beat us, 16-15. That team was a great team." (It was the first college game for