For most of his 90 years on this planet the Hall of Fame baseball great Yogi Berra was known for his quotes, some bordering on ridiculous but almost always rooted in inarguable logic. From spring training to the World Series–an event he was personally involved in as a player, manager or coach no less than 21 times–he was always sought out for his “Berraisms” One that he was especially known for was “It Ain’t Over ‘Til Its Over”.
You wouldn’t usually hear much from Yogi this time of year, but we’ve been told he loved watching football even more than he liked reading comic books–Yogi was not exactly one who pursued the fine arts. Yesterday would have been a day he likely would have been glued to his TV and thinking how prescient his words also proved to be for that sport.
Perhaps the most stellar example took place in College Station, Texas, where as YAHOO SPORTS!’ Tony Catalina recapped the faithful merely saw history being made:
When Texas A&M went into halftime trailing South Carolina by 27 points, the Kyle Field crowd was quiet.
However, after the No. 3 Aggies scored 28 unanswered points to capture a 31-30 win, A&M’s 10th straight, it was head coach Mike Elko who was left speechless. “I’m not at a loss for words a lot, but I was at a loss in the locker room after the game,” Elko said. “There are not a lot of teams that have a culture to just keep going.”
Improbably few. Since 2004, teams in the SEC were 0-286 when trailing by 27 points or more. Coming into Saturday, A&M’s largest comeback victory was 21 points in the Aggies’ 52-48 win over Duke in the 2013 Chick-fil-A Bowl.
And it turned out the Aggies needed that win to keep pace in their uber-competitive conference, for as SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s Zach Nagy noted a competitor pulled off a comeback win of their own against an otherwise afterthought opponent:
Lane Kiffin and the Ole Miss Rebels further cemented the program’s College Football Playoff chances on Saturday night after taking home a 34-24 win over the Florida Gators in Oxford.
In front of a record crowd at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Kiffin and Co. battled down the stretch to earn a win over an SEC foe to remain alive in the postseason race.
Nagy’s Gainesville-based counterpart
The Florida Gators will officially miss a bowl game for the second time in three seasons.
Florida, erasing a 10-0 deficit to take a 24-20 lead into the half, was shut out in the second half as Ole Miss held on for a 34-24 win. Rebels’ running back Kewan Lacy ran for 224 yards and three scores, headlining an Ole Miss offense that had 538 yards of total offense
And only a slightly less impressive comeback took place in the fledgling quagmire that the Los Angeles Coliseum became yesterday, as the byline-shy ASSOCIATED PRESS reported:
The Coliseum’s mood was as dark as the halftime sky when Southern California went to the locker room soaked in nonstop rain and trailing Iowa by 11 points.
With their postseason hopes under a serious cloud, the Trojans gathered themselves and responded with a rally that didn’t stop until they had secured a rarity in coach Lincoln Riley’s tenure — a comeback win over a quality opponent.
Makai Lemon made 10 catches for 153 yards and a second-half touchdown, and No. 17 USC scored 19 straight points to keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive with a 26-21 victory over the Hawkeyes on Saturday.
Jayden Maiava passed for 254 yards and Bryan Jackson rushed for two touchdowns for the Trojans (8-2, 6-1 Big Ten, No. 17 CFP), who have won four straight Big Ten games for the first time.
The Trojans are now set up for an old-fashioned Pac 12 rivalry game with massive implications this coming Saturday in Eugene, where the #8 Oregon Ducks, fresh off a slightly dryer conquest of Minnesota Friday night, will provide Lincoln Riley with perhaps the most significant challenge of his Trojan career to date. But being able to deliver in conditions this poor against a pretty darn good foe should give them a head of steam heading in, which one often needs when facing the potential conditions of late November in Eugene. And I know that from personal experience.
I won’t be able to be there in person, much as I’d crave otherwise, but I’ll be tuned in. I suspect Yogi would have been as well. After all, as he also used to say:
Courage…