ESPNU Premieres The Play That Changed College Football on December 1

Second SEC Storied Documentary Chronicles Inaugural 1992 SEC Championship

ESPNU will premiere The Play That Changed College Football on Thursday, Dec. 1 at 11 p.m. ET. The one-hour film is the second in a series of four documentaries slated to air on ESPNU this year as part of “Storied”. The film will re-air on ESPN and ESPN2.

About the Film:
Directed by Jeff Cvitkovic
Narrated by Luke Perry
Two decades ago, the SEC decided to expand to 12 schools and host a conference championship game for the first time in college football history. Many thought that this would jeopardize national title aspirations for the schools involved. The additional game was scheduled at the end of the regular season, pitting the league’s two division champions against one other. It was a risk, as the inaugural game in 1992 indicated.

Undefeated Alabama normally would have gone straight to a matchup with Miami in the Sugar Bowl with the national championship on the line, but instead was forced to play Steve Spurrier’s Florida squad first for the SEC title. Alabama was on a 21-game winning streak, but the last school to beat the Crimson Tide was Florida, 35-0, just one year earlier. In the fourth quarter of the ’92 title game, it looked like Florida would march to victory once again. But then came one play that not only changed the course of the game, but also helped shape the future of college football.

The first SEC Championship Game was ultimately seen as a major success, rather than an ill-conceived experiment.

The Play That Changed College Football includes interviews with former team head coaches Spurrier and Gene Stallings as well as former SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer, ABC broadcaster for the game Keith Jackson, ESPN The Magazine writer Ryan McGee and a recreation of the play at Legion Field with nine former players including Florida quarterback Shane Matthews and Alabama defensive back Antonio Langham.

ESPNU
The 24-hour college sports television network airs more than 650 live events annually and offers over 600 original studio shows. ESPNU has seen a steady increase since its inception on March 4, 2005 and is now in over 73 million households. The brand is also available in high definition on ESPNUHD, now in over 20 million homes. The network has long-term carriage agreements with all 10 of the top multichannel TV providers – Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV (Channel 208), DISH Network (Channel 141), Mediacom, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS TV and AT&T U-verse.