On This Date: Arkansas Beats Ole Miss in 7 Overtimes (Nov. 3, 2001)
On Nov. 3, 2001, Arkansas beat Ole Miss 58-56 in 7 overtimes, then the longest game in college football history, despite 6 TD passes from Eli Manning.
Eli Manning won 2 Super Bowls and threw for more than 57,000 yards in the NFL. In college, he once threw 6 touchdown passes in a game and lost.
On Nov. 3, 2001, Arkansas beat Ole Miss 58-56 in Oxford, Mississippi. It took 7 overtimes and more than 4 hours, and at the time it was the longest game in the history of college football.
17-17
Neither team looked like it was about to make history. Arkansas came in 4-3, and Ole Miss was 6-1 behind Manning, a sophomore who was already the most famous quarterback in the SEC because of his last name.
It was 7-7 at halftime and 17-17 at the end of regulation.
The Rules
College football had only started using overtime in 1996. Each team got the ball at the other team’s 25-yard line, one possession apiece. Starting with the 3rd overtime, teams had to go for 2 after every touchdown.
7 Overtimes
In the 1st overtime, Cedric Cobbs ran 16 yards for a touchdown on 4th-and-1, and Arkansas led 24-17. Ole Miss faced 4th-and-6 from the 11. Manning threw a touchdown pass to Jason Armstead to tie it.
In the 2nd, Manning fumbled at the 3, and Arkansas only needed a field goal to win. Brennan O’Donohoe missed it from 35 yards, wide right.
From there it turned into a 2-point contest, and nobody could make one. Arkansas scored and missed. Ole Miss scored and missed. In the 3rd, 4th and 5th overtimes, the 2 teams traded 6 touchdowns and missed all 6 conversions.
Arkansas’s offense was a freshman named Matt Jones, who came off the bench to run for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns and throw for another. He’d later become a 1st-round NFL draft pick, as a wide receiver. The Razorbacks had 3 different 100-yard rushers: Fred Talley had 113 yards, Jones 110 and Cobbs 100.
In the 6th overtime, Ole Miss finally made a 2-pointer and led 50-42. Arkansas scored, and Jones rolled left, nearly ran out of bounds and threw a wobbly pass to the back of the end zone. Tight end Jason Peters came down with it to tie the game, 50-50. Peters went on to an NFL career of nearly 20 years, as an offensive tackle.
“I knew we could score a touchdown every time,” Arkansas coach Houston Nutt said. “I was just worrying about what play to call for the two-point conversions.”
The Last Play
In the 7th overtime, Arkansas got the ball first. Mark Pierce scored on 4th-and-1 from the 2, his 3rd touchdown of the game. Jones threw to Decori Birmingham for the 2-point conversion, and Arkansas led 58-50.
Manning answered with his 6th touchdown pass, to Armstead from the 3. It was 58-56, and Ole Miss had to go for 2 to tie.
Manning threw to tight end Doug Zeigler, who’d had a career night. Arkansas linebacker Jermaine Petty tackled him at the 2.
The game had started at 6:06 p.m. It ended at 10:20.
“During the third and fourth overtimes, I was thinking let’s just blow the whistle and say ‘boys, let’s go to the house,’” Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe said.
The Records
The 2 teams combined for 198 plays, an NCAA record, along with 988 yards and 114 points, 80 of them in overtime. Manning finished 27 of 42 for 312 yards and a school-record 6 touchdowns.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a game like that,” he said.
Arkansas would play another 7-overtime game 2 years later, a 71-63 win at Kentucky. In 2021, after a run of marathon games, the NCAA changed the rules again: starting in the 3rd overtime, teams now trade 2-point plays instead of full possessions.
And the Arkansas coach that night, Houston Nutt? A few years later he was the head coach at Ole Miss.
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