Another splash on ESPN for NSU

We started watching at T.J.'s Ribs, the popular LSU sports-themed Baton Rouge restaurant made famous as the home of Billy Cannon's 1959 Heisman Trophy. (Did you know, BTW, that he has a granddaughter in school at Northwestern?).

It was a bland ESPN-televised game between Arizona State and UCLA, only of interest because a friend was cheering for the Bruins.

That wasn't good for the friend, not when we saw ASU score a couple of defensive touchdowns on the way to a 14-3 lead. We polished off dinner, then dessert, and headed back to the hotel.

Got back to the room, and UCLA was back within 17-9 and was first-and-goal. Good for the Bruins, until the Sun Devils got a spectacular interception and 100-yard return for a 24-9 lead. At that point, early in the fourth quarter,it was stick a fork in UCLA time, and the channels changed to catch high school football playoff scores and watch some college hoops (ironically also involving Arizona State, this time getting whipped by Baylor).

Commercial time and a sweep back through the channels to see what the football score was -- 31-9, and Arizona State's going in for more. Not just more, Arizona State was going in to score its first offensive touchdown of the game. Still not sure what happened, just that the Sun Devils had posted their fourth defensive TD to make it 31-9.

They settled for a field goal. Meanwhile, ESPN's researchers, scrambling back in Bristol, found this was the fifth time in NCAA history, so far as they could find, that a team had scored four defensive touchdowns in a game. The last time, according to their research, was 2003 when Northwestern State did it in a win over Southeastern Louisiana.

Thankfully for the Lions, the final 87-point Demon tally in that bizarre game wasn't mentioned. Thankfully for the Demons, the ESPN team overlooked the 2007 loss to Nicholls in which the Colonels ran back four interceptions thrown by the Demons for TDs.

But so far as a national TV audience was told Friday night, the Sun Devils' feat was a college football rarity last achieved by the Demons in 2003.

Announcer Sean McDonough referred to the graphic and referenced Northwestern State as the last team to accomplish four defensive TDs.

So thanks to David Pittman, Bruce Woods (twice) and Ed Queen for their roles in getting more national attention for NSU, five years later. I hope they and teammates were watching, along with then-SLU coach Hal Mumme, who foolishly insisted on continuing to throw even with the game out of hand. So it was that Woods and Queen, both freshmen backups, scored after halftime when the Demons weren't trying to put offensive points on the board.