Radio Call of Globe of Death and Game Winning TouchdownÂ
Aaron Eleazer perfectly executed the crouching and hiding elements of his assignment. Blocking? That part was a bonus.
Yet without it, the "Globe of Death" kickoff return scheme probably wouldn't have worked and Idaho State almost certainly wouldn't have rallied to beat Boise State in the last 5 seconds. The novelty of the strategy, the winning touchdown pass that followed and the nature of the rivalry with the Broncos all conspired to make that September 1992 football game a semifinalist in the All-Time Holt Moments Tournament, as ISU celebrates the 50-year anniversary of Holt Arena.
"It's something that you'll never forget … a feeling that's rarely imitated in other parts of your life," says Rommie Wheeler, who overcame a sprained ankle to catch a TD pass from Paul Putnam and give the Bengals a 24-20 victory.
Writing in the Idaho State Journal of Pocatello, Jeff Robinson labeled it "one of the most improbable wins in the school's 90-year history."
"The way the town reacted was incredible," says Eleazer, summarizing a sense of "what a small town like Pocatello is supposed to feel like during football season."
Kyle Whittingham, then ISU's defensive coordinator and now in his 16th year as the University of Utah's head coach, would have preferred a 17-13 win. That almost happened. Except after "we had played a very good defensive game," as Whittingham remembers, Boise State went ahead 20-17 via a touchdown with 22 seconds remaining.
At that point, some portion of the crowd of 10,478 headed for the exits. Those fans' response made ISU play-by-play broadcaster Jerry Miller "extremely disappointed," he said on the air. "The least they can do is stay and applaud the Bengals."
ISU was not finished. Those who stayed were rewarded. And that's where Whittingham figures into the story of this game, even more than if his defense had completed its remarkable performance of the first 59-plus minutes.
The Bengals got into position for the winning score when Robert Johnson returned the kickoff 38 yards to the BSU 42. He sprinted down the left sideline, thanks mostly to Eleazer's block, after six Bengals gathered just inside the 20-yard line. Carlos Reed fielded the squib kick and handed the ball to Johnson. Reed and the other four players (Wheeler, Eleazer, Sylvester Jones and Eric Alden), having huddled together quickly, then ran in various directions, crouching as if they were holding the ball.
The result was "hilarious to watch; there were guys tackling different people, guys running in the opposite direction of the ballcarrier," ISU coach Brian McNeely told The Washington Post, which made the "Globe of Death" the lead item in a national college football column the following week.
Whittingham won't take full credit for the scheme, saying that like most supposed innovations, he borrowed it from someone. The name, though? That's fully his doing. Whittingham took it from a stunt performed at Holt Arena as part of a circus, with motorcyclists circling above and below one another in a cage.
"Old trick with a new name," says Whittingham, who believes the scheme originally may have been called "Circle the Wagons."
Here's where it all gets even more interesting: Each of the five players or coaches interviewed for this story, nearly three decades later, tells a slightly different version of how it all evolved. Veteran players such as Eleazar recall working on it in practice in previous years, when Whittingham was in charge of special teams under former coach Garth Hall, and in preseason camp that August. With some prompting, Whittingham confirms that possibility. Yet for the sake of adding to the improbability of the game's ending, Chris Culig's version is the most intriguing.
Culig, now the head coach of Rocky Mountain High School in Meridian, Idaho, was in his first year at ISU, coordinating special teams. He remembers McNeeley's asking him and Whittingham for some kickoff-return tricks on the Thursday before the game. "We just started throwing around a bunch of ideas," Culig says.
The coaches tried it at the end of practice that day, without telling the scout-team players what was coming, just to see how they would react. "It worked," Culig says.
Same story in the game, at just the right time. McNeely, who died of cancer in 2015 at age 57, reportedly considered using it on the opening kickoff. The idea played into ISU's underdog mentality. The Bengals warmed up for the game on nearby Davis Field, Eleazar says, and then came down the arena ramp just prior to kickoff. ISU tried a fake punt and a reverse in the first half – unsuccessfully, according to the Journal. What did work, Robinson reported, was McNeely's saving a Power-I offensive scheme until the second half, as Jones finished with 187 rushing yards.
"We basically pushed Boise State around," says Glenn Alford, ISU's longtime sports information director.
Even so, it appeared as if the Broncos would survive, creating a potential missed opportunity for ISU in the second game of McNeely's tenure. As he took the field for the kickoff with 22 seconds remaining, Eleazer, who now works for the University of Washington in procurement and sourcing, remembers seeing fans heading to the tunnels. As the game's ending unfolded, he noticed many of them returning, standing at the railings.
Whether the Broncos' use of a squib kick aided in the "Globe of Death's" success is another subject for debate. Reed's handling of the bouncing ball was critical, and so was the instant adjustment by the other five players to gather around him near the 20-yard line, instead of at the goal line.
The play "worked like a charm, exactly as we diagrammed it," Whittingham says.
The Broncos "kind of froze," Culig says. "Like any kickoff return, so much of it is timing."
During the return, Miller said, "Who's got the ball?"
And later he told his audience, "If you left, you get what you deserved. You have to listen to the end of the game from us."
In an on-line forum several years later, one fan confessed to leaving early. He also mentioned having left ISU's eventual four-overtime basketball victory over Montana in 1979 when the Bengals held a comfortable lead in regulation.
In any case, Eleazer's block became the key component of the comeback, enabling Johnson to turn the corner. Watching from behind, Eleazer thought Johnson might go all the way. H made it to the BSU 42.
Without the follow-through by the ISU offense, however, the "Globe of Death" would have become merely an entertaining sidelight to a disappointing defeat. The Bengals still had to travel a long way in a short time to win the game (although a field goal at least would have forced overtime).
The next twist came when Boise State's coaches, responding to apparent confusion on defense, called a timeout just before the snap. As the whistle blew, Kimo von Oelhoffen, a star defensive tackle who would play 14 seasons in the NFL, charged across the line and hit Putnam, drawing a 15-yard penalty. Putnam's 5-yard sideline pass to Tom Sharp moved the ball to the 22 with nine seconds left, leaving time for one play and then, presumably, a field-goal try.
Wheeler lined up outside to the left, with Jones in the slot and two receivers on the right side. Jones motioned to the right, leaving Wheeler alone. As Wheeler told the Journal, "Being the last play, we figured they wouldn't worry about me on the left side."
Miller's call: "Putnam … short drop … he'll look …. he'll throw for the end zone … touchdown, Bengals!"
In single coverage, Wheeler got open on a slant and made the winning catch, showing no effects of his ankle injury. "The moment, the adrenaline of the situation, overrode everything," says Wheeler, who's now an attorney in Birmingham, Alabama. "The next morning, you're feeling like you've been hit by a truck."
That's just one of several postscripts to the "Globe of Death" game. Putnam left the team a month later, with McNeely citing "personal reasons." BSU coach Skip Hall would be fired after a 5-6 season. His replacement was former Portland State coach Pokey Allen, who had been among the coaches from around the country calling Culig for insight into the return scheme. Culig later would coach Johnson's son, Isaiah, in high school football and Isaiah Johnson would play for both BSU and ISU.
By Alford's account, multiple Idaho high schools tried the ploy that season. Yet the only documented evidence of it working again in college football came in 2014, when Indiana State (coached by Mike Sanford, a former Whttingham colleague at Utah) used it on a last-minute return that set up the winning field goal in a 20-18 defeat of Missouri State.
As for the '92 Bengals, they didn't win another Big Sky Conference game that season – or the next year, either. But in 1994, when McNeely went 6-5 in his most successful year in Pocatello, the Bengals scored another unlikely rivalry victory. They rallied for a 32-31 win over a Boise State team that otherwise went unbeaten, except in the national championship game.
That slice of history gives ISU's '94 upset its own place in Holt Arena history, only not with quite the same cachet as the "Globe of Death."
