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Football Rare Entries Contest Results

This was, unfortunately, a bit small for a rare entries contest, perhaps because we made a few of the questions too difficult and people were scared away. In any case, congratulations to Carolyn for getting an almost-perfect score of 2. Here are the final scores for all contestants:

Final Scores
Carolyn 2
Anjan Gnyawali 24
John Chapman 192
Steve Cox 192
Eric Maddy 216
Joshua Kreitzer 288
Robert G. Gross 1152
Michael Crowder 9216

and answer slates for the top 2 contestants (normally, we do top 3, but there was a tie for third place and there really isn't room for 4 answer slates):

---+------------------+----------------------+
| | Anjan |
| Carolyn | Gnyawali |
---+------------------+----------------------+
0. |Herb Adderley |Larry Brown |
1. |Boomer Esiason |Mark Brunell |
2. |93 Cowboys |Pittsburgh Steelers |
3. |Minnesota |Harvard |
4. |Indianapolis |NE Patriots (WR) |
5. |The Replacements |Paper Lion |
6. |AFL |XFL |
7. |lateral |Deep Out |
8. |Michigan Stadium |Kyle Field |
9. |U of Texas |Georgia Bulldogs |
---+------------------+----------------------+

Individual questions:

0. Name a primarily defensive player who scored during a Super Bowl.

Jimmie Jones 2
Larry Brown 1
Herb Adderley 1
James Washington 1
Mike Hegman 1
Reggie Harrison 1
Bruce Huther WR Blocked kick, but no evidence he scored

1. Name a quarterback who has thrown for at least 7500 yards during his NFL regular-season career while primarily throwing with his left hand.

Ken Stabler 3
Jim Zorn 2
Boomer Esiason 1
Mark Brunell 1
Frank C. Albert WR Did not pass for 7500 yards

The most obvious answer, new Hall-of-Famer Steve Young, was omitted. Michael Vick came up short on yards. Scott Mitchell is another famous lefty who qualifies.

2. Name a Super Bowl Champion who during the course of the postseason defeated a team it played but could not beat in the regular season.

Los Angeles Raiders 2
Tampa Bay 1
Pittsburgh Steelers 1
1967 Green Bay Packers 1
1993 Dallas Cowboys 1
1978 Oakland Raiders WR Did not win 1978 (or 1979) Super Bowl
1972 Cowboys WR Not in the same season

Some latitude was allowed on this question. One could argue that, for example, the 1967 Packers are the team that played the Super Bowl in 1967, but the year usually refers to the regular season edition of the squad.

This was a difficult question to answer off the top of one's head, but not very difficult after consulting football reference sites. All three Raiders champions, for example, qualify. This years Patriots do too, since they beat Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship game, but they won SB XXXIX after the contest deadline.

We decided before the contest that we'd use general/specific scoring on this question, but it didn't come into play here. If someone had said "Raiders," though, they would really have gotten hammered.

3. Name a school that has played in a bowl game that is currently one of the BCS bowl games, but has not played in *any* of those games since
1980.

Carnegie Mellon 2
Arizona State 1
Baylor 1
Fordham University 1
Harvard 1
Minnesota 1
Missouri 1

Plenty of correct answers, especially among teams that are no longer football powers.

4. Name a city that was part of the name of an NFL team the year after that NFL team moved there from another city. For the purposes of this question, a team has not moved if the city officially associated with the team name has not changed.

St. Louis 2
Detroit 1
Indianapolis 1
Oakland 1
Dallas WR No NFL team moved to Dallas, although an
AFL team moved form there to Kansas City.
New England Patriots WR Not a city
No answer WR No answer

This question was not intended to be particularly tricky, but people had trouble with it. Omitted answers include LA (Raiders), Baltimore (the question was worded to allow this answer; even though the "Browns Franchise" did not move, the team did), and Phoenix (they were the Phoenix Cardinals for a few years before they changed their name to the Arizona Cardinals.)

5. Name a theatrical-release motion picture in which at least two major characters are involved in playing or coaching American professional Football

North Dallas Forty 3
Paper Lion 2
Heaven Can Wait 1
The Replacements 1
Houston WR No such movie

Brian's Song was a famous one not mentioned.

6. Name a league that played professional football in America and had at least one game televised regionally or nationally.

WFL=World Football League 2
NFL 2
XFL 1
AFL 1
United States Football League 1
Regional Football League WR Televised only locally

AFL was a risky answer, since it would have been judged to be more general than "American Football League" and "Arena Football League." No one mentioned the "World League of American Football," or whatever they're calling it these days. I think even the Arena2 league has games televised regionally.

An interesting call would have been if someone had answered CFL. Given the wording in the question this would have been correct. They had franchises in Baltimore and Shreveport in the early 90s, and their games were televised on ESPN. But they played Canadian football, and the disclaimer at the start of the contest said that all questions referred to American football. Thankfully, a ruling was not necessary.

7. Give a one- or two-word name for a specific type of legal, non-kicking offensive NFL play. The name must be something that the announcers of a game might normally use to describe the play to the viewing or listening audience. The name of a specific player may not be part of your answer. General-specific scoring will be used for this question.

Spike 1
Deep Out 1
Waggle 1
hook-and-ladder 1
Fake Reverse 1
Hail Mary 1
lateral 1
screen pass 1

I forgot to specify "non-hyphenated," and my first thought was that "hook-and-ladder" was 3 words, but I can't say that definitively so it was allowed. This would have been a better question had there been more entries, although I probably should also have disallowed pass patterns as being the names of plays to further restrict the options.

8. Name a stadium that is the regular home stadium of a Division IA school, currently seats more than 80,000 fans, and at some time has changed their playing surface from artificial turf to grass or a surface resembling grass.

Kyle Field 3 (Texas A&M)
Williams-Brice 2 (U of South Carolina)
Michigan Stadium 2 (U of Michigan)
Alumni Stadium WR (Boston College) Doesn't seat over 80,000

There are a lot of correct answers here. About 20-25 years ago I would guess the majority of football stadia with over 80,000 seats had artificial turf, but thankfully each and every one switched to grass. I know Camp Randall Stadium in Wisconsin used to be the largest holdover at 77000, but they also switched two years ago. I don't know what the biggest one is anymore, which is a good sign.

9. Name an NCAA Division IA school that has a live, nonhuman mascot present on the sidelines for at least one home football game each year. Mascots that consist of humans dressing up as nonhumans are considered human.

U. of Southern California 2 Traveller, the Trojan Horse
U of Texas 1 Bevo, the Texas Longhorn
Colorado 1 Ralphie, the Buffalo
South Carolina Gamecocks 1 Cocky, the Gamecock
Georgia Bulldogs 1 Uga, the Bulldog
Rice 1 Sammy, the Owl
Stanford WR No official Stanford mascot

College football lore is replete with live mascots, leading to a lot of possible answers.