The former CU Buffs quarterback great heaved the most memorable TD pass in school, and maybe college football’s history.<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2014 Kordell Stewart, like many Hall of Famers, had his impressive seasons.<\/p>\n
Check out his 1993 and 1994 junior and senior years for the Colorado Buffaloes when he combined for more than 4,300 yards and 21 touchdowns passing and more than 1,100 yards and 13 touchdowns rushing.<\/p>\n
Stewart, like many Hall of Famers, also had impressive careers.<\/p>\n
See his 11 NFL seasons when he was known as \u201cSlash\u201d for his rare ability to pass, run and catch.<\/p>\n
And then Stewart, like no other Hall of Famer, also had his moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeptember 24, 1994, it\u2019s on the calendar,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said.<\/p>\n
The 2-0 Buffs were trailing the 2-0 Michigan Wolverines, 26-21 with 6 seconds remaining in Michigan\u2019s Big House. The ball was at the Buffs\u2019 own 36 yards line. Stewart dropped back to his own 26 and let it rip.<\/p>\n
\u201cRocket left,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said Thursday in an interview with 9NEWS. \u201cWe get in the huddle and call \u2018Rocket left.\u2019 It\u2019s a Hail Mary pass at its finest. If you drew it up of how it works \u2013 the quarterback has to buy time to give them a chance to get down there. In this instance this might have been the biggest Hail Mary pass from a distance standpoint. \u2026 This was thrown from the minus-26 yard line.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
CU receivers Michael Westbrook and Blake Anderson sprinted down from the left side. Rae Carruth was down there from the right. They converged in the middle, along with several Michigan defenders, as the ball landed around the Michigan 2 yard line. A monstrous 72-yard heave in the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost times it\u2019s where everybody is down there and everybody is jumping straight up,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said. \u201cBut the momentum was still going forward. Blake Anderson, who was in front, was distracting enough to cause the guys to get a little anxious on the other team because there were more of them down there than us. The only persons there was Blake and Mike. Mike finally did his job, I\u2019ll say that. Finally did his job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart laughed as he teased Westbrook. Stewart danced around so long the clock reached 0:00 with the ball still in his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cLets it goooo!\u2019\u2019 exclaimed legendary TV announcer Keith Jackson.<\/p>\n
Anderson leaped and got a hand on the falling sphere, deflecting it perfectly to Westbrook, who settled alone in the middle of the end zone. Bedlam from the on-racing Buffs sideline. Dead silence from the 105,000 fans in attendance. The Buffs won, 27-26.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has to be the greatest Hail Mary in the history of college football,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said.<\/p>\n
That moment, along with his impressive college career at CU, and unique play in the NFL, is why Stewart received his long overdue place in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony held at the Hilton Denver City Center. Stewart was the headliner of the class of 2026 that also included Nuggets guard Fat Lever, Broncos defensive back Steve Foley, professional tennis champion Beatriz \u201cGigi\u201d Fernandez, University of Denver basketball star Harry Hollines and Olympic middle-distance runner Wendy Koenig.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable. The good thing about it is I\u2019m here to have a chance to receive the roses because a lot of time you see it where guys don\u2019t have the opportunity because of illnesses or they\u2019re not with us,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said. \u201cBut for me it means a lot because I\u2019m still vibrant, I\u2019m still young. I\u2019ve got a 22-year-old kid who never saw me play on that level especially in college. And to give him an opportunity to see this I think it falls into his life to where he can say, \u2018You know, my dad wasn\u2019t that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now 53, Stewart came along the Boulder campus when Hall of Fame head coach Bill McCartney was trying to figure out his offense of the future. Stewart was a highly recruited freshman quarterback playing behind senior Darian Hagan, an option star. In the Blockbuster Bowl to finish that 1991 season, McCartney had Hagan the runner become Hagan the passer against an Alabama defense that would win the national championship the next year. The Blockbuster didn\u2019t go well but it worked in successfully recruiting prized quarterback Koy Detmer out of a Texas high school to the Colorado Buffs.<\/p>\n
Hagan, Stewart and Detmer led the transition to a new quarterback at Colorado. With Hagan gone, the far more physically gifted Stewart beat out Detmer the next three seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were transitioning from the option-pass to the pass-option,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said. \u201cAnd so that was a helluva transition because they had been running the option here for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
A dual threat quarterback, Stewart in 1995 became a second-round draft choice of the Pittsburgh Steelers. In eight seasons with the Steelers, he threw for more than 13,000 yards and 70 touchdowns, rushed for more than 2,500 yards and 38 more touchdowns, and caught 41 passes for 658 yards and 5 touchdowns.<\/p>\n
A quarterback\/runner\/receiver, Stewart became famously known as \u201cSlash.\u201d Does he prefer to be known foremost as a quarterback? Or Slash?<\/p>\n
\u201cSlash means you can do everything,\u2019\u2019 Stewart said. \u201cWhy minimize it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former CU Buffs quarterback great heaved the most memorable TD pass in school, and maybe college football’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,2426,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-868217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-denverbroncos","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116419019512918566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}