StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - The Art of the Hail Mary

Episode Date: May 11, 2017

The Hail Mary pass is one of the most exciting plays you’ll ever see in any sport. This week, hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice look at one of the greatest, the “Miracle at Michigan,” with the man who threw it, Kordell Stewart, and physicist John Eric Goff.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on:TuneIn: http://www.tunein.com/playingwithscienceApple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360?mt=2Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceSoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceGooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Yes, today, my friends, we are about to take you to the point of no return. The moment when all else seems lost and your last hope is but a prayer. But if your quarterback has a cannon for an arm and that prayer happens to be a Hail Mary, the outcome can sometimes be really quite miraculous. Yes, bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Today, we're looking at the art of the Hail Mary, the long football pass thrown in desperation for

touchdown glory. And to help us unpack the science behind the miracles, we'll be joined by our friend Eric Goff, physics professor at Lynchburg College, Virginia, and the author of Gold Medal Physics. But first, we have a little something special for you. Yes. As you know, yes, we begin the show. We like to begin the show with a play that demonstrates the topic of the day and for today we've chosen one of the most iconic Hail Mary passes in college football history. The miracle at Michigan all the way back in 1994. But before we go to that clip let's welcome our

first guest who is calling in today. A man who owns 38 rushing NFL touchdown and whose arm gave us the miracle of Michigan yes go on chap do it other than the one the only Cordell Stewart former Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Bears quarterback and of course the star of the mystical at Michigan and a guy known as Slash without the big top hat and all the crazy hair. Cordell, what's up? What's going on, Jens? How we doing? We're good.

How are you, sir? I'm just out here getting a little exercise in as I talk to you great young men on this beautiful Saturday morning, trying to keep it nice and loose so that as we talk about this great play in Michigan. There you go, my friend. I have enough energy to give it to you. Yes. All right. It's good to see that you're still excited about it so that as we talk about this great play in Michigan, I have enough energy to give it to you. Yes, yes, yes.

All right. It's good to see that you're still excited about it because it's funny, a lot of people can say like, oh, that's one of the greatest plays of all time, or oh, that was really one of the most exciting plays. You actually can say that, and it's true. Yeah, I agree with you 110%. There's many Hail Mary passes that we've watched.

LSU, Kentucky, tip ball, kid catches it and runs it for about 20 yards or so in the end zone. Doug Flutie, his against Boston College, his against the Miami Hurricanes. I think it was the Hurricanes were number one in the country. They knocked them off off of that one play. Okay, knowledge, Cordell. Yeah knocked them off off of that one play. Okay. Knowledge, Cordell. Yeah, you see, you're a historian, too. And truthfully, that play was only, the ball was only thrown like maybe,

let's say, what, 55 to 60 yards. Mine was actually 74 yards in the air. They like to go from the line of scrimmage. I go from the place in which the ball was released. And it was done in the big house. What other place can you do it? There you go. And quite that many people in one place.

It was pretty remarkable, I must say. Well, we have talked about it, so why don't we go ahead and take a listen. And for those of us with us via video, watch the actual play. Here it is, via Cordell Stewart, the miracle at Michigan. One more. Six seconds. I think he just went over and said, just throw it up. The last pass is complete to Michael Witt.

So who we got here? So right now what we're doing is looking at the pre-play. Big and strong and can run. A lot of tension building on the sidelines. So we have four wide receivers on the field. Three wide receivers set. Six seconds on the clock. Fourth quarter. Here it is. Cordell's back to pass. Scrambles a little bit, launches the ball. He's got three people down there. The ball's up in the air.

Caught. Touchdown. Wow. Caught by Westbrook. Caught. Touchdown. And then Cordell breaks about a 70-meter sprint record to get into the end zone. Look at him, man. Wow, and I love the camera work here.

There is the juxtaposition of Cordell running down the field with great joy, like you say, just sprinting, and every one of the Buffaloes just jumping on top of each other, and then they keep cutting back to Michigan, and the look on the players' faces. Maize and blue is being cut down. Yes. Oh, baby, there were on the players' faces. Maize and blue is being cut down. Yes. Oh, baby.

There were some disconsolate faces. Okay, Cordell, quite simply, you and Colorado tried that same play at the end of the first half. Am I right? Yes, you are. We tried to. I mean, this was a game that was,

we had tons of ebbs and flows. And, you know, statistically, our numbers were great. But on the board, we wasn't really doing much, especially in the first half. Everything we were doing, we were pretty much stepping ourselves in the foot. And, you know, it came down to a play that we needed to try. And I ended up throwing an interception off of that one play. But we tried to give a valid effort to get us in position to have some good energy going in the half. Okay, so if we go back to that

team, it's not just a future Pro Bowl quarterback. You have a future Heisman Trophy winning running back blocking for you, and the guy who eventually catches it in the end zone, Michael Westbrook, is

going on to be an NFL wide receiver and actually becomes a world champion mixed martial arts uh by the way is it no wonder you won yeah if you want to throw all that inside of it i promise you you can i mean we had ray caruth on the that's right ray caruth we had we had brian stolt we had brian stoltenberg on the field, who was my center, who ended up, I think, going into England. We had Chris Neoli, who went to Jacksonville. We had a multitude.

We had Heath Irwin, who was my right guard, Tony Birdie, and Derek West. And as you mentioned, Rashawn Salam. I mean, it was a tremendous play for Rashawn on my left and also Tony Birdie to make that magnificent block. I mean, they just mauled the guy. If you could have gone to jail for doing some double-team, double-team guy, that was the play that you can actually go to jail. And the best thing Michigan did, let's be realistic, excuse me,

the best thing they did was rush only three rushers. Right. That was the best. That was the best. That was the play of the day. Not so much what we did because that's why you draw it up. That's why you practice it to complete that play. But the most important part of it was the only brush three guys.

And so when I had an opportunity to get to the outside, and we would practice it maybe once a week in Colorado and in Boulder, we're in higher altitude. So the ball actually travels maybe five to 10 yards further. Okay. So once we got in a game and it was all on the line, the referees couldn't call a flag. We could go back and look at it. They could have called a flag a couple times up front, but they didn't call a flag.

No flags. It's funny that you mention that because, you know, when you look at the YouTube video, you can tell who the Michigan fans are because they all say the same thing. Holding call, not called. Clearly holding, not called. It's not called, dude. So now here's the thing, though. Here's the thing.

And you being not only a part of that play, but playing in the NFL. Is it not true on a play like this at the end of any game, whether you're in college or the pros, the refs are going to let you guys play. Like every player on the field knows if I get held, I'm not

going to get a call. So what I got to do is make sure that I am like, this guy's going down. I'm going to bull rush the hell out of this guy because there's no way I'm going to get called for, someone's going to get called for holding. Is that true? Well, let's have a little, well, let's have a little transparency. Who in the heck think that someone would be able to throw the ball 70 plus yards to win

the game? Who, I mean, you see why a hundred plus thousand people were in awe the entire time because they never thought it could happen. I mean, we were the only people. It was the traditional way of thinking when on the road. Us against the world, right? Right. Yeah, of course.

By the way, Cordell, by the way, that's my way of thinking for everything. Sorry. Go ahead. That's the way it's supposed to be, right? Because that's the only way you succeed and be special. But we were special that day because of that mentality we had. But no one expected that play to be completed. No. Only we did.

Only we did. And it's funny you say that you expected the play to be completed because when I look at the fact that – so you would like, what, 74 yards, right? Because I've heard 65, 70, and 73, and 74. He counts it from where the pass started, not from the line of scrimmage. Okay. Exactly. 65, 70, and 73, and 74. He counts it from where the pass started, not from the line of scrimmage. Okay. Exactly.

So anytime you have, all right, there's unofficial and there are official numbers. Right. To me, because of the act, you have to go that that was the official because the ball can't get completed from the line of scrimmage. It can't get completed from where the ball was released. So if it's released from the minus 26-yard line, my math teacher told me 74 plus 26 is 100. So it ends up landing, literally, if it lands on the ground, probably what? Inside the end zone? It is.

It's just in the end zone. So it's just inside the end zone. Rocket Left is the name of the play, correct? Yes, sir. Rocket Left. This is what's crazy. Hold up real quick. This is what's crazy.

Tell me. Before that play, we threw an in, like an in cut to Michael Westbrook. Right. Okay? Same formation,

Rocket Left, Michael in cut. So we come up, throw the ball, I spike it. We only have, what, five, six seconds left on the clock? I walk to the

sideline like we're about to run another play like that. Ready to ask the coach, Coach, what are you thinking now? He's like, what are you coming over here for? I'll get left. And that's when you see me walking to the sideline and walking back on the field like a big kid, like I was just, you know. So you're already playing mind games.

You're already playing mind games at college. Yeah, I was already doing it. So every time I see Coach Neuheiser, we always start the conversation off, you know, that I told you we were going to win the game. And then we start talking about normal stuff and the kids and everything. Okay, let's go back to Rocket Left.

It's a design play for a tip-off to be caught in the end zone, correct? It's a Hail Mary, yes. Rocket Left is a Hail Mary play. Rocket Left or Rocket Right depending on what the ball is on the hatch. I'm with you. So, what kind of percentage of success are you thinking you have with a tip-off

knowing that basically everybody but three players for Michigan are back in the end zone waiting for you and your pass? 50-50 chance. It's 50-50. That good. Yeah, so all you do is have a chance, right?

Right. And when you practice that, you practice the actual tip itself? Because every team practices tip drills all the time. So when you practice the Hail Mary, do you practice the actual tip itself as well? No, we actually practice positioning of the players. Positioning. I got you. So if we go down, you notice Blake Anderson was in the front.

Yes. We end up having Mike coming around the back side. Right, right, right. We had James Kidd, and then Ray Caruth came last minute. So we had everybody in somewhat of a circle once the ball was tipped. But this was crazy. The ball hit Ty Law first. Right, yep.

When it comes down, it looked like Blake Anderson was there. He's a distraction. But it hit Ty Law. Mike comes around as big as he is. Yes. He's on top of Ty Law. He catches the football. He scoops it up.

All I see is an arm. All I see is an arm in the air from where I was. Wow. And I saw Coach Mack and everybody on the sideline run on the field. I'm like, whoa. He caught it. Oh, my goodness. I couldn't get down there quick enough.

So let me ask you. So here's two things. One, you threw the ball accurately 74 yards. You didn't just throw a ball up. Okay. So Anderson's right there, and the ball is coming down to hit your receiver. Yeah.

Targeted pass. It's a targeted pass to 74. Does that, when a scout is watching that on television and he sees that, does that up your stock when it comes time to, like, hey, let's take a look at this guy? Yeah, yeah, most definitely. Here's the thing about the Hail Mary pass.

What's tough is, one, you hope the quarterback has the arm. One. Right. In our case, it was almost, for most, slim to none to get this ball down the field, right? Right. So what do you have? You have the LSU-Kentucky game where you just throw it up in the air.

Guy catches, he runs the 20-yard pin. Right. You get the Doug Flutie where he's, what, on a plus 45, maybe 50-yard line. Right. You can throw a 50-yard pass, right? But you're talking now from the minus 30- line you maxed it out that's be fair cordell you've maxed this by yourself yeah exactly so in my case my margin of error was much greater yeah than the other guys because the other guys they can throw it up as high as they want to give

guys time right because he's not really that far of a throw. Well, yeah. But I have to hold it a minute. Right. And once I hold it, I literally have to throw it all I have. Cordell, you've just explained why we're talking to you, because this for us is the definitive. It comes up at number one from your point of view. Seriously, I mean, that's one of the reasons why we asked for you specifically, because this is without a doubt,

you want to look at all the Hail Mary plays. You know, this is the best for all these reasons that you just mentioned. One, the amount of field that you had to cover in the air with the ball and the fact that you accurately delivered a 74-yard pass, period. So let's just say, for instance, let's just say, for instance, that Anderson had his defender tripped. Like this wasn't a Hail Mary, right? And he was just alone, but he would have caught that ball for a touchdown. But no, the ball, isn't the ball,

the first contact on the ball is actually outside the end zone first. Yes, but what I'm saying is- Yeah, I mean, whoever hits the ball first, wherever it hits high loft, if he catches the ball right there with his momentum moving forward,

it would have been a touchdown. It would have been a touchdown. The only thing I knew how to do was throw it to a spot. Honestly, I was off to the inside. That's why you see Michael coming in so hard, because it was off a little bit to the inside

to where it forced the momentum of the crowd to kind of fall inward a little bit. So everyone was somewhat off balance. Okay, Cordell, once you're sat there and not much of a pocket when there's only three guys rushing you, you've got to have something going

tick-tock, tick-tock upstairs and you must know I have got X amount of fractions of seconds left. You've got this internal clock. You've got peripheral vision. You've got your pass rushes. You've got everything going on.

You must know my arm's got to be back and ball gone in X amount of seconds. Do you actually have that internally? Is it something you naturally have, or is it something that you can practice? Well, this is not a timing route. Right. Because you're not working off of a five-step drop, hit and throw, pop-up, hit the check down, or if it's not there, run. This is a play where you need time. You actually made that time because you got outside to make this throw. Yeah.

What you guys are prefacing is basically pre-snap read to indicate how much time I have. My pre-snap read was they only had three rushers. Right. He had six blockers. Okay. Okay. What you've done, you stretch time because you know that you've got to get outside to give your receivers enough time to get far enough down the field. So what you do is you already know, you must already know, you must be already subconsciously programming your extra bit of space. You're dragging that space out, that time. Is that the case when you're pre-snap and you see three rushers? What Gary's saying is, do you then change in your mind the internal clock?

Like, you know what? If I get outside or if I move around or if I move the pocket, I can actually stretch this play. Well, what you guys saw was I knew Rashawn was going to my left because it's a tip left play. I knew he was going to my left. So I knew I had maybe the center, the left guard, left tackle, and Rashawn there to help protect me.

So all I had to be aware of is the pressure coming from my right because I knew I was protected from my left. So if my tackle on my right side was beat, that meant I would have to find more time. But I didn't want to go away from where the tip was going to be. I wanted to go to the side where the tip was. That's why Rashan went that way, because I needed maximum protection. Look at that.

So they slid everything over. Once they slid everything over, that's the idea. See, this is part of the miracle. Every compartment, every bit of player mentality comes together to make it work. You know Rashan Salam is going to block left, so therefore you move with the protection. And then you get a guy at the other end who's going to maul anybody to get to the ball. And that's why we break these plays down like this, because, you know, there's so much more going on than what just appears to be happening on the field. And so that's why we wanted to have you here and talk about, like,

you know, the nuances of this. But I got to ask you a question. This is just from me personally. I just want to know, you know, when you sit there and you look like this past season and you see Aaron Rodgers throw a Hail Mary and you know that he threw a Hail Mary for about 40 yards or he threw a Hail Mary for about 40 yards, or he threw a Hail Mary for about 47 yards. Does your chest just swell up a little bit like, yeah, okay, good for you?

You got your Packers height on again, haven't you? Yeah, you know, I mean, one, he did it twice in a season. Yes. Let's make sure. We did it twice in a season. Yes. All right. Let's make sure. We did it twice in a season. Did it against Detroit, and he also did it against the Arizona Cardinals. Cardinals. Right.

Yep. And so when you see a guy do it twice, you know, it's like, wow. Okay, and the one he did in Detroit was almost touching the rafters and coming back down. Yes. Yeah, that was a hell of a throw. That was pretty good. Miracle of Motel.

Yeah. And so, you know, I was like, wonderful. But you know me, I'm being arrogant and a little pompous about it. I'm like, it wasn't as far as mine in Michigan. Exactly. Yeah, good for you, Aaron. But that's no 74 yards, I'm just saying. Yeah, that's no 74 yards.

I'm just saying, bro. I love you, man. But great job. I mean, everybody loves it. But mine was a little bit further. Thank you. Hey, Cordell, here's a question for you. If you were on the Michigan team, would you have allowed you to make that play?

Well, I mean, again, I don't think anyone thought the ball could get that far other than our guys on our side wishing and praying. Yeah. I mean, be realistic here. You've got three rushers. You have Ty Law and all the other players, which is a total of eight players technically, all the way on the other end of the field.

I mean, if those other eight players outside of the three guys rushing wasn't all the way down on the other end, as if I was going to scramble or as if I was going to throw an in-cut, shame on them. I mean, that's horrible coaching. Right. You tried to play at the end of the first half, so they must have known you had the arm. Well, the win at the first half wasn't as far.

Right. It was nowhere near. I think the win at the first half was maybe 60 yards. Yeah, exactly. Maybe 60. Right. It almost threw out of the back of the end zone. So it goes to show you I was a little too hyped up for that.

You were a little hyped up. You were a little hyped up. Yeah. Hey, man, listen. I was a little too. You were a little hyped up. You were a little hyped up. Yeah. Hey, man, listen. I was a little ticked off, too. I know you have a son, right? Yep. Yeah, and are we going to see another NFL quarterback coming out of Cordell land?

Or are you encouraging him to play? I'm just curious. Well, considering what he plays, he plays corner, tailback and safety. You know, it's funny. Go ahead. I was saying it's funny. Sometimes you see like the children of or the sons of NFL players actually gravitate towards a different position than their dad. Is that because they don't want to be compared to their dad? No, no. For me, that's how I started off. Technically, Little League, I started off playing nose guard and tailback. Then when I got to middle school, I played cornerback,

safety, and quarterback. And then once I got to high school, I was a free safety, and I was the quarterback. And then I got on the basketball team and my football head coach gave me an ultimatum of, do you want to play basketball or do you want to play football? Okay. He saw I had the strongest arm amongst all the guys on the field just by messing around. Before you know it, I became a quarterback on the football team and boom, here we are.

But my son, you know, with the game changing the way it has now, quarterbacks, whether it be because of their mobility, because of their speed or what have you, and their strong arms, are allowed to play the game today. It's not all the, you know, we need to change their positions thing anymore. I mean, Terrell Pryor may be the only quarterback, the guy that came in the league as a quarterback

that changed his position and fully is playing wide receiver now with the Washington Redskins. But if my son wants to play quarterback with how I think now the coaches are having a chance to coach this style and he's starting to understand it a little bit more, you know, if he wants to play it, I'm all in. I mean, that's even better for his resume because daddy get it. But he's natural at corner, at right corner. He's natural at free safety. He has good speed.

And at tailback, he's just a natural athlete, and he does have good hands, too. So he's just a natural athlete. Okay, so there's no surprise Cordell Stewart's son is a multitasking football player. Oh, yeah. Just like Dad was. Because you were known as one of the best utilitarian quarterbacks in the game.

I mean... Slash 2.0. Slash 2.0. Yeah, slash 2.0. Whoa, whoa.0. Yeah, slash 2.0. Whoa, whoa, hey, hey, hey, step up. You quarterback, wide receiver, and were you not emergency punt on special teams? I had a chance to go to Baltimore and played against the Jets and ended up having AFC Player of the Week.

There you go. And our punter got hurt, and I ended up, you know, did a good job against the Jets, punted the football, and did it once in Pittsburgh. So, yeah. All right. Hey, man, that's all good stuff. Hey, Cordell, were you the future back in 1994?

Were you the vision of things to come? Oh, yeah. I won't let you. Listen, Cordell, I'm not going to let you answer that because here's the deal. I know right now you're struggling with how do I say yes to this question. No, no, no. I'm just in terms of being able to do so many different things.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. But the fact is, that's undoubtedly, undoubtedly, no. You were one of the first quarterbacks. Go ahead. I'll say this. I'll say this. Go ahead. This was in this fashion, probably the first time from playing quarterback

and playing wide receiver, the first time it was introduced to the National Football League on this level. I'll say that. All right, that was very humble. Thank you. Like I said, Cordell, I'm going to answer it for you. The answer is yes. Yes, I was the future.

And if you want to know I was the future, all you got to do is look at the way quarterbacks are now. And I'm talking everybody who comes into the game. The first thing they look at, it used to be, they thought that mobility was some kind of detriment. You know? Cordell opened the door. Yeah, they used to look at mobility as a detriment.

Like, oh, well, you know, this guy, you know, he's got happy feet, they used to say. And, oh, you know, this guy's always moving the pocket. Now you listen to these same analysts. You listen to the same coaches. The smart guys. Exactly. They're so smart right now.

Oh, my God, they're geniuses, aren't they? Right. Geez, Louise. Exactly. So that's fantastic. Hey, man. Yeah. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Guys, it was awesome. Oh, man. Pleasure was ours. Always happy to talk about that place. Thank you for sharing. Always happy to talk about that place. Thank you for sharing. Always happy to talk about that place. Good time. No problem.

Hey, man, please come back and talk to us about more things football. Okay, my friend? Yep. Will do. Will do. Thank you all. All right, buddy. Take care.

Pleasure's ours. Thank you, Cordell. Right. That's Cordell Stewart. What a great bit of insight into the miracle of Michigan. Yeah, man. We're going to take a break. Oh, yes.

About time for that. We'll come back and we will break down the physics behind the miracle of Michigan and to find out what it takes to get your Hail Marys answered here on Playing With Science. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. This is Playing With Science. And today we're looking into the art and science of the Hail Mary Pass in football. And joining us now by video call is Eric Goff,

professor of physics at Lynchburg College, author of Gold Medal Physics, The Science of Sport, and a whole lot of other things. Eric, welcome to the show. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. How are you? We're fabulous. Always a pleasure.

We just heard there from Cordell Stewart, and really just to hear his enthusiasm about something that happened so many years ago. Chuck, it's refreshing. It's incredible. No blasé, anything about it. The guy was so focused and still sharp in his mind. And the funny thing about it is, like I said earlier, go on YouTube and you look at all the comments from this play. All the comments

from the play are happening today. And people are still really passionate about what happened. I personally believe it is one of the greatest college football plays ever, at least from an excitement standpoint. I mean, it's very difficult to kind of generate that type of excitement around a play because it's game-ending, which I think actually makes any play more exciting and more poignant when the game ends on that play. I think if it's a real Hail Mary play, it has to be. With the clock.

There's nothing left. Because you'll have a Hail Mary play where there's like, okay, the team is going to get the ball back. We have 30 seconds left on the clock because it's about the possession. But the best ones are just like, there is no time left on the clock. It's over. Go home. Either smiling or crying.

So Eric, Cordell says, and you know what, I'm not in a place to argue with him, that that pass is 70 yards plus because from his point of view, he's thinking it's from where the ball is released, not from the line of scrimmage. So how far do you calculate, as a physicist, this actually is in terms of a pass he's absolutely correct um he let go of the ball at about his own 27 yard line and it probably got to about the two yard line yeah uh of michigan so we're looking at about 71 yards wow that's amazing um how how fast do we anticipate that is traveling? So he's going to let go of it at close to 60 miles an hour.

Wow. A football. Speeding fine. At 60 miles an hour. That's pretty impressive. That's very impressive. If you're going to throw a ball about 80 yards, it's a pretty long throw in practice, you're going to get up to about 65, 66 miles an hour.

So he's getting near the max of what he could do. So as he said, rather than aim at one individual, he's aiming for an area. It's a small area. So how, in terms of forces and what's in play from the physics, how does he manage to be able to be that accurate over that distance? Yeah, because the ball lands exactly where it's supposed to. It's like really a tremendously accurate pass. So what has to happen in order to get that type of accuracy? Well, he's probably at the limit of what he could throw.

So he was probably just heaving it as hard as he could. And he's going to hit i mean he was still a yard or two short of the goal line which is still uh optimized for that play because he got a nice tip to westbrook but the uh thing is he's got to put a great spiral on it so we're looking at about a 600 rpm spiral uh coming out of his hand wow and that's going to help the stability of the ball and i'm sure he's practiced that throw many, many times before that game. So obviously that's going to play a large role in the accuracy of the throw. It's the last six seconds of the game.

They don't get a touchdown. They go home with the tail between their legs. If Cordell Stewart just says, I've got, I've had my tin of spinach, I'm going to bring it all to bear, he loses control. So you said he's probably given it everything, but he still has to have an element of control. Have we got a Hail Mary equation of some kind,

an algorithm, an equation that we can bring to bear on a situation in terms of distance and time, et cetera? Well, once he lets go of the ball, the only thing acting on the ball is the earth's gravity and air resistance. So that's unlike any, you know, it's just like every other pass that's thrown in football. So once the ball's out of his hand, it's just up to the air and the earth to figure out where it's going to go. If the he if the ball gets thrown high enough do we have any other effects in terms of the rotation of the earth and we get carried away with ourselves here does it is that going to impact upon a pass it will by a couple of inches but the the main thing is going to be the air

you know like flutie's famous hell Hail Mary had a pretty strong headwind. I don't know quite what the weather conditions were like for that pass in the big house. But if you've got a swirling wind as you get these passes typically go about 20 yards off the turf as their maximum height. So once you get up to that height, if you get any little swirling wind, then that's going to affect the path of the ball as well. And so when you look at trajectory, if you throw the ball higher, doesn't it go a shorter distance or wouldn't you have to put more force behind it in order to get it to go the same distance? Well, that's right. And it's the same strategy for a punter. I mean, if you kick it too low, too low an angle, then you're going to outkick your coverage. So you want to get a lot of hang time. You kick it straight up or at a very large angle,

but then you don't get a lot of distance. So you have to kind of optimize between those two effects. So Stewart's throwing that ball close to 45 degrees. It's a little bit higher angle than that, but it's somewhere around 45 degrees. And that's the optimum angle, right? Isn't 45 degrees. It's a little bit higher angle than that, but it's somewhere around, you know, 45 degrees. And that's the optimum angle, right? Isn't 45 degrees like the optimum angle for a distance? It would be without air resistance, but with air resistance, it's actually a little bit bigger than that. Okay. Okay. And again, it depends on the wind as well. Okay. Cordell was talking about the probability being around about, in his mind, actually 50-50 of success and failure. Would you say a play like the Miracle of Michigan

actually had a greater possibility of failing? Or is he about right? Well, when he's scrambling, I mean, he's almost caught at one point, isn't he? Yes. Yeah. So he's got to use a lot of athleticism just to get free to throw the ball. He's got to allow enough time to pass for his receivers just to get close to the goal line. And then he's got to be able to make that throw and it's going to be in a crowd. So once it's tipped up in the air, I mean, it's anybody's guess who's going to catch it. I'll tell you what, that means a lot of confidence in your blocking and a lot of confidence in your own athletic ability, let alone your arm. The cool thing is he said, I saw they had three blockers.

I knew we had six. I think six beats three pretty much every time. 50-50 became 100, didn't it, very, very quickly. All right, there's another real college icon when it comes to hail marys and something that you've you've written about yourself professor the miracle in miami doug flutie the hail flutie yeah the hail flutie let's go with that so he's someone who who bounced in and out of NFL, but really came to the fore, Boston College. Is that correct? That's right. So this is the day after Thanksgiving in 1984. Wow. It was a rescheduled

game. So CBS really had this one pegged as far as immortality goes. And, you know, they're behind the defending national champs, Miami, they're in the orange bowl. Uh, you got swirling winds, storms brewing, uh, headwind before the throw. Uh, he's going to launch that thing a little bit over 60 miles an hour, a little less angle than a Cordell Stewart. He got some help from the headwind kind of like a a sail going up. But it was quite just an amazing pass to Phelan. Now that you've set that up. Oh, by the way, Eric, you could be sat here. Let's do it.

Yeah, we might as well take a look at it. Three wide receivers out to the right. Flutie's back. He's scrambling around. Throws it down. Flutie's back. He's scrambling around. She launches it. Caught by Boston College. I don't believe it. It's a touchdown.

The Eagles win it. Unbelievable. I don't believe it. Phelan is at the bottom of that pile. Here comes the Boston College team. He threw it into the end zone. Wow. That's unbridled joy. That's a dog pile in the end zone. It's a bench clearer. Everybody's in there.

That's amazing. I have to tell you, there's nothing better than seeing the joy of a game-winning play like that. And, you know, I guess you do it because you expect, look, this is where it is. And so you never do anything expecting to lose. But I would assume that the Hail Mary is an extremely, I would say, improbable play. If you were to look at everyone that's ever been done over the history of the sport of football, what would you say the percentage of success would be? Oh, I don't know what the percentage is. I haven't looked at all the failed and made

Hail Marys, but you got to also imagine that you're even going to have a Hail Mary in the first place. I mean, you have to be somewhere around midfield. You got to have, you know, be within a touchdown of either tying or going ahead. So, I mean, you have to have the optimization right at the end of a half or end of the game for even a Hail Mary to take place. I mean, you know, Eli Manning had one back in 2012 that ended a first half of a division game against the Packers. So you just have to be at the right place at the right time in the game for that to even take place. Gotcha. You wrote about this particular play and the Hail Flutey and everything that surrounded it. Why did it stand out for you with such importance?

For me, so I'm 14 years old watching this. Like I said, it's the day after Thanksgiving. And, you know, we're talking about 1984. So we don't have cell phones. We can't have access to every single game that's on in the college football lineup. We had these things that people don't understand called Game of the Week. So you get this one game, perhaps on one network that you can watch. And that was it. You know, we're all sitting around watching this thing on television and jumping up and down when it happened. It was an exciting play.

What's interesting for me is if you look at Doug Flutie's 5'10". That's right. Which is, in the politest way, if you're a quarterback now, that's vertically challenged. Short. Little man. No, we'll go with vertically challenged. It's a short little man. He's 5'10", if he's wearing cleats. I was going to say, and he's not even 5'10".

The fact that that's got to change the angle at which he throws, surely. Because he's in the land of giants. He's got a whole lot of pass rushes. He's got an offensive line in front of him. I mean, if he's just pitching it out like that, he's going to hit someone in the back of the helmet. It's not going to change his angle too much. Keep in mind, the opposing quarterback that day was 6'5 Bernie Kosar.

Wow. I mean, this really is a David Goliath moment. I mean, you've got this diminutive quarterback, maybe 5'9", with cleats. And, yeah, he's hauling this thing from a much shorter distance above the ground. It's just going to have to throw it a little bit harder than Cozart would have. Although Cozart was slightly sidearm, so that would have dropped his release height as well. Yeah. And known for basically being kind of like a sidearm passer, Bernie was. That's right. Okay, Eric, I know maybe I've got this

wrong, but at Boston College, just prior to this particular game, was his quarterback coach not Tom Coughlin? That I don't know. And don't they have a tie-in with the Chargers in San Diego where Flutie ends up later on in his career? That would make sense. This whole thing, this is what I find with these Hail Mary plays. They all weave themselves together.

You look at the miracle in Michigan. He has just created a Hail Mary conspiracy. I love it. That's why I'm here, just stirring it around, just stirring it around. You've got a Heisman winning running back blocking for a future pro bowl. You've got another guy and this whole stellar team. And then all of a sudden you've got this little quarterback. Turns out his quarterback coach in the previous couple of years was his future coach.

So this whole stuff is intertwined. I'm going to be quiet now. No, no, man. That makes sense. I mean, but, you know, when you coach a player and you like what he does, you know, you're more inclined to have that player on your roster once you become a head coach in the NFL. But I, you know, I really think that Doug Flutie's, the only problem

with Doug Flutie was the fact that he was very short. To be honest. It's hard to survey the field when you're that short. He went on to be a pro. I don't think he ever lived up to the potential that he could have had in the NFL. And I really do think it's a matter of size. And when you think about quarterbacks today, they're all six feet something. You know, think about all the guys that are coming out of drafts right now. You don't have any small – right now I think the smallest guy is what, Drew Brees?

Like how many guys are smaller than Drew Brees? Aaron Rodgers is six foot two yeah that's what i'm saying so yeah all right cool don't forget that uh flutie was the first quarterback to go over 10 000 yards in college and he picked up a little trophy a few weeks after that play he did heisman yeah okay so did this miracle in miami do you think affect or was the voting already done for the heisman from From what I've read, the voting had already taken place. He beat Keith Byers

by a pretty good margin anyway from what he'd already done. I remember Keith Byers because he ended up going to the Philadelphia Eagles. Oh, yeah. That looks like a good move from your point of view.

Yeah, well, no. I would have rather had Doug Flutie. Believe you me. All right. We've got to take a break. We are going to Flutie. Believe you me. All right. We've got to take a break. We are going to take a break. Eric, please stay with us. When we come back, we'll put a few more Hail Marys under the microscope

with our good Professor Eric Goff. So please do not go away. Okay, we're back here on Playing With Science, and we are looking still at the science of the Hail Mary Pass in football. And joining us via video call, we have Professor Eric Goff of Lynchburg College and author of Gold Medal Physics, a book we highly recommend that you go and check it out. Okay, Eric, your best ever Hail Mary. Okay, we're going to do this.

All right, I'll reinvent this. The Holy Trinity of Hail Marys. Give us your one, we're going to do this. All right, I'll reinvent this. The Holy Trinity of Hail Marys. Give us your one, two, and three, please. Well, Flutie's probably my favorite just because of my age when it happened. But I got to say the Aaron Rodgers throw back in January of 2016 against uh, that was one for the ages. Um, I mean, he, he gets the, the ball out of the shotgun. He's going to be releasing this ball. I think it was about a 61 yard, uh, horizontal travel for that ball. Right. And I had done a calculation. I mean, he's releasing this thing about 56, 57 miles an hour, um, about 47 degrees above the horizontal.

And it did go about 20 yards up in the air at its maximum height. So, I mean, it was a nice, beautiful pass. Air drags about 22% of the weight of the ball when he lets go of it. I mean, this was just a perfect spiral, perfect pass. Yeah, man. Some Motown. Yeah, I've got to tell you, man, that the way you just described it, I think we should just actually take a listen.

Aaron Rodgers has played with science. Yeah, Aaron Rodgers right now just called in and said, hey, thanks, Eric. That was great. Why don't we take a listen and a look? Get some Motown in the show. That's right. Can the receivers get far enough down the field?

Rodgers. Whoa, scrambling like crazy. He's buying time. Look at him. Look at him. Whoa! The ball's gone out of shot. That's right.

In the end zone. It is caught for the win. That's Richard Rodgers, right? Aaron Rodgers. Because I remember Aaron Rodgers and Richard Rodgers. Rodgers throws to Rodgers. Rodgers throws. Rodgers. That's Richard Rodgers, right? Aaron Rodgers. Because I remember Aaron Rodgers and Richard Rodgers. Rodgers throws to Rodgers.

Rodgers throws. Rodgers catch. Yo, that is amazing. That's awesome. Now, here's what I love. The ball. Now, you know the NFL. We're talking the NFL.

These are the best cameramen in the game, period. The ball goes out of frame. It goes out of shot. Yeah. Because he's pitched it. He's thrown it so high he's possibly thrown it right up into the rafters

to give him Eric yes to give his receivers time he's playing with enough time he's bought enough time in the pocket and coming out

and scrambling and then you see him slow down and slow down because he can see his receivers aren't in position yet and he buys them even more time with the arc of his par. Amazing.

Amazing how intuitive he is. And to throw it that far, he's going to need to throw it a little bit more than 45 degrees. So anyway, so the flight time of these things might be three or four seconds. So he's definitely going to have to give his players, you know, maybe five seconds to get down the field. Yeah, and the thing about this is he did this twice in the same season. Just showing off. Yeah. So he actually did it with the Arizona Cardinals as well,

or against the Arizona Cardinals as well. So just, you know, and on top of that, you know, I believe at the time he was still dating Olivia Munn. Okay, so your jealousy has just kicked in again. Right now, here's what I've just discovered. I hate Aaron Rodgers. Okay, there you have it. I'd like to think, because I'm obviously in a mindset where I like a conspiracy theory,

but he's actually picked out Richard Rodgers, because he just wants the record books to say, and Rodgers throws, Rodgers catches. Yeah. Which makes it look like he threw the ball and ran down field, got into the end zone and caught his own touchdown. I'm that good. I'm that good.

First base, Bucks Bunny. Second base, Bucks Bunny. Third base, Bucks Bunny. So yeah. Yeah. That's very cool, man. And those dreaded laws of physics are keeping him from doing that. Yeah.

Well, let me ask you something. Yeah. So, what would have to be possible? What would it take in the laws of physics to be possible to make the play we just said happen? Which, by the way, I don't know if this is true or not or if it's camera work but there's a guy on youtube who throws have you seen that yes oh my gosh yes yes yes so there's this guy on youtube eric and maybe you can tell us whether or not this is like camera tricks or if this guy does it but he's a young kid and i think this is before he ever like got drafted to college. I don't know his name, but anybody can look this up on YouTube.

A kid throws a pass to himself, and he launches what looks like a Hail Mary to nobody, takes off running like you can't believe, and then ends up under his own ball. Do you guys have that clip? Of course we do. We have access to everything. Check out this phenomenal video that was posted on Vine a few days ago.

That's Gary Haynes actually passing to himself. The Manville, Texas high school cornerback became an internet sensation overnight after posting himself throwing out 40 yards, then sprinting fast enough to catch the ball with seconds to spare. Unbelievable, right? He's worked out the elevation angle. He really has. I mean, it's not quite a vertical throw, and it does travel distance.

Well, it's 40 yards. So, Eric, what's necessary to make that kind of happen? So, was that really 40 yards? I mean, it looked a little shorter, but it's hard to tell from that video. True. He certainly needs to throw it at a fairly steep angle to give it enough time in the air to be able to run under it. Yeah. So we're thinking, what, they said he was a cornerback of safety?

Yes. So what do you think his speed's going to have to be to kind of get there in time? Well, you know, typical accelerations are going to be like five yards per second every second. Then a sprinter type speed, he's going to get up to maybe 30 feet per second when he's running. Maybe 10 yards per second. We're looking at maybe 20-21 miles an hour

at top speed. That's like professional sprinter speed to get that fast that quickly, right? Sure. He's going to be a little short of Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt, of course. Of course, yeah. But he's going to have to get close to that 30 feet per second

if he's going to catch something that 40 yards downfield. If we've learned anything from playing with science, it's that you are, when you watch the defensive secondary, looking at super elite athletes. These guys could, if they'd have taken a different path, end up on the Olympic sprint team. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it wouldn't be a surprise if this high school kid was able to drop those sort of numbers in terms of sprinting. So the fact that he's showing off catching his own pass, well, that's...

Well, don't forget he's not wearing 15 pounds of pads either. Oh, you know what? Didn't even take that into consideration because that's going to slow you down just a little bit, right? Sure. They don't do that in the combine, do they? They don't rock up in pads and stuff and they clock them at whatever it is. No, your speed is recorded. So when somebody says somebody says yeah he's a 4-2-40

they're that's not with pads on that's just your regular you know unless you're deon sanders and you turn up in just a pair of ordinary street shoes do your sprint walk off and get in the limousine and drive away exactly or so the theory goes well you better take those 40-yard times with a grain of salt, too. Why is that? Well, there was an analysis done of, if you remember, the 88 Olympics when Ben Johnson was. Yes. Canadian sprinter. His gold medal was removed because of steroid use.

Someone had analyzed his first 40 yards in that race. And, of course, he's not wearing pads. And it was something like 4.38 seconds. So a lot of those 40 yard times have to do with, uh, uh, who's actually doing the timing. Uh, when do you actually hit the start, uh, on their clock, that kind of thing. So a 4.2 is really, really fast. Yeah. That's very, very fast. Um, and there's a couple of guys, I think in the NFL that have that kind of speed, but not for long.

That's the other thing, too. You might have that speed, but, you know, you play in the league for three years. You don't have that speed anymore. Well, I think we're going to have to investigate the NFL combine. Yeah. Well, all I know is I run an 11-second 40-yard dash, and so there you have it. Fair enough. Some people are going to be thinking about that for a second. And so there you have it. Fair enough. Some people are going to be thinking about that

for a second. All right. Hey, any parting thoughts for us, Eric, when it comes to the Hail Mary, what it is from a physics standpoint that makes it such a great play in football for you? Well, to me, the athleticism of the quarterback to be able to give the receivers enough time to get down the field. I mean, that play with Rodgers when he was throwing the Hail Mary against Arizona, he took just over four seconds to release his pass after the snap. He's got to be able to survive in that pocket and scramble out of the pocket for about four seconds just to give his receivers time to get down the field. So there's a lot going on in that quarterback's mind before that ball even leaves the hand.

How many calculations do you think a quarterback is making from snap to release? Well, I've heard quarterbacks have an internal clock, and for normal-type plays, they know they have to get the ball out at a certain amount of time before they get, you know, blindsided by the rush. Yeah. It's a little under three seconds. Yeah. And they have to have been able to practice these Hail Mary throws. So they're going to have to recalibrate their internal clock for a longer throw like that.

So they've got to be able to both visualize where the receivers are and then have a sense of what's rushing up behind them. Right. That's incredible. That's amazing. That's amazing. Hey, Eric, once again, man, thanks so much for being with us. You're always such a wonderful addition to the show. Thanks so much. You shed a lot of light onto that. Thank you. You're welcome. So Chuck, I mean, we've talked about the athleticism of NFL players and college players. But then you're looking at the mental aptitude of a quarterback, not just to have the arm to throw, but to have the all-round composure, the presence of mind, the athleticism to be able to just stretch time. Yeah. Athleticism to be able to just stretch time. And this is why I think once, as the professor did, sort of opens up the book and shows you exactly what goes on behind it

and the mechanics, it makes it even more miraculous. And you know what I love most about the Hail Mary is, like Eric just said, the athleticism of the quarterback. What I love most about it is the fact that it is equal parts execution of a practice play and improvisation. Because no Hail Mary play is going to be executed the way you practiced it. Because there's always got to be some scrambling. There's another team on the field.

Right, there's another team on the field. Right. And these guys are trying to kill you. They don't do that in practice. Right. team on the field, right? And these guys are trying to kill you. And so they don't do that in practice. Right. So I love the fact that in order for it to happen, it's all these things have to come together. But it's this play that you've definitely practiced, but you never know how it's going to go. And you can actually see the guys creating the play on the field as it's

going down. So it's just it's one of the most exciting plays that you'll ever see in any sport. So I'm really happy that we took the time to talk about it. Yeah, we are. All right, that's it for today. I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this most certainly has been Playing With Science. See you all soon.