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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton-Yale 1981 Named Game of the Century
November 15, 1999 | Football
Nov. 15, 1999
The phone rings, and Scott Oostdyk answers.
"Scott, I was hoping to talk to you about the 1981 Yale game."
"What? They found out I only got nine yards, two feet and 11 inches?"
It's been a long time. Eighteen football seasons worth. Law school and a law career. Marriage. Three kids, two girls and a boy, all old enough to have seen the tape a million times.
It's almost like Scott Oostdyk has been living in fear that one day this call would come. That one day someone would call and tell him that no, it didn't really happen, that none of it was true, that they measured again and he came up short and then Yale ran out the clock.
He can relax, though. He got just enough on the play, and the rest really did happen. Princeton really did score on the drive, on the final play of the game, and then 14 years of frustration were wiped away and a lifetime of memories were born.
He can relax, Scott Oostdyk can. Nothing will ever change it. Princeton 35, Yale 31. November 14, 1981.
It is the Princeton Athletic News Princeton Football Game of the Century.
"I still get chills up my spine when I think about that game," says Oostdyk.
When the game at Dartmouth ends next week, Princeton will have played 861 games in the 1990s. Heading into today's game, Princeton has a record of 530-292-39 his century.
There have been huge wins in that mix, games of enormous historical significance in terms of both Princeton and the development of the sport. There was the 1922 game at Chicago, when the "Team of Destiny" won 21-18 in the final seconds in the first game ever on radio. There was the 1911 win over Harvard that featured a legendary punt return for a touchdown to win it. In 1946 Princeton knocked off an undefeated Penn team that had been ranked third nationally. Princeton played a game against Dartmouth in 1935 remembered today as both the "Snow Game" and the "12th Man Game," there was a 1950 game against Dartmouth played in a hurricane.
As good as all of those games, and a host of others, were, there was something truly magical about the 1981 game against Yale.
Princeton came into the game as a 15-point underdog against an undefeated Yale team that featured four future NFL players. On top of that, Princeton had lost 14 straight games to Yale, which remains the longest losing streak to one school in Tiger history.
Yale came out and built a quick 21-0 lead before Princeton recovered. The game would come down to one final Princeton drive and ultimately the final play of the game.
The game featured what might have been the greatest individual performance in Ivy League history, as Princeton senior quarterback Bob Holly completed 36 of 55 passes for 501 yards and four touchdowns before running for the game-winner on the final play. Holly's 501 passing yards are still the Ivy League record. Derek Graham caught 15 passes for 278 yards, both league records at the time.
"I don't really remember that game too well," says Carm Cozza, who coached Yale from 1965-1996 with a record of 179-119-5. "I really only remember the 14 before it."
Entering the game, witnessed by 20,303 at Palmer Stadium, Yale was 8-0, had outscored its opponents 226-112, was ranked fourth nationally in passing defense and started 18 seniors. Princeton was 3-4-1, had been outscored 260-161, had lost 55-44 the week before to Maine and had lost 61-8 to Delaware earlier in the year.
"That game is the game in my career I think of first," says Howard David, who broadcast the game on WHWH radio and who has gone on to broadcast Super Bowls, major college bowls and now the Jets on a weekly basis. "If I had to see those Yalies waving those handkerchiefs that they always waved after they scored one more time, I thought I was going to throw up. This was a great Yale team that Princeton played that day. Coming into the game, you figured you were looking at No. 15 [in a row]. Then they got up 21-0 in what seemed like no time."
Actually it took most of the first half as Yale didn't just score, it began to surgically take apart the Tigers. The three first half touchdown drives were all at least 12 plays, covered at least 74 yards and took at least 4:27. All three ended on short touchdowns, and 4:36 remaining in the first half, Yale was up 21-0.
"You have to understand that this was a very good football team that we had that year," Cozza says. "We were undefeated. We had beaten Navy. We were up 21-0. I gave Princeton a great deal of credit for the way they hung in that day. It was a tremendous comeback, and it showed a lot of character."
The Tigers might never have come back had it not been for the final four minutes of the first half.
"Even when we were down in the first half, I never really felt like we were out of the game," says Holly, who today works in finance in Connecticut. "There are a lot of plays in the course of a football game that make a big difference."
Princeton answered the third Yale touchdown with an eight-play, 81-minute drive that ended with a 20-yard touchdown pass from Holly to Graham. Princeton then was successful on a two-point conversion attempt, and it was 21-8 with just under two minutes to go.
The Tigers held Yale after the kickoff, forcing a punt. With 21 seconds to go in the half, Holly threw a 13-yard TD pass to Larry Van Pelt, and it was 21-15 at intermission.
"I didn't think we'd win at halftime," Oostdyk says. "Even when we took the lead in the second half, I wasn't sure. There came a point, I remember, when I knew we'd win."
Princeton took a brief lead at 22-21 on Holly's third touchdown pass, this time to Kevin Guthrie, but Yale came back with a field goal and touchdown to lead 31-22 with nine minutes to play. A Princeton field goal with 6:03 to go made it 31-25, but Yale then took the clock under two minutes before it had to punt.
Princeton took over with 1:43 to play and the ball on its 24-yard-line. That's where the story really begins, and it is a story about Scott Oostdyk as much as anyone.
"Bob Holly and I had been rivals since the second grade," Oostdyk says. "He and I went to school together, competed for the quarterback spot as sophomores. But he was the quarterback, so I moved to receiver."
Oostdyk and Holly went to Clifton High School in North Jersey. When it came time to chose a college, Oostdyk had a scholarship offer from Virginia.
"I didn't want to go to the ACC," Oostdyk says. "I was thinking either Harvard or Princeton, and I figured I'd go where Holly went. I figured wherever he was, they'd throw the ball."
Princeton went 5-4 in 1979 and 6-4 in 1980, but an opening day loss to Dartmouth in 1981 dug the Tigers a big hole. Still, Princeton knocked off Brown and Columbia before a crushing tie at Harvard, which ended when Holly threw an interception in the end zone. Were it not for that tie, Princeton would have been just a game behind Yale in Week 9.
"It felt like we were playing a major college football game that day," Oostdyk says. "It was a game of big significance. I had never had that feeling before at Princeton, that everyone was so focused on one game. We'd heard about that streak all week."
Oostdyk was the tight end by his senior year, and he and his old friend were out there as the final drive began.
"We were near the 20, and on first down we called a tight end square in," Oostdyk says. "Holly got the ball swatted away. On second down, we called the same play, and Holly had to throw it away. On third down, we called the same play again, and again he had heat on him and had to throw it away. Then we called the same play again, on fourth down. I don't even remember seeing the ball. It came in thigh high. I caught it and fell on the ground right there. My first thought was we needed 10 yards, so I looked around to see where the chains were. On the tape, you can see my head snap around. On the radio call, you can hear Howard David say that it was senior leadership to know exactly where I needed to be. In reality, I had no idea where I was. I was just lucky enough to get the first down."
Had that play not made it just enough for a first down, the game would have been over right there.
"That was the game," David says. "I remember it was pretty clear that he had enough for the first down. That was the biggest play, the fourth down conversion."
With a second life, Holly was just getting started. "He was like a machine," Oostdyk says. "He was not a rah-rah guy. He just had such incredible mental toughness."
Even after Oostdyk's catch, Princeton still had to go 64 more yards and had 1:23 to do it. Holly threw for 14 to Graham and then five more to Graham on the next play to reach Yale territory with 48 seconds to go. After an incompletion to kill the clock, Holly then threw for 12 to Larry Van Pelt and 13 to Graham to move to the 20, where he threw another incompletion to kill it with 19 seconds left.
The next play was the most controversial. Holly's end zone pass to Graham was incomplete, but pass interference was called. Princeton then had the ball on the one.
"The only disappointment," Cozza says, "was that I hated to have the game decided on a call in the end zone. If that had been today, they wouldn't have gotten the ball on the one. They would have gotten it around the 10. It might have been different."
Nine seconds were showing on the clock. First and goal at the one.
"Holly called the formation and the play, a square out to Graham," Oostdyk says. "Holly was smart. I thought he had a few options. The defense was stretched, and he made a move. He's not that fast, but he was a very good basketball player in high school. He always had good pivot moves. He made a great cut back against Jeff Rohrer, a future NFL linebacker, and got into the end zone. I couldn't believe it when he got in. I did a pirouhette four feet in the air."
Princeton 35, Yale 31. Four seconds left. Time for a kickoff out-of-bounds and a desperation pass that was intercepted. "I've covered all sorts of things in my life," David says. "That game was one of the top three events I've seen. The first Super Bowl I did was Green Bay-New England. I did BYU-Michigan in the Holiday Bowl when BYU won the national title. And that game. Those other two were bigger events. But as a game, the 1981 Princeton-Yale game was the best I've ever seen. I did the games then with Bob Casciola, and he opened next week's broadcast by saying that the Princeton fans were still here from last week, still celebrating."
Holly went on to the NFL himself and won a Super Bowl ring with the Redskins. The players from that game are all nearing 40. The stadium it was played in no longer exists.
All that's left are memories.
"It was a great football game," Holly says. "It was a great win, a great team effort. Everyone made a contribution."
Oostdyk, for one, has proof.
"Every now and then, when I'm starting to feel a little old, I take the highlight tape out and pop it in the VCR," he says. "Then I tell my kids, 'hey, let's watch Daddy get his first down again.' "
— By Jerry Price