Billy Cannon's Halloween Run
| Billy Cannon's Halloween Run | |||||||||||||||||||
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Cannon during his punt return
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| Date | October 31, 1959 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 1959 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Tiger Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Baton Rouge, Louisiana | ||||||||||||||||||
During a college football game on Halloween night in 1959, Billy Cannon of Louisiana State University (LSU) returned a punt 89 yards for a touchdown against the Ole Miss Rebels. The return occurred late in the fourth quarter and provided the only touchdown scored in the game, as the Tigers won 7–3. Featuring several broken tackles, it was a signature play of Cannon's Heisman Trophy-winning season and a notable moment in the LSU–Ole Miss football rivalry.
LSU and Ole Miss had played each other regularly since 1894, and considered each other arch-rivals. Both teams were undefeated on the season coming into the game. The Tigers were the top-ranked team in the Associated Press poll and the Rebels were ranked third. Each had star players playing in their senior years: Billy Cannon for LSU and Charlie Flowers for Ole Miss. Both teams' defenses were among the best in the nation; LSU had surrendered six points combined in their first six games, while Ole Miss gave up seven points and shut-out five of the six teams they played to that point.
The game was highly anticipated, with sportswriters calling it "the game of the year." One man offered to swap 50-yard line Sugar Bowl tickets for tickets anywhere in Tiger Stadium for LSU vs. Ole Miss. Another man, perhaps jokingly, offered up his wife for tickets. One enthusiastic propagandist from the South proclaimed Ole Miss would "make LSU's Chinese Bandits look like geisha girls". On October 30, the night before the game, hundreds of LSU students surrounded the practice field where the Rebels were running drills, and taunted them with shouts of "Go to Hell, Ole Miss!"
Tiger Stadium was filled to capacity with 68,000 fans packing the stands. As expected, the game was a defensive struggle. The Rebels scored a field goal in the first quarter, and spent the rest of the game relying on defense and trying to pin the Tigers deep in their own territory. They punted on early downs and gambled on LSU making mistakes on offense. The gambles paid off, as the Tigers fumbled four times in the game. An interception by Cannon early in the fourth quarter caused Ole Miss coach Johnny Vaught to abandon the offensive game completely. He had his quarterback and punter, Jake Gibbs, punt on first downs. "They kept punting the ball, sticking us back in a hole," Cannon recalled, "and I thought, 'If I can get my hands on this one, I'm going to take it back.'"
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