Nonstop snow, a wild overtime and a near-death experience: When a Shreveport blizzard produced bowl

June 2024 · 13 minute read

Editor’s note: This is part of The Athletic’s Tales from Bowl Season series exploring some of the best and quirkiest stories from past bowl games.

In the 20 years since it happened, many fans have brought up the game when they see him out. Former Mississippi State quarterback Wayne Madkin asks them all the same question: “Did you stay or did you go?”

Advertisement

“Some people will confess to it,” Madkin said. “Some people won’t.”

The ones who do often have a compelling epilogue to their story after trying to escape a rare blizzard that dumped nearly 6 inches of snow in northwest Louisiana, the largest overnight snowfall since 1985. Mississippi State fell behind Texas A&M 14-0 in the first quarter, leaving Bulldogs fans with a difficult choice: Give up and try to get home or try to stick it out and cheer for a rally.

For many, Mother Nature forced them to choose a third option.

“Some people tell me they tried to make it back, ended up sliding into a ditch and ended up listening to us come back and win that game while their car was stuck on the interstate with several hundred other cars,” Madkin said. “Some of them ended up sleeping in their cars.”

In the almost five-decade history of the Independence Bowl, no game has been anything like the one Shreveport hosted in 2000.

“I’ve been to Vermont in the wintertime. I’ve been to Colorado,” then-Texas A&M head coach RC Slocum said. “I’ve never seen it snow any harder than it did that night.”

Ja’Mar Toombs, No. 5, rushed for 193 yards on 35 carries for Texas A&M in its loss to Mississippi State in the 2000 Independence Bowl. (Courtesy of the Independence Bowl)

The day before the game, a warning persisted throughout the city: Snow might be coming. But “snow” as Shreveport natives defined it and what fell from the sky a day later were two different things.

That week, however, temperatures lived below freezing. The synthetic turf at Independence Stadium already was frozen when wind began whipping around the sudden snowfall 30 minutes before kickoff. The teams left the field after warmups to a chilly, dry, uncovered field. When they began the game, the field was covered in snow.

“I thought it’d maybe come and then go away, but it didn’t,” then-Mississippi State head coach Jackie Sherrill said. “It just kept snowing.”

With the wind chill, the temperature for most of the game hovered just above single digits. Neither team brought adjustable cleats. Those were rarer than they are now, and the game was being played on turf. No one thought it would be necessary.

Advertisement

“I didn’t wear sleeves that game, and the first time I got tackled, the snow and ice felt like razor blades,” said Chris Taylor, who played wide receiver for Texas A&M.

For two rosters mostly made up of Texans and Mississippians, most of the players never had suited up in snow, much less a sudden snow. Some never had seen snow before.

“It don’t snow in Texas. If I’d have gone to Ohio State or Michigan, maybe,” Texas A&M running back Ja’Mar Toombs said. “We played in the rain but never in snow and never anything that cold.”

It wasn’t much different on the sidelines and up in the booth.

“I had no experience coaching in anything like that,” Slocum said. “None of us did.”

The game already had a spicy storyline that the snow quickly swallowed up. Sherrill spent seven seasons coaching Texas A&M before resigning in 1988 amid an NCAA investigation, although he never was found culpable for any of the violations that were uncovered.

Slocum, a defensive coordinator under Sherrill, took over in College Station after his former boss’s resignation. Now, Sherrill was in the midst of his fourth winning season in four years in Starkville.

“There was extra meaning because of the RC and Jackie thing,” Taylor said.

But midway through the first quarter, Sherrill’s Bulldogs trailed by 14 as the snow piled up on the field and sidelines.

“At one point, I had like 5 inches of snow on the brim of my hat,” Sherrill said. “I wasn’t paying attention, and somebody knocked it off for me.”

The teams weren’t used to playing cold-weather games and didn’t come prepared for a bowl game in the Deep South. Other than long sleeves for some and sideline heaters, the players and coaches were stuck shivering if they weren’t on the field.

“I had on everything we had to put on. I had a sweatshirt and a shirt under my coat and just a ball cap but didn’t have anything for my ears,” Slocum said. “We just weren’t ready for it. We had no idea when we packed to go over there. We didn’t have much snow or cold equipment anyway.”

Advertisement

There were some hand warmers on the sideline, but they did little, and the snow meant almost everyone who played was standing on the sidelines soaking wet when they weren’t playing. Adrenaline on the field helped eliminate the cold, but the wind and snow left those standing around miserable.

“I did everything to stay warm but take a shot of liquor,” Madkin said. “People were staying close to the heaters. That was prime real estate if you weren’t in the game, but man, them things weren’t doing a thing unless you were right smack in front of it. I just quit doing it after a while.”

Of course, for some, there was always room by the heater.

“I guess guys kind of respected unwritten rules. When the defense was on the field, there was space for me by the heater and somebody waiting for me with a jacket every time,” Madkin said, laughing. “I had to have my jacket on to sit down. I wouldn’t sit my butt down on the seat.”

Both teams leaned on powerful running games — Madkin rushed for 193 rushing yards — but still combined to throw 30 passes, completing 18 for 204 yards.

“The most challenging part was visibility, not knowing where the first down was, and footing was a problem,” Madkin said.

Seeing receivers downfield wasn’t always easy, especially since Mississippi State coincidentally made the rare decision to wear white helmets, white pants and white jerseys in a blizzard. But for both sides, throwing the ball made sense: Footing was a problem, but receivers knew where they were going. Defensive backs had to guess. If they fell down, it could mean an easy completion.

“It was a game for mudders,” Sherrill said. “And that’s why Toombs had such a great game.”

Early in the first quarter, realizing the game the teams thought they came to play would never happen and snow had buried the game plan, Sherrill pulled his team together with a message: We have to figure this out. Don’t worry about the weather. Worry about your play and how you can help your teammates.

Advertisement

“The game slowed down because everybody was a step slower to make sure they had their footing,” Madkin said. “Once you realized that, you were able to take advantage of those opportunities. And it made the game extremely fun.”

Mississippi State’s sideline turned into a party for much of the game, as the Bulldogs started doing the Dawg Pound Rock at any opportunity.

“It was electric,” Madkin said. “But very chilly.”

Mississippi State rallied with a pair of second-quarter touchdowns and tied the game at 14 with less than a minute left in the first half when Madkin found running back Dicenzo Miller on a screen pass for a 5-yard score.

Sherrill called for kicker John Michael Marlin to squib the ball down the field, preventing a return. At Sherrill’s instruction, Marlin laid the ball on its side next to the kicking tee and planned to boot it down the field on a low trajectory, hoping A&M might mishandle the ball and allow the Bulldogs to steal a late possession.

Marlin approached the ball and swung his leg through but missed, dribbling the ball just a couple of yards to his left, where Texas A&M recovered and began its next drive.

“I always kind of had a hate for kickers. We’d be practicing, and they’d only do three periods. The rest of the time, they’re off playing tic-tac-toe,” Madkin said. “But I felt bad for him that day because there was a lot going on. Our team would rip on the kickers, but that time, our team was like: ‘Hey, it’s all right. There’s snow everywhere. We’re in Louisiana. Nobody in their right mind thought the bottom was gonna fall out of the sky like it did.'”

On the next play, Aggies quarterback Mark Farris found Robert Ferguson for a 42-yard score to put the Aggies up six at halftime after Terence Kitchens missed the extra point.

At any break in play, stadium workers did their best to clear as many yard lines as possible so players could have some idea of where they were on the field, but most of the time Mother Nature undid their work in minutes. At halftime, plows cleared the middle of the field to allow linemen on both sides more solid footing and let officials locate the hashmarks to spot the ball, but the frozen turf made steady footing almost impossible.

Advertisement

“In the second half, we couldn’t stop Ja’Mar Toombs,” Sherrill said.

The Aggies running back finished with 193 yards on 35 carries, scoring his first touchdown from 13 yards out to give Texas A&M another two-touchdown lead midway through the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs rallied for a pair of touchdowns, forcing overtime with a 3-yard touchdown pass from Madkin to Donald Lee with 90 seconds to play, aided by Marco Minor’s interception that allowed the Bulldogs to start their drive in the red zone.

By the end of the game, the snow let up, but the frigid air and frozen turf kept the prospect of navigating the playing surface a perilous task.

Texas A&M leaned on a simple playbook for most of the second half. Almost every offensive snap was one of three plays after handing the ball to Toombs: a zone run, a power run or a lead play. Late in the game, the Aggies mixed in a couple of sweeps to keep Mississippi State’s defense guessing.

Toombs struck again on the first play of overtime, rumbling 25 yards for a score. He broke three tackles and spotted the pylon in time to dive for it and put the Aggies up six.

“If not for what happened next, that would have been my favorite touchdown of my career,” Toombs said.

He stayed on the field to fulfill his duties on the left side of the extra-point protection team. But field goals are supposed to have only one “thud.” Toombs heard the worst thing a kick protection team can hear: a second thud. He whipped his head around and saw a herd of white jerseys running in the other direction.

“I had just scored; I didn’t have the energy to catch him,” Toombs said. “I knew I wasn’t going to catch him, but I was half jogging, hoping somebody catches him.”

Bulldogs defensive tackle Willie Blade collapsed the right side of Texas A&M’s line on the extra point, swatting the kick into the backfield. Eugene Clinton scooped up the ball, and as he was being dragged back into the snow with his back to the end zone, he tossed a perfect lateral to teammate Julius Griffith, who caught it in stride and returned it the remaining 80 yards, then face-planted in the end zone snow to cut Mississippi State’s deficit to four, 41-37.

Advertisement

“I remember pretty much knowing the game was going to be ruined because of that,” Texas A&M offensive lineman Seth McKinney said. “It’s like a slow-speed train wreck. You don’t want it to happen with all your might, but it’s happening.”

Even Bully, the Bulldogs’ anthropomorphic mascot, joined in the celebratory dogpile. It provided the wildest moment on one of the wildest nights in bowl history.

“I was like, ‘This cannot be happening.’ Everything in me just came out. Right then and there, I was thinking, ‘We’re gonna lose.’ I’m walking off the field, and people are still patting me on the back for the run, and I’m like, ‘Man, we’re about to lose.’ I might not have said it, but I was thinking it,” Toombs said. “I was dejected, man. I felt like I had done everything to win that game: 35 carries, almost 200 yards, three touchdowns. That was the best game I ever played. If we were supposed to win any game, it was this one.”

Now trailing by four, Mississippi State faced a second-and-goal from the 6 on its ensuing possession. Madkin slipped out of the pocket and dove for as much yardage as he could get. But the snow made it impossible for him to know where he was on the field. He was trying to get up and get the call from the sideline for the next play as his teammates dove on top of him, burying him beneath their weight.

“That was a pass play. I wasn’t supposed to run. But I saw the hole open up in the middle, and I just took it,” Madkin said. “But I was confused. After about 20 seconds, they’re all piling on me, and I’m on the bottom, and I start screaming, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!”

Suddenly, he spotted Sherrill’s face, pulling Bulldogs off their quarterback, who had reached the end zone for the winning score.

“By that time, I was distraught. Like, I almost died. But he told me to shake it off, and we just started screaming at each other,” Madkin said. “He was happy, I was happy, but I also just had a near-death experience.”

Advertisement

From 1981 to 1998, Mississippi State hadn’t won a bowl game. Now, Sherrill had won two in two seasons. And he had beaten his former team 43-41.

The Bulldogs cranked up the heat in the locker room and thawed out to celebrate as A&M stewed in a silent locker room. For many players, the end of their careers set in. An unwelcome visitor crashed the Aggies’ locker room after Slocum finished his speech to his team.

“They brought me the offensive MVP trophy. I’m like, ‘Oh, God, what am I supposed to do with this thing? Man!’ I wasn’t even happy for it,” Toombs said.

Most of Mississippi State’s team returned to the team hotel and celebrated with fans. Nobody wanted to go anywhere else, and most couldn’t go anywhere else. Others were braver.

Taylor signed with agent Vann McElroy after the game and went with a teammate to a nearby casino. More than a few teammates followed suit.

“That was when I was first learning to play blackjack, and a guy at the table got pretty mad at me because I wasn’t playing the way people usually played,” Taylor said.

The next day, Slocum loaded up in his own vehicle, and a drive back to College Station that usually takes around four hours stretched into an all-day affair, complete with hundreds of cars stranded on the side of the road along the way.

The game has lived on in the decades since, not only for its novelty but also for the drama. Two 7-4 teams met in a middling bowl game but played in a game fans would remember for the rest of their lives.

Wayne Madkin scored the game-winning touchdown in the 2000 Independence Bowl. (Courtesy of Wayne Madkin)

In Madkin’s home, a framed photo hangs on the wall. In it, he’s lunging for a goal line he can’t see on the game’s final play.

“I played in a lot of big games. The 1998 game against Nebraska, the Big 12 title game that year, the ’99 Bonfire game,” McKinney said. “But people ask me about that game just as often, and they just say ‘Snow Bowl.’ They never call it the Independence Bowl.”

Advertisement

Two evenly matched teams and a whole lot of snow gave college football a classic not soon forgotten.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo courtesy of the Independence Bowl)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kmlpcmxpZnxzfJFqZmpqX2d%2FcLrOp6qtp6BiwK%2B71maYZq%2BZobFuu9Weqa2hnZp6orrDZphmppWWv26wxJqroWWVrb2mvsiepZydXay1prqMmmSsoKKaw6a8zqurZpqcnse7rdGdZKmqn5nCpLHDZpmor5xitq65zqurmqSZqcZw