Ask Cornelius Bennett what fans ask him most frequently about his football career and the answer maybe surprising.
Is it the five Super Bowls he played in? The only Falcons appearance in the game, when they lost to Denver 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami?
No.
It is typically about one bone-crushing tackle he made in 1986 when he was playing for Alabama and coach Ray Perkins.
“I think I get asked about that about 9,000 times a year,’’ said the former Falcons linebacker. “I have to do a good job of telling that story.’’
It came in a game against Notre Dame in Birmingham, when the Crimson Tide was winless against the Fighting Irish in four tries. Lou Holtz was in his first year as head coach at Notre Dame and the Tide was 4-0 and ranked second in the country, having already beaten Ohio State and Florida.
In the first quarter with no score, Irish quarterback Steve Beuerlein faked a handoff and rolled right on a bootleg. From his linebacker position on a blitz called “Tight dog cover plus one,” Bennett came in untouched and hit Beuerlein so hard he fumbled. Notre Dame recovered the ball but the Irish had lost eight yards on the play. The momentum changed and Alabama went on to win 28-10.
Beuerlein experienced a concussion on the play and split time behind center the rest of the game. Holtz would later say that he called that play about 12 more times the rest of the season but Beuerlein would always check out of it.
After the game, Beuerlein told the Chicago Tribune, “I’d been hit hard before, but not when I didn’t see it coming. When I got up, I saw mouths moving, but I heard no voices.’’
“I was just doing my job,’’ said Bennett, a senior at the time who would go on to win SEC player of the year and be named All-American for a third time. “The guy that was supposed to pick me up on the block was a little late. They tried to run the perfect play and we ran the perfect play on defense.’’
ESPN’s Rece Davis, a student at Alabama at the time, was in the stadium for that game. He would tell AL.com that after Bennett’s sack, “The game was over. That was like a knockout punch. Name your favorite boxer — Joe Louis, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Thomas ‘the Hit Man’ Hearns, (Manny) Pacquiao, whomever — landing the devastating blow, and the fight was over. It’s rare in a football game that one play can do that, but that game was done after Bennett hit their quarterback.”
Bennett’s play is legendary in the state of Alabama and it was immortalized in a painting done by popular sports artist Daniel Moore, who titled it “The Sack.’’ That painting still hangs on the wall in Perkins’ home.
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