UK, Arkansas played one of the longest college football games in history in 2003

Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history — some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.

University of Kentucky football fans are used to nail-biter games, but the 2003 football game between the Wildcats and the University of Arkansas Razorbacks left fans at Commonwealth Stadium on the edge of their seats for hours.

That game, which included seven overtimes, is one of the longest collegiate football games ever played. The game started at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 and ended at 12:01 a.m. the next day, with a total of four hours and 56 minutes of play, including halftime.

The first quarter started out with Arkansas’ Decori Birmingham running in a 10-yard touchdown to give the Razorbacks a 7-0 lead.

Kentucky blocked an Arkansas punt, and UK’s Andrew Hopewell recovered the block for a touchdown to tie the game at 7. In the second quarter, Arkansas’ Matt Jones threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Richard Smith, taking the score to 14-7.

The Razorbacks’ special teams then blocked a Wildcat punt and scored another touchdown. An errant pass by UK’s Jared Lorenzen was intercepted by Arkansas’ Ahmad Carroll, but the Razorbacks missed a 40-yard field goal, leaving the score 21-7 at the half.

When the teams came out of the locker room, UK scored on its first possession, a 51-yard touchdown pass from Lorenzen to Alexis Bwenge. That cut Arkansas’ lead to 21-7, where it remained at the end of the third quarter.

After dueling field goals in the fourth quarter, Lorenzen threw a 13-yard pass to Chris Bernard to tie the game at 24-24. Arkansas got the ball back with with 90 seconds left on the clock and two timeouts, but ultimately punted to UK, ending regulation in a tie.

In 1996, overtime rules were adopted that required teams to start on the opponent’s 25-yard line and try to score. In the first overtime, Jones threw a pass to fullback Mark Pierce, who scored from the 1-yard line. Kentucky’s Bwenge answered with a touchdown to tie the game at 31.

In the second overtime, Kentucky began on offense, and Bwenge scored again, this time on the Wildcats’ their second play. Arkansas answered with a pass from Jones to Jason Peters for their own touchdown, tying the game at 38.

In the third overtime, NCAA rules required teams to go a two-point conversion after each touchdown instead of kicking an extra point, but neither team found the end zone. Each kicked a successful field goal, tying the game at 41.

In the fourth each team scored a touchdown, with Lorenzen running in his final push, and connecting to Derek Abney on a two-point conversion pass. Next, Arkansas’ Jones recovered his own fumble on the Kentucky 2-yard line and scrambled into the end zone, then completed a pass to Pierce on the two-point try. The score was tied at 49.

Again, in the fifth overtime, both teams scored touchdowns. Jones threw a 15-yard pass to take the lead, but the two-point conversion to Wilson was incomplete. Lorenzen ended up running 14 yards in consecutive plays for a touchdown but also failed to complete the two-point play, sending the game into the sixth overtime with each team at 55 points.

In the sixth overtime, both teams rushed for 25 yards for touchdowns. Lorenzen ran for 18 and a TD before successfully passing to Tommy Cook to take the lead on the two-point conversion. Arkansas rallied with Jones throwing a 16-yard pass and a 7-yard rush to move the offense to the Kentucky 2-yard line. Pierce ran the ball into the end zone to score, and Jones completed the pass to Wilson to tie the game at 63.

In the final overtime, Birmingham ran 25 yards for the touchdown, and Peters completed the two-point conversion to give the Razorbacks the lead.

But the Cats couldn’t answer the call. Lorenzen fumbled. Arkansas’ Tony Bua recovered the ball and the game was over. Final score: 71-63.

More than just one of the longest games in the record books, the confrontation set a few other records as well. Arkansas’ 47 overtime points broke its previous record of 41. The combined 86 overtime points broke the previous record of 80 set in 2001, also an Arkansas game.

The 134 overall points broke the record for most combined points in an overtime game, besting a three-overtime game in 2001 between Akron and Eastern Michigan in which the teams totaled 127 points.

The combined points for the Razorbacks and Wildcats even exceeded the number of points their basketball teams scored in their last meeting in February of that same year, when UK beat Arkansas 66-50.

“I guess this is one for the record books,” Lorenzen said of the game at the time. “It’s just an instant classic. We never quit, and we fought hard. My offensive linemen are dead. You’ve got to give credit to the defense because it was tough to go in back-to-back during the overtime.”

Since then, rule changes in 2019 and 2021 have worked to limit multiple overtime games, but six college contests have resulted in seven overtimes, including the Sept. 10, 2022 game between Eastern Kentucky University and Bowling Green University.

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