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3 rare sights you may never see twice in college football

84 points? 7OTs? Two safeties? These will air on your TV just once in a blue moon

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: NOV 28 TCU at Kansas Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Part of the reason college football is so fun and exciting is that the sky's the limit when it comes to possible outcomes. It even outdoes the NFL in the number of nutty scores, highlights, and events that can happen on the gridiron.

If turn on your TV for some college football this fall and witness one of these five things, then you are witnessing something special. Here they are--let me know in the comments below if you've ever seen one of these as it happened:

3. One team scores 80+ points

It’s always 77, never 80. It drives me crazy. A team scores 49 in the first half, but rarely adds much more to it in the second. Letting off the gas, resting starters, not hurting the other team’s feelings by running up the score—I get it, I get it. But it sure makes the game boring once I’ve finished my halftime nachos. The last time a team scored 80+ at the FBS level was like four or five years ago, even with all the offense these days.

2. A game goes to 7OT

It’s only happened five times, most famously during Texas A&M’s 74-72 barnburner with LSU back in 2018. The other four were 2001’s Arkansas-Ole Miss 58-56 shootout, Arkansas’s 71-63 victory over Kentucky in 2003, North Texas’s 25-22 (!) win over FIU in 2006, and Western Michigan’s 71-68 win over Buffalo in 2017. The North Texas one is pretty bizarre for its unusually low score—after a 16-16 tie forced the first OT the teams missed a combined EIGHT field goals in the OTs before the Mean Green put one through to win 25-22. There hasn’t been an 8OT game, and NCAA rule changes trying to shorten marathon games might lower the already low odds, but don’t count the possibility out.

1. A team scores exactly 4 points

The safety is one of the coolest parts of college football, and rarer than ice cream stands in January. They are the only way a team can score exactly 4 points in a game, since it’s 2 + 2. This has only happened a handful of times in FBS history, most notably when Iowa edged Penn State 6-4. Part of the reason it is so rare is that the team can’t score any touchdowns, field goals, or more safeties. They have to get two safeties and that’s it.