If someone tells you Ohio State's double-overtime win against Miami for the national championship -- for a place in history -- wasn't the greatest college football game since Hopalong Cassady wore a jock, then that someone needs to contact their HMO for a quick CAT scan.

C'mon, this little 31-24 Buckeye beauty had everything but Woody Hayes whacking one of the Canes across the kisser. This thing was so creamy that Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who thinks Eminem is a milk chocolate treat, is going to make good on his pregame vow to get his graying hair done up in cornrows. And won't that go well with his sweater vest and scarlet tie?

Remember Duke-Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA East Regionals? This Tostitos Fiesta Bowl was the football version of that ... but better. Nebraska vs. Miami in the 1984 Orange Bowl was the previous leader in the clubhouse. Before that, Michigan State vs. Notre Dame in 1966.

Miami arrived in Tempe with a 34-game winning streak, two Heisman Trophy finalists and a head coach who had never lost. It had a collection of 2001 national championship rings, a double-digit endorsement from the smart guys in Vegas, an offense built for the Utah salt flats and a roster of guys who will soon be shaking the hand of Paul Tagliabue. Most of all, the Canes were absolutely certain they would drop the Buckeyes like first-period French.

The Buckeyes? They had a molecular genetics major for a quarterback, which is great if you need Craig Krenzel to clone a sheep, but what about hitting a down-and-out on fourth-and-14? Buckeyes tailback Maurice Clarett was a true freshman with a suspect shoulder and a grudge against OSU pencil pushers. (Is it a good thing when a player calls school officials "liars"?) And the Ohio State program itself hadn't claimed a national title since LBJ got his mail at the White House -- 1968 to be exact.

Just about everybody who wasn't a card-carrying member of the Buckeye Club thought Miami would tag and bag OSU. "Won't even be close," snickered a prominent head coach of a Top 15 team. "They won't be able to hang with those boys."

Problem is, Ohio State didn't get the memo about phoning it in. Miami took a 7-0 first quarter lead and waited for the Buckeyes to put on Depends. Instead, on drives that totaled 31 yards, OSU scored two touchdowns of its own in the second quarter. And this was after Tressel took a flyer on the dumbest fake field goal attempt this side of a Pop Warner game.

So the game wasn't pretty -- the two best teams in the nation combined for seven turnovers and 15 penalties. But greatness doesn't have to be as neat as Tressel's white-collared shirt. It can have blood stains, grass stains and sweat stains. You want grimy? How about OSU junior center Alex Stepanovich telling the kicking team to take a hike when it jogged onto the field for an apparent late- first-half field goal attempt? Instead, he turned to Tressel and held his hands slightly apart, as if he were measuring a throw-it-back walleye. Tressel went for the fourth-and-goal at the Miami 1. Krenzel scored. Game on.

This was a game for the ages. And TiVo. It will have legs for years to come because of what happened -- and what didn't -- at Sun Devil Stadium on a martini-cool evening in the desert. Think about it: 60 minutes of fishing-line-taut football, followed by two NCAA- version overtimes (clock off, first-and-10 at the 25). Godspeed, fellas. None of this NFL one-and-done crap.

ABC's Keith Jackson can really retire now, because he'll never do a game with more goose bumps than this one. Who figured Krenzel, who runs the 40 in a little under an autumnal equinox, would be the leading rusher? Since when does the team's best offensive player -- Clarett -- make the most important defensive play of the game, prying the ball out of UM safety Sean Taylor's right hand during an interception return? And how do you explain the exploits of Miami's Roscoe Parrish, who catches one TD pass, fumbles away another pass and then sets up the game-tying field goal with a 50-yard return in the waning minutes of regulation?

And about that field goal ...

After Miami called a timeout with 0:03 on the clock, Tressel called two more to ice Todd Sievers. You know what Sievers did? He chatted with teammates. He laughed. Then he squirted the 40-yarder just inside the right upright.

Miami star tailback Willis McGahee, possibly an hour or so from finishing his last college game and months from becoming a millionaire pro, shreds three ligaments in his left knee on a screen pass. Fellow Heisman finalist Ken Dorsey gets hit so hard in OT he nearly forgets his two interceptions, four sacks, one fumble and bad haircut.

There's more. Down 24-17, the Molecular Man does an Elway and somehow connects with WR Michael Jenkins on fourth-and-14 in that first overtime to keep the Ohio State drive alive. On fourth-and-three he throws one toward two-way star Chris Gamble. The ball falls to the ground. Miami players storm the field. TV reporters rush forward and begin conducting interviews. Fireworks explode overhead.

Then someone notices the yellow flag of field judge Terry Porter.

Pass interference. Was it, or wasn't it? Only Gamble, Miami cornerback Glenn Sharpe and Porter know for sure.

Krenzel scores three plays later to push the game into old age. Then Clarett scores in the second OT to give Ohio State the 31-24 lead. When Dorsey's fourth-and-goal pass lands harmlessly, that's that.

Bedlam. Hugs. Tears. Ohio State players rip open bags of Tostitos. Miami players walk off the field and don't look back.

But we will. For a long time.

This article appears in the January 20 issue of ESPN The Magazine.