Super Bowl XXVII : THROUGH THE YEARS : Footnotes To History : VI : LANCE ALWORTH : DALLAS COWBOYS

The play that broke open Dallas’ first Super Bowl victory? Would you believe it was a mistake?

With the Cowboys leading the Miami Dolphins, 3-0, and the ball on Miami’s seven-yard line, only 75 seconds before halftime in Super Bowl VI at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Dallas wide receiver Lance Alworth wondered if Coach Tom Landry would remember what Alworth had told him a few minutes earlier.

“I had told him, ‘Tom, let me run a quick out. They aren’t covering me,’ ” Alworth

said.

Sure enough, in the huddle, quarterback Roger Staubach called a the play , designed for Alworth to take about four steps, then turn toward the sideline. The ball would be waiting for him.

It didn’t work out exactly that way.

“So I took four steps and turned at the hash mark,” said Alworth. “But Roger didn’t throw. He pumped. I said ‘Oh, no.’ I had to keep running, so I broke for the flag (marking the corner of the end zone) and Roger threw it. It should have been intercepted. I thought, ‘Oh, God, here we go, 98 yards the other way.’ But the ball was in my hands before anyone knew it.”

What happened?

“We were lucky, real lucky,” Alworth said.

That was how a four-yard pattern became something vastly different, and how a pass that might have been intercepted became the turning point of a franchise instead.

“It should not have worked,” Alworth said. “It only worked because he threw it so hard and fast he shocked everybody.”

Alworth’s catch gave Dallas a 10-0 lead in a game the Cowboys went on to win, 24-3. The Cowboys rushed for 252 yards, led by Duane Thomas’ 95 yards in 19 carries, but it was Alworth’s clutch catch of a shocking pass that deserves a special niche in Dallas Super Bowl lore.

* 1972 AT NEW ORLEANS

Dallas 3 7 7 7 -- 24 Miami 0 3 0 0 -- 3

Dal--FG Clark 9

Dal--Alworth 7 pass from Staubach (Clark kick)

Mia--FG Yepremian 31

Dal--D. Thomas 3 run (Clark kick)

Dal--Ditka 7 pass from Staubach (Clark kick)

A--81,023

Winning Coach--Tom Landry

MVP--Roger Staubach