Stadium lower seats change colors from yellow to rose to yellow again.
On the play that sets the mystery, QB Mulligan gives the ball to RB Ives, who runs to the side with the ball, is tackled, and vanishes. The cameras return to Mulligan getting up with his knee issue and the football is on the ground behind him, but it would have been over in the pile with Ives. They show the helmet, but not the ball, on the side after the pile clears. Just as big a mystery as how Ives vanished is how did the ball get back to the middle of the field to Mulligan!! No one ever comments on this, although the play is replayed numerous times later.
Game film. Both teams shoot their own film and would have had the play in perfect detail. While film and video tape quality of the era was good enough to see how each player carried out his assignment, you be hard pressed to call it "perfect detail". It was usually shot from high in the stands with a lens that was somewhat wide angle to get the entire line in one shot. Not an ideal situation for detail.
In the footage of the original play, after the camera has cut to Mulligan and shows a football next to him as he gets up, the camera goes back to the tackle and the referee on the right picks up a football from the pile up and tosses it to the other referee. In the replay, it's the referee on the left that picks up the ball.
Despite not noticing the the White Shirt and Blue 20 appear out of thin air at the bottom of the tackle (Banacek needed only to count the numbers,) he missed noticing Fabian (number 84) was in on the tackle and left the field without a helmet.
Deacon Jones was the Tallest, blackest, leanest athlete on the field in his white jersey. Jones stood out even when placed behind the pile, and barely in the camera frame.
The mysterious '20' and the 84 without a helmet would have ended the episode in the first fifteen-twenty minutes.
Deacon Jones was the Tallest, blackest, leanest athlete on the field in his white jersey. Jones stood out even when placed behind the pile, and barely in the camera frame.
The mysterious '20' and the 84 without a helmet would have ended the episode in the first fifteen-twenty minutes.
As stated above; #20 wasn't in on play when seen for the first time. As well, he's missing a helmet and heads to the sideline. Even the announcers say the running back was tackled by 4 defenders but during the reply; there's 5 defenders (#20 being 5th one) and they don't comment on that fact.
For some reason nobody (especially Banacek ) ever wondered where the football player with the #20 suddenly came from after all of the tacklers got off the ground.