The legend that shakes – 25 years on, the science and sentiment of the “Earthquake Game”

When it comes to LSU football, there are games and then there are legends. Remembering a game takes a season, a date, a final score, an opponent. For a legend, the passage of time and a catchy title goes a long way. The Halloween Run and the Bluegrass Miracle are among them, but one legend stands out from the rest: the Earthquake Game.

The SEC title hung in the balance 25 years ago. On Oct. 8, 1988, the Tigers trailed No. 4-ranked Auburn 6-0. The Tigers’ last chance for victory came in a dramatic fourth-quarter drive. With 1:47 left to play, LSU faced fourth down and 10 at the Auburn 11

Tailback Eddie Fuller says time slowed down. He can still remember the ball leaving quarterback Tommy Hodson’s hands and sailing through the air before he caught it near the back of the end zone.

“I thought that ball was never going to get there,” Fuller recalls.

The referee’s hands shot up, signaling a touchdown.

The crowd erupted.

“The noise in the stadium was deafening—as loud or louder than a jet engine,” says Jim McDermott. He should know. He has been a pilot for 37 years and is a lifelong Tiger fan. “It was impossible to talk to the person next to you.”

The next day, Donald Stevenson, a geologist at LSU’s Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, noticed seismic activity on the department’s instruments at the time of the touchdown. (A later account by LSU claims Riley Milner found it Monday morning. Stevenson says he did not know Milner during his time at LSU.)

Stevenson posted the seismogram outside of his office, as it was—according to him—the first time seismic activity could be tied to a football game. In 1991, ESPN aired a report on the seismograph reading and dubbed LSU’s win the Earthquake Game. A legend was born.

In 2007, John Johnston, the complex’s deputy director at the time of the game, called it “the first and only Earthquake Game.”

During the last quarter century, the Earthquake Game has gained mythic status. The story is always roughly the same: Elated fans moved the Earth, and it was all caught on a seismograph across campus.

Legends are exciting, galvanizing. They serve a purpose. But so does the truth, which is that large crowds routinely generate seismic activity. When LSU demolished Fresno State in 2006, a seismograph registered even the pre-game music.

According to Stevenson, the 1988 “quake” was easily accomplished, as the seismograph was only 500 yards away and sat on the floor of the Geoscience Complex. The quake failed to read at a level high enough to rate on the Mercalli Scale. For context, a Level I quake is undetectable by humans. A Level II quake might shake unsecured objects. So, the Earthquake Game read at two levels below what might have made potted plants rumble on nearby porches.

“The major contribution of vibrations was the jumping up and down of thousands of fans and not the sound of screaming fans,” says Stevenson. Examining the reading, he puts it at two to three minutes of activity.

Stevenson notes that a tree branch falling near a seismograph would register. “They are very sensitive,” he says.

For fans like McDermott, the science doesn’t matter. “No one can downplay the effect of 70,000 people jumping up and down in unison,” says McDermott.

At the same time, the game is humbling and glorifying for Fuller and Hodson. It is an odd relationship. The game simultaneously defined and pigeonholed their careers.

“I tell my kids I did throw more than one pass in my career,” says Hodson, a former New England Patriots and Saints player, who now sells electrical equipment to power companies. “I’m sure it is the same for Billy Cannon.”

Likewise, Fuller, now in hospital sales, is somewhat overshadowed by the game but grateful he came away the hero. When he sees the LSU media guide, it reminds him that his career at LSU was bigger than one game. “My name pops up in it, so I wasn’t too bad,” he says, laughing. “Being mentioned in the same light as a Billy Cannon … obviously, it’s an honor to be mentioned in that same breath.”

For the players and the fans, it doesn’t matter if the quake was a monumental occurrence or just an easily explained blip of squiggly lines on a piece of paper. The Earthquake Game is part of LSU lore now. It’s part of Auburn lore, too, for that matter. It’s in the vault, commemorating an epic night in Tiger Stadium.

“I think that’s what makes college football great,” Hodson says. “Every college has their own unique stories. And this is one for LSU. I hope that it sticks around forever.”