Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson are widely regarded as the two greatest running backs in SEC history, but the two legends faced off only once on the college football field.
That meeting came on Nov. 13, 1982, 33 years ago today. Walker's top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs claimed a 19-14 victory over Jackson's Auburn Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium, taking the SEC championship home with them.
In fairness, Jackson was a freshman that year, though one who would rush for 829 yards and nine touchdown in his first college season. Against Georgia, he was held relatively in check, totaling 58 yards on 13 carries.
Walker, on the other hand, had one of many sterling days in what would be his Heisman Trophy season. The junior ran for 177 yards and two touchdowns on 31 carries, surpassing the 5,000-yard mark for his career during the game.
Jackson's backfield mate, Lionel "Little Train" James gave Auburn a 14-13 lead early in the fourth quarter with an 87-yard touchdown run. Georgia then drove for the winning score, a 3-yard Walker run with 8:42 to play.
The victory gave Georgia its third straight SEC title and the Bulldogs would wrap up an undefeated regular season two weeks later by beating Georgia Tech 38-18. A bid for a second national title in three years would end in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, when Penn State pulled off a 27-23 shocker in the Louisiana Superdome.
Auburn beat Alabama 23-22 two weeks later, topping the Crimson Tide for the first time in 10 years in Paul "Bear" Bryant's final Iron Bowl. Jackson, of course, scored the winning touchdown on a dive over the top in the final minute.
The Tigers then beat Boston College 33-26 in the Tangerine Bowl to cap a 9-3 season. That would spark an SEC title the following year, the first of four Auburn would win or share in over the next nine seasons.
Auburn got its revenge over Georgia during that 1983 season, beating the Bulldogs 13-7 on their home field. Just as with Georgia's win the year before, that victory by the Tigers secured the SEC championship and a Sugar Bowl berth.
Walker left after the 1982 season for the USFL, where he played three seasons before joining the NFL's Dallas Cowboys in 1985. Jackson won his own Heisman that same year, but spurned the NFL for a year in favor of playing Major League Baseball before joining the Los Angeles Raiders midway through the 1987 season.
Walker and Jackson met only once in the pros, a 28-24 victory by Jackson's Raiders over Walker's Minnesota Vikings on Dec. 22, 1990. Neither was a major factor in that game, and Jackson's football career would end less than a month later due a hip injury suffered during the playoffs.
(Birmingham News archive photos by Ed Jones, Steve Barnette and Charles Nesbitt).
Here's video of the ABC broadcast of the game, via YouTube: