*All athletes have that one game, that one contest, that ranks as the most unforgettable of their lives. It can be memorable because of a personal or team achievement, a dramatic finish, a sentimental moment, or a number of any other factors.
Continuing a series begun last summer, Packers.com caught up with the members of the 2008 draft class to ask them about the game they'll never forget. It could be a game at any level of competition that took place at any time. They're all hoping their new NFL careers will give them new memories and new games to cherish, but for now, these rank at the top.*
In discussing the most memorable game of his career, Josh Sitton couldn't narrow it down to one, because the first and last victories of his college days at Central Florida both meant so much.
The first came as a sophomore in 2005, after Sitton began his college career on a 13-game losing streak. Central Florida had gone 0-11 his freshman season and started 0-2 the following year, extending the school's losing streak to 17 games, dating back to Sitton's senior year in high school.
But a 17-0 halftime lead against Marshall on Sept. 24, 2005, turned into a monumental 23-13 victory for the Central Florida program under head coach George O'Leary, who was just starting to put some life back into the program.
"Our fans thought we won the Super Bowl, you know," Sitton said. "They rushed the field, there were thousands of people on the field, tearing the goalposts down. Everybody was running around like crazy. That was fun, to go that long without winning and then finally get that monkey off our back ..."
During the game itself, the most memorable thing Sitton could recall was seeing the stands actually filling up in the second half, instead of the reverse, which was the normal occurrence.
"A lot of people would just come and tailgate, and there were probably five or six thousand more people in the second half and fourth quarter than there were in the first half, because people were calling other people saying, 'Hey, I think we might win one,'" Sitton said.
"Looking up at the clock with a couple minutes left, we were like, 'Oh God, we might finally win.' Our mindset hadn't changed in the locker room. With Coach O'Leary it was always, 'We're going to win,' and it obviously took a while for that to get into everyone's head, but we knew what we could do."
That ground-breaking season ended with a berth in the Conference USA championship game against Tulsa, but Central Florida lost, 44-27.
Which brings Sitton to his other unforgettable game - the rematch with Tulsa in the league title game two years later.
Having helped bring the Central Florida program back to respectability, Sitton and his fellow seniors had set a goal of going out as conference champions last year, but they hit a couple of bumps in the road.
They lost at conference rival East Carolina in the third game of the season, blowing an 11-point halftime lead with five consecutive turnovers in the third quarter that led to 28 East Carolina points. Then they lost a non-conference game the following week, to South Florida, 64-12, and had to do some soul-searching.
"After two losses like that, it can be pretty demoralizing for a team," Sitton said. "A lot of teams can put their heads down and say, 'It's over for this year,' but we didn't. As a senior class we stepped up."
Central Florida proceeded to rip off six straight wins, beginning with a 44-23 triumph over Tulsa, to set up another meeting with Tulsa in the Conference USA title game on Dec. 1.
{sportsad300}"I want to say they were the No. 1 offense in the nation numbers-wise, so we knew as an offense we had to keep our defense off the field, make big plays and score a lot of points," Sitton said.
Central Florida did, with Sitton and his linemates blocking for Kevin Smith's 284 rushing yards and four touchdowns. Smith moved into second place on the NCAA's single-season rushing list behind Barry Sanders, and his 74-yard TD run in the fourth quarter provided the final points in the 44-25 victory, the score nearly matching the first win over Tulsa six weeks earlier (as well as Tulsa's win in the league title tilt two years prior).
Sitton's college days ended a few weeks later with a 10-3 loss to Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl, but it was the Conference USA championship that had truly culminated his college career. To go from being winless as a freshman to a league champion as a senior was incredibly gratifying.
"It meant everything," Sitton said. "Your goal is to win football games and to win championships when you're in this sport, and I had always known that our senior class was going to be that class, just from the sense of urgency in our class.
"I felt we had good leadership and we had been saying that from Day 1, that we wanted to go out on top as seniors."
