More than 40 years after Staubach's miracle throw, Hail Mary passes have only become more popular in the NFL. With less than a minute left on the clock, Fighting Irish backup quarterback backup William Shakespeare threw a 19-yard pass that Wayne Millner caught on his knees in the end zone, resulting in a 18-13 win. 2, 1935, named the best game in the first 100 years of football by the Associated Press in 1969, is considered to be the first case of the Hail Mary pass in modern context. Notre Dame's comeback win against Ohio State on Nov. Kizer is said to have repeated the Hail Mary again in the fourth quarter before the team scored yet another touchdown, winning the game. Notre Dame was trailing 3-0 against Georgia Tech when Fighting Irish guard Noble Kizer said to his teammates in the huddle, 'Boys, let's have a Hail Mary,' and immediately afterward scored a touchdown in the second quarter. 'You used to have a wing and a prayer, and now the Hail Mary is used for politics, for business, and for football.'īefore Staubach popularized the term to mean an incredible comeback touchdown pass, the term's first usage in football is thought to date back to Oct. 'It slowly became the term for anybody that was kind of in trouble, and you had a hope,' Staubach said, according to the St. Staubach's pass, though, would become one of the defining moments of that season and his NFL career, with the phrase Hail Mary spreading even beyond sports. The Cowboys went on to defeat the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game but would lose 21-17 to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl X.

I said, 'I got knocked down on the play.I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.'' 'I was kidding around with the writers,' Staubach said.

Staubach reminisced to the Dallas Morning News in 2010 about how his pass got its name.

The term 'Hail Mary' was used by Staubach when the quarterback spoke with sportswriters following the game.

Hail mary football tactic