Who Needs Overtime?

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

When we scored ... Joe Thornton said, "We don't do overtime!" I said, "Thank God we don't do overtime." We were getting ready for the overtime.

—Ron Wilson, ice hockey coach in response to this game

It's nearing the end of regulation of a sports contest the main characters are in, and it's a close game. Someone makes a comment that the team could tie it up, and beat the opposition in overtime. They end up doing one better by getting the job done in regulation.

A subtrope of Down to the Last Play.

Examples of Who Needs Overtime? include:

Anime and Manga

  • Eyeshield 21: The Deimon Devilbats score a last-second touchdown to trail the Shinryuuji Naga by 1 point with no time remaining, not having gone for the XP attempt yet. Realizing that Sena is at the limit of his stamina and won't be able to last through overtime, Hiruma makes the call to go for 2 on a fake field goal attempt, giving Deimon a one-point victory.
    • Justified since most (if not all) of the players are exhausted, Sena himself nearly damaging his knee. Playing with only 11 regular members and 4 borrowed sports club players is not advisable, but hey, if that's all you can get...
    • Later averted in the final game. Team America and Team Japan tie the game, and no overtime is given because the people hosting the tournament thought America would wreck the tournament like always. Unhappy with a tie (As Bud Walker puts it, it's like kissing your sister.) the teams continue playing despite being told not to. It's assumed that Team America won, but Team Japan doesn't mind.
  • Clannad's Baseball Episode ends on the last inning in the anime. However, the game in the original Visual Novel from which said Baseball Episode is based on actually ends on the extra inning. This is of course justified by the fact that Visual Novels aren't restricted by a 25 minutes time limit.

Fan Fiction

  • Invoked and justified in a Fruits Basket college football fic called "Jimmy & Kyo". The head coach wants to beat Ohio State in overtime, but quarterback Jimmy Michaels argues to beat them in regulation. The reason is because if UCF ties the game, Ohio State can still win in overtime. By going for the win, the Knights put a lot of pressure on Ohio State. They go for the win and succeed.

Film

  • Movie example: The Mighty Ducks.
    • In the flashback scenes in The Mighty Ducks, we learn that the coach's big shame, the reason why he gave up hockey, was when he missed a tiebreaker penalty shot. He then mentions that his team went on to lose in overtime. And the coach blamed him for losing the game!
  • Happy Gilmore. Despite having a fallen TV tower between his ball and the hole and being advised to take two strokes and go to the tiebreaker, Happy uses his mad puttin' skillz to win the match outright.
  • The Replacements: With a trip to the playoffs on the line, the Washington Sentinels, a team of scabs due to a strike, are trailing a powerful Dallas team that crossed the picket line earlier in the week. Nigel Gruff, the placekicker, goes on to kick the field goal and tie the game, but because he's threatened with losing his pub if he saves the game for the Sentinels, Falco, the QB and holder, changes the play, takes the ball for himself and rushes into the endzone for the game winning TD. Subverted, however, when a holding call negates the TD. Played straight however, when they try for the win on the next play and get the TD, earning the Sentinels a playoff spot (of course, Nigel was injured on the fake anyway and couldn't have kicked the field goal).
  • Necessary Roughness: Averted in that (at the time) college games didn't go to overtime, but the Armadillos still opted to go for the win over the tie against the number 1 team in the nation.

Live Action TV


Western Animation

  • Hey Arnold!!, "Benchwarmer": With his team down by two with nine seconds remaining, instead of simply sinking the two free throws he's given and playing overtime, Arnold decides to deliberately miss the second freethrow to score a basket to win.
    • That actually gets used in real life (although in practice only when down by 3 or more). The only problem is that he has to clank it in such a way that a teammate can get his hands on the ball first. Not an easy task under the best of circumstances, and this isn't the kind of skill that most players work on, so this definitely counts as a desperation move.
  • Subverted in Rocket Power, "Power Play": Roller hockey match. Score, 3-4, Rockets down, with NHL pros game on the line. 12 seconds left. Dialog:

Raymundo: They can do it. Tito. Tie it up and win in overtime. Overtime is not extra paddling. It's...\

Tito: I know what overtime is, bruddah.

    • Otto takes the puck from Sam with 3 seconds to go and shoots from afar, but the goal is waived. Big Downer Ending, folks.

Real Life

  • Real Life: Manchester United scored twice in the last three minutes to win the 1999 UEFA Champions' League.
  • In the 2003 Rugby World Cup, a last second winning drop-goal in extra-time from Jonny Wilkinson, replying to a last minute penalty from Elton Flatley of Australia, averted rugby union's first ever sudden-death third extra-time period to win the tournament for England.
    • But they were already in extra time (Commonwealth English for "overtime").
  • In one of the most famous plays in NFL history, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 in the 1967 NFL Championship (better known as the "Ice Bowl") on a last-second quarterback sneak from the goal line for a touchdown, when a short field goal would have tied the game and sent it to overtime. (They then advanced to the Super Bowl, which they also won.)
    • Similarly, the announcers (and most others) thought the New England Patriots should run out the clock in Super Bowl XXXVI and go to overtime after the St. Louis Rams tied the game late, but instead they drove for the winning field goal.
  • An example from before overtime existed: In the 1984 Orange Bowl, Nebraska scored a touchdown to pull within 1 point of Miami. Rather than call for the extra point kick and a tie and almost certainly the National Championship, coach Tom Osborne called for a 2-point conversion play (which would win the game but is significantly riskier). The conversion failed and Miami won the National Championship. (Also averted. See the Necessary Roughness example below.)
    • Subverted, then played straight with a variation in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl featuring Oklahoma and Boise State. After Oklahoma rallied to tie it up late, Boise State got the ball and attempted to drive for the winning score—and immediately threw an interception, allowing Oklahoma to take their first lead of the game, 35-28. Boise State then used some trick plays to get a touchdown with 7 seconds left, settling for the extra point and overtime. Oklahoma got the ball first in OT and immediately got a 25-yard touchdown run. The Broncos then required some more trick plays to get a touchdown, but rather than kicking the extra point and trying to win in double-OT, they pulled yet another trick play out of the playbook and got the 2-point conversion to win it 43-42 in OT—thus, a variation, "Who Needs Double-Overtime?"
  • In the 1988 World Series, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda knew that star slugger Kirk Gibson was too banged up to play in the field or run the bases; the only way he could be of any use to the team was to go to the plate and hit a home run. With the Dodgers trailing the Oakland Athletics by one run with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game One, rather than send Gibson to the plate with a chance to tie the game, he sent utility player Mike Davis to the plate instead. After Davis worked a walk, Lasorda then sent Gibson to the plate with a chance to win the game. Up against the league's best closer, Dennis Eckersley. And if you don't know what happened next, you obviously are not a baseball fan.
  • Turkey pull this trope three times in a row at the Euro2008, reaching the semi-finals this way.
    • In fact, they toyed with the trope in four straight games, but only one really fits the trope. In their second game, they did score a late winner, but had equalised with over 30 minutes left (and in any case the game couldn't go into overtime). Their third game fits the trope perfectly; they came from behind to beat the Czechs with two late goals, thus avoiding a penalty shoot-out. In the third game, Croatia went ahead very late in extra time, only for Turkey to equalise and win on penalties (so they *did* need overtime). Then in the fourth game they managed the late equaliser, only to *lose* (to Germany) in the last minute before overtime!
      • They got to the semi final having led for 9 minutes of the 390 they'd played.
  • The LSU football team notably used this trope in the 2007 game against Auburn. One point behind they went for the touchdown instead of a field goal. The play was completed with 1 second left on the clock. There's a reason fans were talking about selling "Les Miles defibrillators" that year.
  • In 2010 The Philadelphia Eagles had just tied it up against the New York Giants with 14 seconds left on the clock and the Giants punting the ball. The snap was high and the punt instead of going out of bounds went right to DeSean Jackson who burnt the entire Giants Defense and scored a touchdown to win the game with no time left on the clock. Interestingly, besides winning the game for the Eagles it's also considered the most important plays for the Packers on their run to the Super Bowl, as the Packers wouldn't even have made the playoffs if the Giants won that game.
  • September 28, 2011. The Divisional Races are decided, but the Wild Cards, thanks to plucky efforts by St. Louis and Tampa Bay, and the respective collapses of Atlanta and Boston, enter this day tied. St. Louis and Tampa Bay won, Atlanta and Boston lost, meaning that no "extra game" would have to be played. Ironically, two of the four relevant games averted this Trope, with Tampa taking 12 innings to win, and Atlanta taking 13 innings to die.
  • Manchester United found themselves on the receiving end of this trope at the close of the 2011-12 Premier League season: going into the final day, they were level on points with crosstown rivals Manchester City, but their lower goal difference placed them second. After 90 minutes, City were down 2-1 to Queen's Park Rangers but had five minutes of stoppage time still to play, while United were leading Sunderland 1-0 and had three minutes of stoppage time. City equalised two minutes into injury time, and mere seconds after the final whistle blew at United's match, City scored again to win 3-2 and earn their first championship since 1968.
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