Roy Riegels - Aftermath

Aftermath

After the game, coach Nibs Price defended Riegels, saying "It was an accident that might have happened to anyone." Price credits Riegels as the smartest player he ever coached. Riegels explained that he was hit during a pivot and wound up doing a U-turn, which faced him the opposite direction. Later, the NCAA football rules committee would pass a rule barring a player from advancing a recovered fumble once it hits the ground, which remained in place for several subsequent decades. Riegels would take his spot as captain during his senior year, earning All-America honors.

Despite the nationwide mockery that followed, Riegels went on to live a normal life, serving in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, coaching high school, and college football—including time at Cal—and running his own chemical company. He was even able to capitalize on his blunder, parodying the now-famous run in vaudeville acts. The opening sequence of the 1929 Frank Capra movie Flight is based on Riegels and uses photographs of him.

In 1991, Riegels was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame. He was posthumously elected to Cal's Hall of Fame.

In 2003, a panel from the College Football Hall of Fame and CBS Sports chose Riegels' "Wrong way run in the Rose Bowl" one of six "Most Memorable Moments of the Century."

In an NFL game in 1964 between the Minnesota Vikings and San Francisco 49ers, Minnesota defensive end Jim Marshall ran a recovered fumble 66 yards into his own end zone (resulting in a safety, but the Vikings won 27-22). Riegels reportedly later sent Marshall a letter reading "Welcome to the club".

The lead character in the movie John Goldfarb, Please Come Home performs a similar blunder in his college years, earning the name "Wrong Way" Goldfarb.