Remember the Rose Bowl, part 3: the 1946 Big Nine pact

The Tournament of Roses flower show and parade, Pasadena’s annual New Year’s Day tradition since 1890, hosted an exhibition “East-West football game” in 1902. Fielding “hurry up” Yost took the University of Michigan’s unbeaten “point-a-minute” Wolverines to play the team he had coached the previous year, Stanford. West coast football was then still in its infancy and the Stanford squad simply could not play with Michigan. In an uncharacteristic show of mercy, Yost allowed the game to be abandoned after three quarters with Michigan leading 49-0. The event provided little in way of exhibition, and Tournament of Roses organizers shelved the “East-West football game” in favor of chariot races and polo matches.

The first Tournament of Roses "East-West football game"

Football returned to the Tournament on New Year’s Day 1916, coinciding with the inaugural season of Pacific Coast Conference football. With the exception of two wartime games featuring short-lived military training school teams in 1918 and 1919, the Pacific Coast Conference [and later Pac-8/10] provided the host team every New Year’s Day until 2002. For its first two decades as an annual fixture the Tournament of Roses game [known as the Rose Bowl after construction of Pasadena’s famous elliptical stadium in 1923] securing a guest team often provided something of a challenge. The trip involved weeks of train travel and considerable inconvenience and expense, all for a game that counted for nothing more than the fun of the trip and the experience of playing. Tournament organizers aimed to attract elite east coast teams. From 1916 to 1925 visitors included Brown, Harvard, Penn, Navy, Notre Dame, and Penn State. While those institutions doubtless enjoyed the trip, none made repeat appearances. For the 1922 game the Tournament committee could secure no better guest than tiny Washington and Jefferson college of Pennsylvania, which played Cal to an uninspiring scoreless tie. Four years later three schools, including unbeaten national champion Dartmouth, turned down invitations before desperate organizers decided to turn to Southern Conference champion Alabama.

Only once during the three decades after 1916 did a member of the Big Ten Conference repeat Michigan’s appearance in the experimental 1902 scrimmage. John Wilce’s 7-0 Buckeyes traveled to face California on New Year’s Day 1921, and were solidly beaten 28-0. Faculty representatives on the Ohio State University athletics board subsequently decided that the academic disruption the trip involved for participating students constituted an undue burden. The university decided to decline any future invitation to post-season games. Faculty members at the other Big Ten member schools followed suit, establishing a conference-wide rule against post-season play which lasted a quarter century. Ohio state's decision was hardly unusual. Despite defeating Stanford 27-10 in the 1925 Rose Bowl, Notre Dame University decided against future post-season play and did not accept another bowl invitation until 1969. Navy had made a similar decision the previous year after playing Washington to a 14-14 tie. The Midshipmen made no further bowl appearance until 1955.

Ohio State in the 1921 Rose Bowl

The decision to approach a southern school in 1925 proved a turning point for the Rose Bowl, and the entire history of post-season collegiate football. The Crimson Tide edged Washington in a 20-19 thriller, earning new respect for southern football. Alabama football gained popularity within the south and the praise of sports journalists nationally. Dixie remained an under-populated social and economic backwater. The south rarely made national headlines for good reasons. University of Alabama administrators viewed the trip as more than worthwhile. The following year Wallace Wade's Crimson Tide became the first repeat visitor to the Rose Bowl, playing Stanford to a tough 7-7 tie. Alabama made five further appearances in Pasadena over the next two decades, building much of the university’s early legacy of football greatness on the edifice of a 4-1-1 Rose Bowl record. Other schools saw an opportunity to garner some of the interest and heightened prestige that the Big Ten, Notre Dame, and military academies had to spare. Between 1928 and 1945 Duke, Georgia Tech, Georgia, Tulane, Southern Methodist, and Tennessee [twice] each made the trip to Pasadena, often providing thrilling games and drawing sell-out crowds. Rising eastern independent Pittsburgh boosted its growing reputation with four appearances.

By the mid-thirties, just a decade after Alabama’s first visit, the Rose Bowl had established itself as such a popular, thrilling, prestigious, and lucrative annual sporting fixture that entrepreneurial city fathers in several southern towns decided to follow suit. Since 1907 the Havana Athletics Club had intermittently hosted post-season visits from southern schools. Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario held a few similar games against mid-Atlantic region guests. Several other cities held one-time games pitting their hometown team against a visitor, such as the 1921 “Fort Worth classic”. But the Rose Bowl had offered the only annual post-season clash between a regional champion and the best willing and available guest. After the Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls entered the picture in 1935 and 1936, New Year’s Day emerged as one of the great national spectacles on the American sporting landscape. Fans and journalists flocked to games which allowed participating universities to crown successful seasons by showcasing their varsity squads in the national limelight. A share of the gate receipts provided a welcome bonus.

Despite the obvious success of their annual fixture, Tournament of Roses organizers and Pacific Coast Conference members continued to fret over the annual headaches of selecting a guest. Southern schools provided interesting games, but the east and mid-west remained the demographic and economic heartland of the nation. After 1935 the Rose Bowl faced the added threat that southern teams would in future prefer bids to play closer to home in Dallas, New Orleans, or Miami. From the mid-thirties onwards the PCC made repeated overtures to the Big Ten [then still more commonly referred to by its original moniker dating to the league’s inception in 1896, the Western Conference] to establish a formal relationship with the Rose Bowl. Not until 1946 did those efforts bear any fruit.

By the end of WWII post-season bowls had become sufficiently established that athletics personnel within numerous Western Conference member schools began to consider an end to the prohibition on post-season play. Needing little encouragement, representatives of the ten PCC schools voted unanimously to extend a formal invitation early in the 1946 season for the Big Nine [as the conference was briefly known following Chicago’s withdrawal that year] to enter a long-term agreement regarding Rose Bowl participation. Ohio State’s board of regents led the way in overturning the post-season ban their school had originally established by approving the potential agreement on September 25th. OSU president Wilbur St. John told reporters:

“I have always been in favor of having the two conference winners meet, and I feel confident in saying that all Big Nine coaches and athletics directors share my opinion. However, it is a matter for the faculty to decide.”

Three weeks later conference commissioner Kenneth Wilson convened an informal meeting in Chicago at which members voted five to four in favor of pursuing the PCC proposal further. Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern, and Purdue cast the dissenting votes, with Illinois faculty representatives providing the most outspoken opposition to the academic disruptions bowl trips involved for student-athletes. Due to such concerns the Chicago meetings drafted numerous provisions for a counter proposal qualifying the terms on which the Big Nine would consider participation. The narrow majority tentatively approved a five-year Rose Bowl agreement but reserved the right for the Big Nine champion to decline a bid and send another conference member instead. The conference further stated that the same representative would not appear more than once over a three-year period, and also requested the privilege of nominating a non-Big Nine independent [newspapers presumed Notre Dame] to appear in case no conference member wished to accept.

Collectively the reservations amounted to a complete assumption for five-years of the Rose Bowl committee’s invitational prerogatives. But the PCC remained enthusiastic. Stanford athletics director Alfred Masters told reporters:

“It would be a great thing if it happened. A permanent fixture of this kind would assure us a high-class opponent every year.”

University of California athletics director Clinton Evans was even more explicit regarding what the PCC stood to gain. He told reporters:

"We would welcome an opportunity to have the Western Conference champion meet the Pacific Coast champion every year in the Rose Bowl. It would eliminate the necessity of sending out invitations in December. The Big Nine plays an outstanding type of football every year."

In other words, Evans and his colleagues worried about the same question that still haunts bowl organizers in 2011 — not how to secure a chance at lining up the best possible matchup, but how to eliminate the chance of ending up with an unattractive fixture.

The same day as the Chicago meeting trustees in Iowa City voted to approve the possible agreement. A university spokesman told a reporter: “We think it would be a grand thing.” The attitude in Ann Arbor was more reticent. While Michigan representatives in Chicago voted informally to pursue the deal, trustees and faculty remained unconvinced. A university official told reporters:

"We have objected to the idea because the five or six extra weeks practice required of players would keep them away from their studies just that much longer."

Internal conversations continued at Big Nine institutions through October. Ultimately the opportunities offered by the lucrative, high-profile Pasadena fixture overrode objections. At a second Chicago meeting on November 14th conference members voted 7-2 to formally accept the proposal, Minnesota and Illinois being the only hold-outs. PCC commissioner Victor Schmidt was present to provisionally approve the terms of a five-year contract under which his league and the Big Nine would share the Rose Bowl’s annual gate receipts — a princely sum at roughly $450,000. Not coincidentally a significant increase in ticket prices [from $5 up to $5.50] had already been announced earlier that month.

The timing of the agreement Schmidt carried back to California for final approval by PCC members was ironic for two reasons. Firstly, Illinois [whose faculty had most virulently opposed the plan] led the Big Nine standings. Two days after the Chicago meeting the Illini defeated Ohio State 16-7. Only in-state rival Northwestern stood between them and a first conference crown since 1928. A win would give Illinois first right of refusal on a bowl bid it had vocally opposed the conference receiving. Secondly, while the pact was designed to preclude the risk of the Pacific Coast champion hosting a relatively unattractive opponent, by far the most prestigious guest available in 1946 did not belong to the Big Nine. Earl Blaik’s great wartime Army teams, led by Heisman winners “Doc” Blanchard and Glenn Davis, had not lost a game since falling to Navy in 1943. The Cadets crushed Penn 34-7 in Philadelphia on November 16th and had only the Midshipmen to beat for a second consecutive unbeaten season. Unofficially, West Point did not accept bowl bids, but Superintendent Maj. Gen. Maxwell Taylor explicitly left the door open. The same day that Big Nine officials met in Chicago, Maxwell told journalists.

“The Army has received no bowl bid and remains focused on completing the current season. If an invitation is received I will give consideration to the advantages and disadvantages of a post-season game. Normally the Academy is solidly against post-season games, but this year there are plainly exceptional conditions which may warrant special consideration.”

Army had played a post-season game, though not technically a bowl, against Stanford in Palo Alto on December 28th 1929. If there was ever a year for repeating that precedent, this was it.

On November 19th the Presidents and athletics directors of all ten PCC members met in Berkeley. Schmidt and Kenneth Wilson were present to sign the agreement if officially approved. But by the time of the meeting every major west coast newspaper had called for the Rose Bowl to invite Army. Administrators at USC and UCLA both publically favored that option. A closed-door meeting approved the five-year deal but initially left the door open to defer the start date to the 1947 season. The value of Army as a bowl participant could not be doubted when on November 20th, immediately after receiving news that the PCC had approved the pact, Sugar bowl president Sam Corenswet issued a formal invitation to the Cadets.

The following day the Rose Bowl formally announced that the PCC had, on a second vote, chosen not to defer the new pact. Illinois, not Army, would appear in Pasadena on New Year’s Day 1947. Many west coast football fans expressed outrage. Following the announcement, Illinois athletics director Douglas Mills received nearly 600 telegrams in a single day appealing for his school to stand aside in favor of the Cadets. With World War II a recent memory, national sentiment in favor of the poll-topping service academy teams was at an all time high. A telegram from Ernest Newquist, the spokesman for a group of southern Californian football fans who opposed the Illinois invitation, lambasted Mills:

"It is with deep regret that we find it necessary to inform you of the bitterness which now exists among Southern California football fans as to the possibility of you, or any other Big Nine representative playing here on January 1st. In the name of all that is decent and just, it is inconceivable that Army should not be allowed to play this year. We fans will never forgive the freeze-out of Army, nor will ever believe that any Big Nine school would deliberately accept a bid knowing they were not welcome… Your conference and school could gain the nation’s admiration and respect by first allowing the invitation to be extended to Army."

Whether or not Newquist spoke for most or even many Californians, he certainly echoed the sentiments of the man then serving as Rose Bowl committee chairman. USC athletics director Willis Hunter issued a joint statement with his UCLA counterpart, saying:

"We did everything in our power to make it possible for the U.S. Military Academy team to play in the Rose Bowl game, recognizing from the beginning the strong public interest in seeing the unbeaten Army team play in this traditional New Year’s classic. Representatives of the Big Nine, however, stated that if the postponement occurred it would be necessary for them to return to their conference for further action, with considerable doubt as to the outcome. I regret very much that it was made impossible for Army to be the eastern representative in the 1947 Rose Bowl game, although I am fully appreciative of the advantages of the agreement now completed with the Western Conference.”

Essentially Kenneth Wilson had strong-armed PCC representatives with a “now or never” warning. As a result West Point missed out on the Rose Bowl and decided against the Sugar bowl bid. Army would not play in a bowl game until 1984.

Controversy for the new PCC-Big Nine pact did not end with the Cadets. The agreement explicitly permitted the nomination of a replacement “eastern” team for the last two of its five year duration. Thus the agreement explicitly shutout the southern schools which had provided the Rose Bowl’s guest on no fewer than fourteen occasions since 1926, and had done so much to make the game’s reputation as an annual thriller. Exciting games against non-eastern teams had drawn large crowds and national radio audiences, and entertained gushing journalists. Now Big Nine schools wanted to ensure themselves control of the game’s multifarious value.

Southeastern Conference coaches publically criticized the pact. LSU coach Bernie Moore called the move “the biggest mistake the Rose Bowl ever made.” He claimed that the Sugar and Orange Bowl games might in future “take the traditional national championship away from the Rose Bowl.” Frank Thomas, coach of the reigning Rose Bowl champion Crimson Tide, echoed Moore’s sentiments. He commented that the decision would leave great teams available for the newer southern bowls. Moore, Thomas, and other southern football luminaries openly questioned the Rose Bowl’s logic in opting for a safe annual matchup with the Big Nine, rather than remaining open to the possibility of a stronger candidate emerging from another conference.

Not for the last time, PCC and Big Nine personnel responded to such criticism by claiming a higher moral standard. Cal head coach Frank Wickhorst commented that the PCC and Big Nine had “strict and similar” eligibility rules preventing member schools from fielding ringers of tenuous connection to the university. Implicitly Wickhorst defended the pact by labeling southern schools as unscrupulous football factories — still a familiar refrain.

California officially accepted a Rose Bowl bid on November 28th. Illinois accepted a bid to represent the Big Nine two days later. Despite Ernest Newquist’s assertion that California football fans did not welcome a Big Nine representative, when tickets went on public sale three weeks later the crowd quickly got out of hand. A small-scale riot led to bottles being thrown at police officers, several of whom were hospitalized. The fifty cent price increase, absence of the unbeaten Cadets, and controversial snubbing of southern teams did nothing to dampen local enthusiasm for football. It is likely that an appearance from Army would have created even wilder scenes. Doubtless very few of the Californians seeking tickets felt any particular attachment to the Fighting Illini.

Faculty representatives at Illinois had dug-in against the Rose Bowl agreement, but when the offer to participate actually came, the university found the promise of significant revenue and public attention impossible to refuse. Not only did the Big Nine [Big Ten after the addition of Michigan State in 1950] not exercise its right to nominate “outside” representatives for the final two years of the five-year term, but it eagerly renewed the pact upon its expiration and continued to do so until approving of the Rose Bowl’s inclusion in the equally controversial Bowl Championship Series in 1998. While the Big Ten maintained a prohibition on the same conference member appearing in Pasadena on consecutive years until 1972, no conference member ever turned down an invitation.

On December 8th 2010, at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in New York, longtime Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany aired his frustration over the BCS provision requiring the Rose Bowl to accept a non-automatic qualifier once over a four-year span if certain specific conditions arose. Delany told WAC commissioner Karl Benson, interrupting his comments regarding the BCS allowing his teams to play postseason football on the “big stage”:

“The problem is that your big stage takes away opportunities for my teams to play on the stage they created in 1902.”

Historically speaking, Delany’s comments could hardly have been farther off-base. The Big Ten conference did not “create” the Rose Bowl in 1902. While the truncated and lopsided Michigan-Stanford exhibition of that year technically represents the first Tournament of Roses game, the event did not emerge as anything like a prestigious and lucrative annual “big stage” until after Ohio State’s disastrous showing and subsequent post-season boycott in 1921. The Big Ten’s exclusive pact with the PCC did not establish a prominent fixture on the American sporting landscape. It merely served to eliminate from involvement other institutions, many of whom had done much to solidify the event’s reputation.

The Big Ten’s relationship to the Rose Bowl established in 1946 was not creative but rather exclusionary, monopolistic, and controversial. Many view it in the same light today. Karl Benson should not have been surprised at the venom of Delany’s objection to the possibility of unbeaten Boise State or TCU taking a Rose Bowl spot from less deserving Big Ten or Pac-10 teams. If Delany’s forbear Kenneth Wilson was willing to strong-arm the unbeaten West Point Cadets out of the way of a two-loss Illinois squad barely a year after the end of WWII, what would posses him to give a damn about some pesky upstart squad with a blue field?

Jim Delany: persona non grata among college football's have-nots

[Sources: New York Times; cfbdatawarehouse.com]

Remember the Rose Bowl, part two: Alabama vs. Southern Cal, 1946

During the late afternoon of New Years’ Day 1946, with the clock running out on the thirty-second Rose Bowl, Southern Cal reserve tackle Myron Doornbos penetrated the Alabama line and blocked a Gordon Pettus punt. Trojan end Chuck Clark scooped up the loose ball on the Bama five-yard line and ran it home for a score. The touchdown, SC’s second of the final period, put a veneer of respectability on what had been a lopsided rout. The Crimson Tide ran out 34-14 winner, taking the University of Alabama’s all-time record in the Pasadena classic to 4-1-1. Since its first appearance at the Tournament of Roses in 1927 Alabama had been the most frequent and successful guest. The southern powerhouse would also be the last non-Big Ten visitor for more than half a century.

The unbeaten, untied Southeastern Conference champion had rolled to a 9-0 record in emphatic fashion, outscoring opponents 396-66. Head coach Frank Thomas, a Knute Rockne protégé, had installed the ‘Notre Dame box’ offense after his arrival in 1931. The year before Thomas’s arrival in Tuscaloosa legendary head coach Wallace Wade had led the Tide to a third national championship in six seasons before accepting a job at Duke. Productivity never dropped under Thomas as Alabama went 9-1-0 his first season. A fourth national title followed in 1934. No southern school, including “General” Bob Neyland’s Tennessee Volunteers, had an answer to the complex trickery of Alabama’s pre-snap offensive shifts. Thomas’s latest installation in 1945 revolved around the power running of halfback Lowell Tew, the darting speed and precision passing of halfback Harry Gilmer, and the bruising blocks of 248-pound all-America center Vaughan Mancha. As with most college teams of the late war years, the Tide players were young. Alabama’s draft-age players had gone off to war in 1942, leaving the university without a varsity squad the following season. Arriving in 1944, Gilmer and company would be the only squad of four-year starters in Tuscaloosa for three decades.

The young Crimson Tide cut their teeth in with a 5-2-2 freshman campaign which culminated in a narrow 29-26 Sugar Bowl loss to Edmund Cameron’s Duke Blue Devils. Notoriously hyperbolic sports-writing legend Grantland Rice reported after the game that Gilmer had been “better than Sammy Baugh” — a rather sacrilegious comment, but high praise. A year’s experience added to Alabama’s plentiful talent and Thomas’s precise, demanding coaching bred a squad of champions in 1945. The Tide practiced so hard under Thomas that games typically felt like scrimmages to battle-tested players. The young Paul “Bear” Bryant learned his own tenacious and punishing coaching style under Thomas during the early thirties. During the week-long train ride to Pasadena Tide players studied with professors during the day and stopped for several hours each afternoon to practice. Workouts were so physical that Lowell Tew broke his jaw bone and did not start, playing instead with the reserve squad and wearing protective head gear.

Frank Thomas with Harry Gilmer,Thomas Whitely, Gordon Pettus and Henry Self

That kind of physicality gave Bama a decided advantage over Newell "Jeff" Cravath’s 7-3 Trojan squad, which actually outweighed the Tide by an average of eight pounds a man. 320-pound tackle Jay Perrin — a giant in that era — led a strong line that allowed star halfback Ted Tannehill to run roughshod over most of the Pacific coast’s other squads. Though odds-makers had the second-ranked Tide as a touchdown favorite, no Southern Cal squad had failed to win the Rose Bowl classic in eight appearances. Most of the 93,000-strong partisan crowd hoped and expected that the Trojans would find a way to prevail.

It took only two plays for the those hopes to being unraveling. On second down, Tannehill fumbled in the Trojan backfield. Hefty Alabama right guard Jack Green to recovered on the fifteen. Four plays later quarterback Henry Self reached the endzone on a two-yard sneak. The two sides exchanged punts through the remainder of the first period before Gilmer took control. On the first Bama possession of the second quarter the Tide marched sixty-eight yards in eleven plays. Gilmer called the plays, distributed the ball, and went across himself for the drive-capping play from the SC five. Behind the blocking of Mancha and Green — the standout performers in an excellent frontline — Bama’s backs enjoyed gaping holes and frequently reached the Trojan secondary untouched.

On the final Tide possession of the first half Frank Thomas’s men showed their squad depth as the second string offense romped to a sixty-four yard scoring drive on just four plays. Gordon Pettus, Gilmer’s understudy at halfback, broke free for a fifty-one yard run before Trojan backs finally dragged him down inside the five-yard line. Tew finished the process with a two-yard plunge at right end. Southern Cal’s struggles only mounted after the break as Alabama continued to hog the ball, putting together another scoring drive on seven plays on its first possession. A big kickoff return set the Tide up inside SC territory. Tew, Gilmer, and fullback Norwood Hodges then alternated runs to cover thirty-nine yards before Hodges finished with another short dive to the endzone. Gilmer completed a masterful performance early in the fourth quarter with a twenty-five yard touchdown pass to Self, putting the Tide ahead 34-0.

Alabama racked up 292 rushing yards and eighteen first downs, allowing Gilmer to pick his moments in the passing game. Four completions in twelve attempts added an unspectacular but useful fifty-nine yards and a score with one interception. Perhaps more impressively, Alabama’s frontline dominance was equally marked on defense. The Trojans managed just six net yards rushing, three first downs [all in the fourth quarter], and only thirty-five yards passing. Tide defenders also added to the home team’s woes with two interceptions. Southern Cal’s stars simply never found their rhythm. It seemed they couldn’t buy a break. On the kickoff following Gilmer’s final score, with most of Alabama’s third string unit in the game, Tannehill ran the ball back ninety yards only to see the play called back on an offside penalty.

Ted Tannehill going nowhere

The Trojans finally managed a little offensive output before a deep punt backed Alabama up to their own twenty-five. SC’s line then held the visitors in check, forcing Pettus to fumble. Big Jay Perrin recovered, setting up Trojan halfback Verl Lilywhite to roll out and hit left end Harry Aldeman for a touchdown pass on the ensuing play. That strike accounted for almost all of Southern Cal’s positive offensive yards in the final box score. Following the kick-off SC again prevented the Alabama reserves from making a first down, forcing the punt which Doornbos blocked on the game’s final scoring play. Two late scores were perhaps a just reward for the Trojans, who continued to put forth full effort during an utter rout at the hands of an obviously superior opponent. But the final score-line did no justice to Alabama’s dominating performance.

Coach Thomas’s Crimson Tide silenced the California crowd. Earl Blaik’s unbeaten Army squad, led by Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard, had been voted national champion by the Associated Press. West Point did not accept bowl invitations in those days [and would not do so until 1984], denying Alabama the chance to test themselves against the very best. But in every sense they could have proved, the Crimson Tide were champions.
Years later Gilmer would remember of the game:

“We beat Southern Cal 34-14, and it wasn’t that close. After that the Rose Bowl shut Alabama and the other southern schools out.”

From New Years’ Day 1947 until the Miami Hurricanes faced Nebraska in the 2001 season Bowl Championship Series title game, the Rose Bowl would only host visitors from the Big Ten. To this day University of Alabama lettermen, alumni, and fans will tell anyone who cares to listen that Tournament of Roses organizers took that decision because they were sick of the Crimson Tide embarrassing the west coast champion. And there may be some truth to their argument.






[Sources: New York Times; McNair, What it Means to be Crimson Tide].

Great defensive players: Charles Smith, George Webster, and Charlie Thornhill

On a chilly, hostile November afternoon in East Lansing at the end of the 1966 season Coley O’Brien walked toward the ball at his own thirty-yard line. With a minute remaining, a keenly anticipated meeting between unbeatens No.1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State was tied at 10-10. Offensive mistakes on both sides had given opportunities that imposing defenses had staved off, including a first quarter Spartan fumble on their own four-yard line that produced no points for the Irish. With sixty seconds to play and seventy yards to go the football gods had given Notre Dame one last chance, but Ara Parseghian decided controversially not to take it. The Spartan defense lined up expecting a deep ball. When O’Brien handed off for two consecutive short-yardage running plays without any apparent urgency reality dawned on the now disgusted Michigan State players. As a cacophony of boos rained down from the stands Spartan defenders added their own insults and taunts.

Senior Defensive End Charles “Bubba” Smith yelled: “Come on, sissies.”

Linebacker George Webster shouted across the line of scrimmage to the Irish players in their huddle: “You’re going for a tie aren’t you? Get of the field, you’ve given up!”

Parseghian calculated correctly that Notre Dame’s prestige and polling power would deliver a national championship despite the school’s policy of refusing bowl bids and a record blemished with a tie. Sports Illustrated writer Dan Jenkins led the charge of outraged journalists lobbying for pollsters to “punish” Notre Dame. Jenkins sarcastically wondered whether Parseghian had exhorted his players to “Tie one for the Gipper!” But appeals for AP voters to bestow the title upon Bear Bryant’s Alabama after the Tide dismantled Bob Devaney’s Cornhuskers in the Sugar Bowl fell on deaf eras. Notre Dame’s emotional grip on football pollsters could not be broken. That fateful game in Spartan Stadium on November 19th 1966 has been defined in football lore and memory ever since by Parseghian’s somewhat cynical and certainly ignoble calculation. The unbeaten Spartans somehow got lost in the story, playing only the role of unmemorable dancing partner to the real actors from South Bend.

The outcome of that game and its subsequent place in college football history is highly lamentable. November 19th 1966 would more rightly be remembered as the last game of two incredible seasons for the best ever Michigan State defense. Smith and Webster, two time all-Americans of outstanding pedigree, should have finished their careers in East Lansing as they had spent every preceding minute — hustling like the hounds of hell and running over helpless opponents in pursuit of victory. Instead, Parseghian’s conceit and the Big Ten’s nonsensical prohibition of repeat Rose Bowl performances forced the Spartan stand-outs to play end their years in the collegiate game on a low note of anger and frustration.

The 1965 and 1966 seasons remain the high watermark of Michigan State football history. Had the home fans known that November that more than forty years later they would still be awaiting a second performance as repeat Big Ten champion they would probably have rushed the field looking for blood. In fact the Spartans have only claimed a single outright Big Ten title and shared two more in the forty-four years since. The explanation for that all-too-brief high summer of success and the juxtaposing drought that has followed is surely the basic philosophy of the State’s head coach, and his laudable lack of racial prejudice.

Duffy Daugherty played his college ball at Syracuse without much distinction before serving in WWII. After the war Daugherty returned to Syracuse as an assistant to his former coach Clarence “Biggie Munn. Daugherty followed Munn to Michigan State in 1947 and was an integral part of a staff that coached the Spartans to successive unbeaten campaigns and national titles in 1951-52 and a shared conference title in State’s inaugural Big Ten campaign in 1953. Daugherty succeeded Munn as head coach the following year, but with the exception of a Rose Bowl victory and a second place AP finish in 1955 he largely failed to match Munn’s achievements until the mid-1960s.

Daugherty assumed a jocular persona, always having a quip on hand. Publicly he discussed his work as a coach in an almost flippant tongue-in-cheek manner. He brushed off the stresses of the job, such as the pressure to win, with whimsical cracks such as: “The alumni are always with you, win or tie.” But behind the revelry everyone knew that Daugherty took the game very seriously indeed. His ability not to take himself too seriously allowed him to see that victory did not depend upon some revolutionary system or stroke of genius he might contribute. Rather he frankly admitted:

“The reason you win is because you’ve got more good players than the next guy. Most football games aren’t won on the field. They’re won from December to September, when recruiting is done.”

If winning meant finding and fielding the best available players Daugherty didn’t care who they were or where they came from, as long as they wanted to play for Michigan State and would play hard. College football’s color barrier had been broken in the north and west long before Daugherty assembled his great teams of the mid-1960s. Ernie Davis won the Heisman playing for Daugherty’s alma mater four years before his first conference championship. But there still remained an unwritten rule at northern schools that coaches would only field a few black players. For whatever reason, coaches only played the very best black athletes on otherwise lilywhite teams. The 1966 Fighting Irish, for example, who eventually won the AP title over the an unbeaten Alabama team which eastern sportswriters unfairly associated with their state governor’s impetuous stand on the schoolhouse steps, fielded only one black player. Daugherty didn’t care if his entire team was black. His coaches scoured the south, finding young athletes barred from playing for schools in their own states and bringing them to East Lansing.

When the towering Charles Smith left Beaumont, Texas in 1962 aged eighteen he had never had what he would call a “real conversation” with any white person. He later joked that he never seen nor heard of Jews and was surprised to learn in Michigan that there were different types of white people. Regardless of any culture shock Smith felt the 6’7” 280 lb giant settled down to play probably the best defense of any player in Spartan history — he is still the highest drafted player ever from Michigan State. Smith moved his huge body with frightening speed, reaching opposing backfields with apparent ease. Coley O’Brien only saw the field for Notre Dame in that famous 1966 game because Irish starter Terry Hanratty suffered a separated shoulder early in the first quarter when Smith leveled him behind the line of scrimmage. Moving with speed and hitting with brute force Smith quickly established himself as both the anchor of State’s line and the spearhead of its pass-rush.

Behind Smith's defensive line Daugherty built a flexible unit based on speed that looked more like modern defenses designed to stuff the spread than its Big Ten peers. At the heart of the unit was hybrid Safety/Linebacker George Webster. The 6'4" 225 lb South Carolinian was as fast as any Big Ten receiver and strong enough to single-handedly lay out any running back. Webster played with an insatiable intensity. State's defensive captain Cornerback Don Japinga called Webster the greatest footballer he ever played with or against. Japinga said of Webster:

"He literally punished every ball carrier."

Directing the Spartan Linebacker core another southerner flew to the ball with enough ferocity to earn the moniker "mad dog". Charlie Thornhill of Roanoake, Alabama would never have even found East Lansing without the intervention of the very image of Dixie's football establishment, Bear Bryant. Thornhill scored over two-hundred points as a senior running back and became the first black athlete to earn player of the year accolades from Roanoake's Touchdown Club. Thornhill was surprised and thrilled to find Bryant at the awards reception and even more surprised when the living legend asked him where he planned to attend college. Thornhill had an offer from Notre Dame, but Bryant asked him to wait on committing until he made a phone call.

That call went to Duffy Daugherty. On Bryant's recommendation Michigan State offered Thornhill a scholarship. The Bear chaffed under the frustration of his state's system of racial segregation. No one ever accused Byrant of progressivism, but he like Daugherty didn't care about anything in his players but their attitude and ability. Ever the football-obsessed pragmatist Bryant simply wanted to win. He wanted the best athlete's and didn't care whether they were black, white, or green. He eventually led the SEC toward integration in the early 70s, a process eased by the stunning effortlessness with which the USC Trojans led by Fullback Sam Cunningham ran over the all-white Crimson Tide in Birmingham to open the 1970 season.

But the Bear wasn't only a self-interested glory-hunter. Until such a time as Alabama's political climate would accept his desire to recruit black students he went out of his way to steer young men toward northern schools that would actually put them on the field. As a freshman Thornhill had a misunderstanding and confrontation with a Michigan State assistant that left him buried down the depth-chart and ended his hopes of earning a spot at running back. When Daugherty finally gave him a chance to play some downs at Linebacker in drills between the starting offense and second-string defense Thornhill made tackles on six straight plays and absolutely blew-up State's starting quarterback. Neither he nor Daugherty ever looked back.

In Smith and Webster’s junior and senior seasons Michigan State went 19-1-1, losing only to UCLA behind the stunning play of sophomore sensation quarterback Gary Beban in one of the great Rose Bowl upsets. Going a perfect 14-0 in conference play through those two seasons the Spartans gave up only 34.6 rushing yards a game and held their opponents to a combine seven fourth quarter points. Smith and Co. never tired before the guys across the line. Daugherty, like most Big Ten coaches then and since, preferred a ball-control run heavy offense and a reliable defense. Defensive players in any color didn’t come any more reliable than Smith, Webster, and Thornhill. With talent of their caliber on the field, scoring against State proved virtually impossible.

In the years since that infamous Michigan State-Notre Dame game the football gods have not smiled on East Lansing. Spartan coaches have struggled to attract the best players to State — the less storied and fashionable school in Michigan. Even as the Daugherty’s greatest team claimed its second straight Big Ten title, changes were afoot far to the south that eventually spelled the end of Sparty’s greatest era. Jerry LeVais, an undersized but speedy receiver from Smith’s own hometown of Beaumont had accepted an athletic scholarship from SMU in the spring of 1965 and became the first ever black player in Southwest Conference football history in 1966. Slowly but surely the SWC’s color barriers came down over the ensuing years. The University of Texas fielded its first back varsity football player four years later. Inevitably, as these institutions opened their doors to black players the pipeline of talent that created Daugherty’s great success dried up. If Bubba Smith were a High School standout today, the chances of him not signing to play for Mack Brown would be approximately nil.

Sources: Sporting News, CFB's 25 Greatest Teams; Dan Jenkins, "An upside down game"; USA Today CFB encyclopedia; Keith Dunnavant, The Missing Ring; cfbdatawarehouse.com; ESPN, Big Ten Encyclopedia)

It's a funny old game

Here is a little segment from Stephen Fry in America, a BBC series filmed in 2007. Over the course of several months Fry traveled to each of the country's fifty states and shot footage that would give Britons a taste of the vastness, exuberance, and variety of American life. Naturally, on his trip to Alabama he attended the Iron Bowl.

This is Fry attempting to capture the mystique of college football for the benefit of the utterly uninitiated. Thinking about the college game for life-long fans who were born into the American collegiate culture is somewhat like trying to relive the first time you watched Star Wars. You never really can recapture that shocking moment when without warning you learned that, gasp!, Darth is Luke's... FATHER?!

Life afforded me the privilege of discovering this unique and wonderful game, and [more importantly] the sub-culture that surrounds it, as a fully self-conscious adult. The date was September 6th 2003, the location Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and the visitor number one Oklahoma. I had never been in a crowd of 85,000 before. Growing up on English soccer I was not unfamiliar with rabid sports fans. Indeed, I had long been one myself. But a stadium the size of a space-ship filled to bursting point for a game played between unpaid, amateur college students? That's something. The 15,000 RVs parked all weekend in every spare piece of real estate the city can afford, that's something else entirely.

No one was filming me and I didn't have a script. But had I done so, this is probably what I would have said. Though, of course, I would not have been holding one of those ghastly orange and blue shakers.



Roll Tide, Stephen.

Horns and Tide take it to the wire

On a sultry Miami evening on New Year’s Day 1965 the Universities of Texas and Alabama met on the gridiron for the sixth time. The Crimson Tide had never beaten the Longhorns. Their most recent meeting in the 1960 Bluebonnet Bowl had resulted in a 3-3 tie that would have been an Alabama victory without the Longhorns dropping Halfback Bobby Richardson mere inches from the goal-line on fourth down late in the first half. That contest was the first of three post-season meetings between Darrel Royal and Paul Bryant, both of whom were at the height of their powers in the mid-1960s.

Royal, a Bud Wilkinson protégé and former Oklahoma all-American, had effected a total sea-change in Austin since his arrival in 1957. His 1963 team went 11-0, claiming a third consecutive Southwest conference title and the school’s first AP crown. Entering the 1965 Orange Bowl, the Longhorns had lost only three games in four seasons. The Alabama team that waited in Miami for the late arriving, quietly confident Horns stood at 10-0 and had already been voted AP champion. Like Royal, Bryant had turned around a once-proud program at a school that hoped to forget the 1950s. Conference and national championships in 1961 and 1964 achieved that goal emphatically. Pundits and fans alike felt sure that both coaches had more national championship in their futures and it surprised no one when their teams fought out grueling contests that turned on goal-line stands.

The first and second ranked teams in the AP poll rarely met in bowl games in those days, but Alabama-Texas was in January 1965 came as close as imaginably possible to providing such a match. Unbeaten Southwest Conference champion Arkansas had finished behind Alabama and hosted Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl. Royal's team had missed out on their fourth consecutive conference title by the narrowest of margins and were every bit as deserving as Frank Broyles' Razorbacks. The two sides had faced off in Austin on October 17^th and for the first thirty minutes played out a defensive stand-off that only turned on an eighty-one yard punt return for a touchdown by Arkansas defensive back Kenny Hatfield. Offensively, the Hogs achieved little against a Texas defense led by all-American stand-out linebacker Tommy Nobis. Disciplined tackling and regular blitzes from the Hogs' defense interrupted Texas’ passing game, but the Longhorns ground out decent yardage with the run. Halfback Ernie Koy powered his way to a 110-yard day and eventually tired the Razorbacks enough to engineer a scoring drive to tie the game early in the final quarter. The Horns’ defense responded with resounding three-and-out, only to be called for a twelfth man on the field on the ensuing punt. Visibly deflated, Texas allowed the only sustained drive Arkansas enjoyed all day. Quarterback Fred Marshall directed a seventy-five yard scoring march that stood in stark contrast to his under-whelming final passing statistics: 6-12 for 81 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Texas responded late in the game with a bruising drive, again led by Koy’s running. Covering seventy-yards and eating plenty of clock, the Horns reached Arkansas' endzone with only 1:27 to play. Royal’s best chance at a second consecutive unbeaten year was a two-point conversation. Preferring to gamble on glory rather than bank a tie, Royal called a passing play and Quarterback Marv Krystinik failed to find Halfback Hix Green under pressure. The game finished 13-14 -- not for the last time that decade an epic Horns-Hogs meeting that featured an eventual national champion was decided on a two-point play by Texas.

Texas had romped to some big victories over weaker opponents – such as thirty-one and twenty-three point shut-out thrashings of Tulane and Texas Tech to open the year, and a 26-7 romp over hapless 1-9 Texas A&M to end it – but Royal's team had also shown its mettle in some squeakers. The week following the Arkansas loss Texas snapped a twelve year stretch without a road win over Rice in an uninspiring affair that ended 6-3. In a battle of field position, the Horns needed an outstanding special teams performance from Ernie Koy. For once, the Halfback's rushing stats did not eclipse his kicking as nine punts for a 46.3 yard average made the critical difference. In the Red River Shootout on October 10^th Texas gave up 109 yards rushing in the first half alone, while OU Linebacker Carl McAdams produced a dominating career day with 18 tackles, a fumble recovery, and a twenty-eight yard interception return. But Krystinik finally emerged with a sixty-yard scoring drive in the fourth quarter before the defense forced a fumble deep in OU territory. A thirteen-yard TD pass to End Pete Lammons put an unrepresentative gloss on the final score of 28-7.

By New Year’s Day 1965 the 9-1 Longhorns had convincingly beaten over-matched teams, pulled out gritty victories against good ones, and lost a heart-breaker in the noblest possible fashion to a team that would finish 11-0 and claim a shared national title. Royal’s 1964 Longhorns were champions in all but reality, equal in every respect to the Bear’s Crimson Tide. The two teams appeared as virtual mirror images.

Like Texas, Alabama had made easy going of the lighter names on their schedule. A resounding season-opening 31-3 home win over Georgia in Vince Dooley's first game as Bulldogs head-coach preceded 36-6 and 24-0 wins over Tulane and Vanderbilt. Alabama looked unstoppable behind the precision passing and dangerous outside running of senior quarterback Joe Namath. After a post-season suspension for breaking curfew, Namath had worked his way back into Bryant’s good graces and looked set to smash records and make a strong case for the Heisman. His 16 of 21 passes for 167 yard, combined with 55-yard rushing on 11 attempts, for 3 TDs against Georgia were typical for their cool efficiency. Unfortunately, Alabama’s season changed dramatically in the fourth game -- a home date versus North Carolina State. With six minutes remaining in a still scoreless first half, Namath rolled out of the pocket looking for an open receiver and badly turned his knee. With the Tide star already on 7 of 8 passes for 58-yards, the injury interrupted what was shaping up to be another career day. More significantly, in the days before modern reconstructive ligament surgery that single miss-step hampered Namath for the rest of his career. He played professionally until 1977 with great success, including a Super Bowl championship with the Jets in 1969. But the scrambling dual-threat Quarterback that thrilled Tide fans and helped the Bear rebuild Alabama football never left the field of Denny Stadium that October 10^th 1964. Had team doctors possessed the scanning technology available today Namath probably wouldn’t have seen another collegiate snap. Even without Namath, stiffling defense and the competent play of back-up Steve Sloan enabled the Tide to destroy NC State 21-0. As is characteristic of great championship teams, other players rose to the occassion. End Tommy Tolleson set a school record with an eight reception day for eighty-one yards; it hardly seemed to matter who was throwing to him. But in the grander scheme, replacing a talent of Namath’s magnitude was no easy task.

Offensive productivity dropped the following week in a 19-8 win over Tennessee. In Alabama’s sixth game, a home date against Florida, Namath returned to start but re-injured his knee late in the first quarter. Sloan's underwhelming 6 of 11 for 85-yard performance with one interception provided an unwelcome contrast to Namath's talent through the remaining three quarters. Fortunately for Alabama fans, the Tide possessed enough other play-makers to pull through. Fullback Steve Bowman provided eighty-two yards rushing with two scores on just eleven carries, including a thirty-yard score after a thirty-seven yard punt return from Halfback John Mosley in the final quarter. That touchdown tied that game at 14-14 before Bama place-kicker David Ray established a slender lead on a twenty-one yard attempt with three minutes remaining. The Tide needed all the special teams help they could get with a future Heisman Trophy winner in the opposing backfield. Steve Spurrier had an outstanding day, including a perfect seven of seven passing performance in the second half. Following Ray’s late three-pointer the Gator sophomore marched his team down the field with passes of sixteen, nineteen and seventeen yards before Alabama’s defense finally recovered its footing. Alabama sacked Spurrier and dropped Fullback John Felber for a loss with time expiring to force a quick field goal try. Those tackles robbed kicker Jim Hall of the spare seconds he needed to compose himself and the Florida specialist shanked his twenty-four yard attempt.

Two weeks later Alabama secured the SEC title in Birmingham with another narrow escape, beating LSU 17-9. On another mediocre passing performance from Sloan, the Tide held a slender 10-9 lead at halftime and relied entirely on defense to finish the job. Twice LSU drove down to the Alabama eleven-yard line before coming away empty handed. Stand-out defensive tackle Frank McClendon batted down four passes inside the redzone during those two desperate stands. Late in the fourth quarter a thirty-three yard interception return for a touchdown by defensive back Hudson Harris finally sealed a win that had looked very much in doubt.

Another close battle nearly caused Alabama to falter at the final hurdle, but once again one outstanding non-offensive performance made the difference. Hated instate rival Auburn, led by the power-running of consensus all-America Fullback Tucker Frederickson, enjoyed a 301 to 245 yardage edge in the 1964 Iron Bowl. Bama needed a a 107-yard kickoff return from Halfback Ray Ogden on the first play of the second half to tip the balance, earn a 21-14 win, and save the undefeated championship season. Namath returned to action during the game, adding a much needed spark. His twenty-three yard pass to End Ray Perkins provided Alabama’s final score. The stark contrast between Alabama's form before Namath's injury and later desperate wins over Florida, LSU and Auburn could not have been clearer. With him the Tide had some magic and could move the ball. Without, only bruising defense, clutch special teams play and gritty refusal to accept defeat elevated a good team into an unbeaten champion.

The 1965 Orange Bowl was the first collegiate game ever to experiment with an evening kickoff in the hopes of capturing a large prime-time television audience. Critics howled that ten solid hours of New Year’s Day football constituted ‘saturation’, but the masses disagreed. The game provided a gripping spectacle that propelled college football into the lucrative national viewing spotlight it has occupied ever since. The two power-house teams had all season long risen to the biggest occasions and clutched seemingly improbable triumph from the very jaws of grim defeat. Against one another, they played out a dual which ultimately turned on a decision so fine that Bama die-hards still dispute the outcome half a century later.

Several days prior to the game Namath again aggravated his injured knee practicing a routine hand-off. Bryant told reporters with characteristic frankness:

"If we don’t have Namath, our chances against a strong Texas team will be hurt… It’s like losing Sandy Koufax on the eve of the World Series."

By game time Namath’s leg was so heavily taped as to render him virtually immobile. Sloan got the nod for the start, though he also carried a nagging knee injury. Royal’s team had health problems of its own, with End Sandy Sands and Wingback Phil Harris carrying niggling injuries. But Texas did not enter the contest without any key starter. In fact, the Horns were stronger for the return of senior linebacker Timmy Doerr, who had been sidelined since the Arkansas game. Royal said everything coaches are supposed to say, reminding media men that Alabama had gone 6-0 with Sloan as the primary Quarterback. He claimed: "[Sloan] scares us just as much, if not more. He throws too good." But Royal's game-plan revealed his true perspective.

Viewing Sloan as an exploitable weak-link, defensive co-ordinator Mike Campbell had run weeks of rigorous full contact drills focusing on breaking up the Alabama option game and preventing the Tide back-up from finding his rhythm passing with play-action fakes. Texas' powerful defensive front seven blitzed early and often. For the first fifteen minutes this strategy worked perfectly. Alabama produced nothing offensively while the Texas managed to establish their running game and earn several first downs. Ernie Koy blew the game open on a big play late in the first quarter, receiving a pitch-out and turning the corner on the left side of the Bama line. He rumbled for a seventy-nine yard score, helped by the lead blocking of Guard Lee Hensley. On Texas’ next possession Royal ruthlessly exploited a rare Alabama coaching mistake. Changes to the substitution rules in 1964 allowed coaches to remove and return players in the same quarter for the first time since 1952. They could only do so, however, when the clock stopped. During a Bama timeout with Texas facing third and long, Bryant sent in most of his offensive personnel in anticipation of regaining possession. Royal quickly sent in his backup quarterback Jim Hudson, the team’s best deep passer. End George Sauer ran a seem route and when Safety Mickey Andrews took the bait on a pump-fake, Hudson hit him in stride past the fifty-yard line. Sauer raced off for a sixty-nine yard score.

Bryant commented after the game that he couldn’t remember when any team had burned Alabama on two long plays in such startling fashion. With his team desperately lacking a game-changing spark, Bryant once again turned to his hobbled star. Namath entered the game and answered Texas’s second score immediately. Deftly reading the blitzes that had disrupted Sloan, he set about dumping the ball off with calm accuracy. In a crucial eighty-seven yard march the Tide stand-out connected with Ray Perkins for twenty-five and nine yards, Tommy Tolleson for fifteen, and Wayne Cook for nine, before finishing with a seven-yard strike to Wayne Trimble in the endzone. The drive cut the Texas lead to 14-7 and completely changed the flow of the game. No longer was the Texas run-defense going against an option threat in Sloan. The immobile Namath had to rely on vertical passing finished with 255 yards on 18 of 37 passes for two scores. Bama totalled barely fifty team yards rushing. In contrast, Texas managed little through the air but gained more than 200 rushing yards, Koy alone accounting for 133 on twenty-four carries.

Texas had no intentions of surrendering without a fight and responded to Namath's first score with a sustained drive of their own to end the first half. Seventy-two yards, almost entirely on the ground, took the Horns inside inside the Alabama ten-yard line, where they finally stalled. With time running out Kicker David Conway came out for a short attempt. Alabama blocked the effort but in attempting to advance the ball fumbled it right back. Ernie Koy then converted Alabama's second mistake of the day for a one-yard touchdown with only seconds remaining. Texas took an imposing 21-7 lead to the locker-room.

Not for the first or last time in his astonishing career, whatever Bryant said at halftime rejuvenated his team. The Alabama defense dug in and the Longhorns failed to cross the fifty-yard line through the remaining two quarters. On offense, Namath picked up where he had left off and a Bama comeback began to assume the air of inevitability. Only five minutes into the third quarter Namath capped a sixty-three yard drive that featured only five rushing yards with a scoring strike to Ray Perkins. After an exchange of punts to Alabama's field position advantage, the period ended on a twenty-one yard field goal that cut the Texas lead to four at 21-17.

Bama players always said in later years that they never felt any doubt regarding the outcome. Fans in the stadium and the huge national television audience sensed as much when Namath again guided the Tide inside Texas' ten-yard line with less than five minutes remaining in the game. Perkins carried a seven yard pass out of bounds at the Texas six-yard line before Bama abandoned the passing game that had brought them within reach of triumph. Fullback Steve Bowman plunged into the Texas line three straight times for a net gain of five yards. With the ball on the Longhorn one and needing a touchdown, Namath went to the sideline. His coaches were uncertain as to the best option. The Alabama signal-caller made the decision to call his own number on a sneak. Tommy Nobis guessed the call and timed his plunge into the line of scrimmage perfectly to meet Namath. He has always claimed that the Bama legend's first dive came up short and that Namath only reached the endzone crawling on his elbows in a futile second effort. After some deliberation the referees agreed. Bama men, Namath not least among them, swear that the play succeeded. Despite protests, Texas took over possession and clung on for a precious four-point upset.

The next week, watching film back in Austin, Mike Campbell reviewed the play and jubilantly exulted to an assistant:

"Not only didn't Namath score, but not one damn Alabama jersey crossed that goalline."

No one saw things so clearly in the moment. Both sets of players and coaches readily acknowledged that the call could have gone either way. Virtually nothing separated two prolific championship winning programs on that eventful night. Alabama fans felt that if their star Quarterback could make 255 yards passing on a bum knee through three quarters that he would likely have made the decisive difference at full health in four. But injuries and hair's-breadth losses are simply part of the game. Championships with asterisks appended are not. Played out ten times the 1965 Orange Bowl might have resulted in a 5-5 series tie. As it is, the record books only show that Texas won, fair and square.

On January 7th, 2010 the Tide and Horns met for the ninth time, to play for the BCS championship in Pasadena. For the first time in more than twelve glorious decades of winning tradition, the University of Alabama defeated Texas. Early in the first quarter a routine tackle from Bama Defensive End Marcel Dareus put Colt McCoy, the all-time NCAA leader in career wins for a starting Quarterback, out of the game with a pinched nerve in his right shoulder. Redshirt freshman Garrett Gilbert could not have entered a bigger, more overwhelming stage under greater pressure. For the remainder of the first half, with their young signal caller visibly unnerved, Texas faltered and Bama surged. After the break, with the help of sixth-year senior Jordan Shipley [a veritable one-man receiving corps], Gilbert found his groove and posted a reasonably efficient effort. With three minutes remaining, back in possession of the ball and down by only a field goal, Texas fans sensed a repeat of 2005's miraculous fourth-quarter Rose Bowl come-back on the cards. It wasn't to be. Two turnovers gave Bama the victory with a deceptively emphatic final score of 37-21.

Texas fans have far more right to wonder what might have been through four quarters with a healthy star at Quarterback than Bama fans did in January 1965. But the metaphysical futility of presuming on unprovable alternate outcomes given hypothetical contingencies speaks for itself. The record books will ultimately only show that Bama finally managed to best the Longhorns.

(Sources: Pat Culpepper, Inside Texas; Barking Carnival; USA Today CFB encyclopedia; Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

SEC coaching rivalries: Nick Saban vs. Urban Meyer, in context

My last few posts have considered five of the most thrilling coaching rivalries in SEC history: Frank Thomas and Robert Neyland *, Johnny Vaught and Paul Dietzel *, Ralph Jordan and Paul Bryant *, Vince Dooley and Pat Dye *, and Phillip Fulmer and Steve Spurrier *.

I came up with the idea of surveying this question because I was wondering about the historical context of the current titanic Urban Meyer-Nick Saban death struggle. It seemed to me that the SEC has a richer, or at least broader, coaching tradition than other conferences, which have often been dominated for almost their entire history by two or three powers (the Michigan-Ohio State, OU-Nebraska, and Texas-Texas A&M/Arkansas rivalries spring to mind). But in the SEC Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Auburn, LSU and, more recently, Florida have all had one or more great coach who built regionally and nationally prominent programs. Even Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt have enjoyed brief moments of regional significance. Through all that long and rich history, one pattern emerges. In every generation of SEC football two coaches seem destined to rise above their peers and wrestle for conference dominance (and usually with it national supremacy).


At present the SEC boasts the best group of coaches in college football. But amongst them all the resumes of two stand out. Heading into the 2009 season Urban Meyer's overall record as a head coach stood at 82-17 and 43-9 at Florida. He has won two BCS championships and has one undefeated season. Between Utah and Florida his teams are unbeaten in three BCS bowl appearances. His teams have won two Mountain West Conference titles (in two years) and two SEC titles. At the time of writing, Meyer's winning percentage at UF is significantly better even than Steve Spurrier's (even discounting shameless trouncings of the occasional rent-a-victim non-conference foe).

Nick Saban has a BCS championship of his own. His record heading into 2009 was 110-50-1. At LSU he went 48-16 with two conference titles. His Toledo team won the MAC in his only year as head coach, and his best Michigan State team finished second in the Big Ten (no mean feat at MSU - ask anyone who's tried).

Though Saban and Meyer between them have dominated the SEC since 2000 it was not until Saban took the Alabama job in 2007 that the two coaches' careers actually collided. Fittingly it was not until last year's SEC championship game that they actually coached against one another. After a 7-6 campaign in which much wheat and chaff were separated Saban's Tide went 12-0 in the 2008 regular season. When #1 Alabama and #2 Florida met in Atlanta the teams went blow for blow through three quarters before the stamina of the younger Crimson Tide waned. In the final analysis, three third down plays inside the Alabama ten-yard line that Tim Tebow completed for touchdowns in tight coverage made the difference.

Webster's dictionary defines the word monomania with this picture

This also reflects a long standing trend in SEC coaching rivalries. The difference between two giant programs is often made by the presence of a special player who rises above the crowd. That was true for Paul Deitzel with Billy Cannon, Johnny Vaught with Archie Manning, Pat Dye with Bo Jackson, Vince Dooley with Herschel Walker amongst others. With every consensus top 3 recruiting class Meyer and Saban rein in, the chances that they rather than another SEC coach will find the next generation's special talent increases.

At the time of writing Florida and Alabama are first and second in the AP poll. Both are undefeated. The chances that Saban and Meyer's next bout will come this December in Atlanta seem high. It seems equally likely that this ongoing battle will define SEC football for the foreseeable future.

Probably the first of many.

[Update: The Meyer-Saban coaching rivalry will not be deciding the near future of SEC football greatness so much as the Myer-Miles rivalry. Who saw that coming? Look for Bama and Ohio State to renew this rivalry in a major post-season game sometime soon.]

SEC coaching rivalries: Paul Bryant vs. Ralph Jordan, 1958-75

Perhaps no coach in SEC history became so intensely identified with his alma mater through a career of long and loyal service than Ralph “Shug” Jordan. The Selma native lettered at Auburn (or Alabama Polytechnic Institute as it was known until 1960) in football, basketball and baseball. As a senior in 1932 Jordan was named the school’s most outstanding athlete. That was no mean feat on an API football team that went undefeated at 9-0-1 to claim a share of the last Southern Conference title before the inception of the SEC in 1933.

Jordan loved Auburn. With the exception of wartime tours of duty in Europe and the Pacific and a few years in exile as an assistant coach at UGa, he literally spent his entire adult life on 'the plains'. A year after graduating he returned to API as head basketball coach and assistant football coach. He served through the Depression without great distinction in either sport. API football and basketball both hovered slightly above .500 during the 1930s. Jordan was a soft spoken coach, never the kind of coach to make great waves or draw attention. But there was no doubting his determination. Nor his courage, given his wartime service record. Jordan participated in the invasions of Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Okinawa. He was wounded seriously enough in the Normandy campaign to require lengthy recuperation and transfer to the Pacific. His service earned him both the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Toward the end of his life as he struggled through a losing battle with aggressive and painful cancer Bear Bryant commented to a reporter:

“[Ralph Jordan] has more courage in his little finger than I’ve got in my entire body.”

Understandably after such selfless wartime service Jordan wanted to return to the place and work that he loved. He resumed his work as API basketball coach for one season, but he found the appeal of football growing and decided to take an assistant position with the professional Miami Seahawks. After one year Jordan moved to Athens as an assistant to Wallace Butts. His time at Georgia coincided with Earl Brown’s disastrous tenure as head football coach in Auburn. After Brown posted an 0-10 record in 1950 there was only one choice for API. The school's most loyal son received the call.

Jordan didn’t right the ship overnight, but in his quiet, committed way he began coaching with simplicity, clarity and humanity. Shug kept his play-book very simple, running only variations of roughly ten plays but insisting that they be run well every time. He also refused to exact too high a price from his players in practice. He once told a reporter:

“We don’t eat ourselves alive in practice… It’s unthinkable for us to lose a Saturday game in a Tuesday scrimmage.”

After a three decade hiatus following a dispute regarding gate receipts from the 1907API-Alabama game the state’s leading football schools resumed their annual series in 1948. Since the 1907 fixture the Crimson Tide had become a national power, winning national titles under two coaches and claiming multiple Rose Bowl crowns. The Plainsmen, on the other hand, remained a regional power at best and were clear second in the state. Men of Alabama’s less favored institution chaffed under the feeling of second-class status. Athletics offered a way to regain some pride, but from 1948 to 1953 Bama won five of six. Jordan’s first two seasons were tough going. He followed a 5-5 record his first year with a disappointing 2-8 campaign. But through a combination of confidence, charm and some dubious recruiting practices that quickly landed API with six-years of NCAA probation Jordan began to convince the state’s better athletes to play for him. As API’s stock rose the Crimson Tide fell. From 1954 to 1958 Shug took five straight over the state’s flagship university, restoring API pride and giving the Plainsmen their longest winning streak in the rivalry until recent times.

The API 1957 national championship team

Jordan’s career was not one long string of championships. Many might not even consider his coaching success to be outstanding. Shug coached Auburn football for twenty-five seasons from 1951 to 1975, compiling a record of 175-83-7. 1957 provided his only conference and national titles. But Jordan's teams finished second in the conference seven times. After his first four seasons as coach Auburn finished below third in the conference only ten times in twenty one seasons. That doesn’t sound too impressive at first. Nor does a 5-7 bowl record without a single victory in any of the four major New Year’s Day games. But finishing in the top third of SEC play in almost two of every three seasons over several decades is very difficult. Ask a coach who has tried. Very, very few have done better.

Jordan was voted coach of the year by the national coaches association, the AP and the SEC. Even though NCAA regulations prohibited API from accepting their Sugar Bowl bid, it was a great year. But Auburn fans don’t remember Shug for one great season, or even for a considerable number of very respectable seasons. They remember him as a consistent, committed, unassuming, unerringly loyal servant of their school. Shug Jordan was, more than anything, an Auburn man. His legacy would be remembered with more reverence by people outside of eastern Alabama had Jordan not suffered the misfortune of spending much of his coaching tenure across the state from a man whose legend became utterly insurmountable.

Paul Bryant was simply a football man. Growing up dirt poor in Fordye, Arkansas life didn’t offer many opportunities. Bryant earned his life-long nickname by agreeing to wrestle a bear at a travelling carnival. He was promised a dollar for every minute he stayed in the ring but never saw a cent because the bear’s muzzle came off and Bryant wisely ran away. Bryant was no coward. When Frank Thomas offered him a scholarship to play football for Alabama he grabbed the first real opportunity life had given him with both hands. The Bear played hurt on numerous occasions, including the entirety of a famous game against Mississippi State on a broken leg. He went to be the most demanding coach in the business, but no one could call him a hypocrite. Bryant gave 100% as a Bama player, despite not possessing the most talent. He played opposite Don Hutson on the 1934 Rose Bowl winning team and was jokingly known as “the other end”. Hutson, not Bryant, went on to set countless NFL receiving records. Bryant later said of his own coaching career that he was an ordinary coach of great players but a great coach of average players. He boasted that he could make his players think they were all-Americans. That boast wasn’t arrogance, it was fact.

Alabama has never had a Heisman Trophy winner. Through a quarter-century of unrivaled success in Tuscaloosa the Bear never produced a single player that critics viewed as individually peerless. Bryant excelled by producing not a handful of great players but hundreds of players like himself. He made men play above their ability, consistently give full effort, and perform as a team far beyond individual capability. Bryant’s records speak for themselves. After graduation he worked as an assistant to Thomas. He never wanted to do anything but coach. Bryant committed his entire life and legacy to the game and the men football can produce. When the U.S. entered WWII he went to the Iowa pre-flight program and coached with various future greats including Woody Hayes to help physically prepare pilots for war. Bryant coached the University of Kentucky from 1946 to 1953, going 60-23-5. More than half a century later Bryant still holds the best winning percentage of any Kentucky coach. The Wildcats have yet to repeat his 1950 SEC and Sugar Bowl championships.

The Bear’s practices were demanding; probably unnecessarily so. After taking over a lifeless Texas A&M program in 1954 he famously drove his entire football squad into rural west Texas and held brutal workouts for two weeks. Half his team quit and the Bear posted the only losing year of his career with a 1-9 record. A lot of commentators look at that camp as a sacrificial separation of men from boys that founded the nucleus of an A&M program that lost only four games over the next three seasons. It seems more likely that Junction was the disaster it appeared. For the only time in his career the Bear lost most of his team, literally and metaphorically. Bryant was a great coach for the same reason Alexander was a great general. His players believed in him and would do anything for him. At Junction, the Bear learned how far was too far. He remained a grueling, exacting, gruff and demanding mean cuss of a coach, but he never pushed a team so far again.

In 1955 Jennings Whitworth’s Tide went an unacceptable 0-10. The next two seasons were little better at a combined 4-14-2. A university accustomed to Rose Bowls and national acclaim did not like losing football games to the state’s agricultural school. The Bear took over in 1958. His first Crimson Tide team finished 5-4-1. That was the only time in twenty-five seasons that Bryant did not take Alabama to a Bowl. In a quarter-century, without ever incurring any penalty for any kind of NCAA violation, Bryant went 232-46-9. He went to 24 bowls with a record of 11-10-2, winning seven Sugar Bowls, two Orange Bowls and a Cotton Bowl. His teams earned six national championships and ten SEC titles. In an incredible eleven year stretch from 1971 to 1981 the Bear’s teams won nine SEC titles and finished second the other two years. After finishing sixth and fourth in the SEC his first two seasons Bryant never came in lower than third in the SEC standings - twenty-three consecutive seasons in the top third of the SEC! His coaching record is not only peerless, it will never be matched. No one will ever come close.

Year in, year out with whatever players he had, Bryant found a way to win. He once called over to the Auburn football office at 6 a.m during Iron Bowl week. Someone answered the phone and told him that no coaches were in their offices yet. The Bear asked:

“Don’t they care about football over at Auburn?”

That was the effort he demanded. That was the effort he gave himself. When he saw his all-American quarterback Joe Namath slacking off in practice and heard other players complaining, he instructed an assistant to give Namath a dirty old jersey. Bryant told his quarterback in front of the entire team that he had to work harder than the other players to earn a clean jersey back. That was the summer of 1966. The Tide went unbeaten that year, won a national title and Namath went on to the New York Jets where he did quite well.

Everything Paul Bryant did at Alabama he did well, but especially beating Auburn. Over a quarter century the Bear went 19-6 against the Tigers. The record prior to Jordan’s retirement is slightly more favorable to Auburn at 13-5. But out competing Bryant on a consistent basis was simply impossible. Even the best coaches failed to keep pace. But every so often Shug’s patience, tenacity, and humble resolve would produce teams that caught their perennially more favored in-state nemesis off guard. Sometimes, as if in response to shows of hubris of Homeric proportions, the gods themselves intervened on Auburn’s behalf.

Such was the case with Auburn’s most legendary Iron Bowl triumph. Heading into the Birmingham showdown on December 2nd 1972 the second ranked Crimson Tide were 10-0 and already had the SEC title wrapped up. Bama had not lost a regular season game in two years, since Auburn’s last Iron Bowl triumph in 1969. The line on the game was Bama by 16. Auburn men had every right to take exception to such an insult. The Tigers were 9-1 with only a lopsided loss to LSU blemishing another manifestly respectable season for Shug’s boys.

Despite Auburn’s determination to upstage their rival the Tiger offense accomplished nothing all day. Superior execution and athletes appeared to have made the difference, as they so often had before, with Bama leading 16-3 deep into the fourth quarter. With 5:30 left in the game Auburn forced a punt on the Alabama forty yard line. As Greg Gantt wound up for his kick Auburn committed about everyone but their return man to the rush. The Bama line collapsed almost instantly and linebacker Bill Newton spread his huge body in front of Gantt with abandon. The ball bounced back with enough force to carry it to the Bama 25, where defensive back David Langer reeled it in without apparent effort and strode into the end zone. Langer’s move from Auburn’s line into rushing the punter and on through Bama’s goal-line took place in one fluid motion. Auburn celebrated, but at 16-10 the victory appeared a moral one.

The gods had other ideas. After receiving the ensuing kickoff the Alabama offense once again reached only their own forty-yard line before stalling. By that point only 1:30 remained. The chances of Auburn achieving offensively in a minute and a half what they had failed to manage in the preceding fifty-eight were negligible. With nothing to lose Jordan signaled for his team to send everything at the kick again. Incredibly Auburn repeated the penetration of an Alabama line that seemed to evaporate under the pressure as it hadn’t done in two entire seasons. Once again Newton reached the ball first, swatting it as it left Gantt’s foot. Once again it fell into the path of Langer, and once again the Auburn defensive back sailed without breaking stride for a score. Auburn won 17-16, derailed Alabama’s national title hunt, and earned a Gator Bowl berth for themselves. Without having gained anything worth remembering on offense all day Auburn posted an immortal victory on the strength of two special teams TDs and a missed Bama point-after. The odds were so staggeringly improbable that even the most casual of fans can readily ascribe the legendary “Punt, Bama, punt!” Iron Bowl of 1972 to the football gods. This game was their gift to a long suffering API graduate who spent his life faithfully toiling in the Bear’s expansive shadow.

Two years later, the 1974 Iron Bowl featured undefeated 1st ranked Alabama and 4th ranked one-loss Auburn. The national as well as SEC championship was on the line. But in the state of Alabama one thing is more important than national fame. Bryant told a reporter succinctly in the run up to the game:

“The state championship of Alabama means everything. This is for bragging rights for the next 365 days.”

Alabama had limped through the season with various injuries, finding ways to win with whoever was available. Starting quarterback Gary Rutledge was lost early. Later his replacement Richard Todd missed three games with a knee injury. Despite the unblemished record and top ranking it had been an ugly season from the Tide, including a late comeback 8-7 win over a Florida State team that had lost sixteen straight. The ’74 Iron Bowl proved no exception. Both teams moved the ball but also made their share of mistakes. Only gritty special teams play kept the Tide unbeaten.

Early in the first quarter a 35 yard strike to tight end Ozzie Newsome took Bama into Auburn territory. The drive continued to the Tigers’ three yard line before Todd lost a fumble. Bama’s next possession started deep in their own half after a clipping penalty on Auburn’s punt. After grinding their way into Auburn territory the Tide seemed to have settled down when Todd hit Willy Selby on a short swing pass that the receiver converted for a 45-yard touchdown. After Bama extended the lead to 10 on their next possession Auburn responded with an impressive long drive, pounding the same basic inside running play with Sedrick McIntyre most of the 71 yards to the end zone. The teams would have finished the half tied at ten except for Alabama end Leroy Cook managing to get his long arms in the way of a seemingly simple 21-yard field goal attempt from Auburn’s Chris Wilson. Alabama extended the lead to 17-7 early in the third quarter behind the gritty running of Calvin Culliver and Randy Billingsley. Auburn responded with a 41-yard touchdown pass from Phil Gargis, only to see the score wiped off because the receiver had stepped out of bounds prior to catching the ball. In the fourth quarter Todd was stuffed in brutal fashion on 4th and goal before Auburn drove 72-yards two possessions later on a touchdown drive that included a twelve yard pass from a fake field goal attempt. After a two-point conversation failed Bama led 17-13. Auburn gained one last possession with a minute remaining but defensive end Mike Dubose sealed the victory by busting up a developing reverse hand-off in the back field. Dubose batted the ball from Gargis’ hand and fell on it gratefully.

As Auburn had in their famous win two years earlier, Alabama rode their luck. In the grand scheme however, the Bear made his own luck. As a freshman Mike Dubose had suffered an excruciating injury when another player accidentally stamped on his crotch in a scrum. Dubose underwent surgery to remove a crushed testicle and doctors told Bryant the boy could not play again. When he heard the news Dubose threatened to transfer to Troy State and continue playing there. Bryant realized that if an athlete that tough wanted to play football so badly, he should play it for Bama. Dubose was the kind of player that gave everything. He gave as much as Bryant demanded. He gave as much as Bryant had given for Frank Thomas.

Players like Dubose, whom Bryant seemed to produce or find by the truck-load, were the reason Alabama won so many titles in that magical quarter century. No one else could keep up. In many senses it is hardly fair to say Bryant had any rivals. His career truly was peerless. And yet, without the constant, unyielding service of Ralph Jordan there is no knowing how much farther behind Auburn might have fallen. Bryant respected and admired Jordan more than anyone. He told viewers on his Sunday morning TV show after the 1973 Iron Bowl:

“Coach Jordan’s a wonderful person and I consider him a close personal friend.”

That was a friendship built on competition that bred mutual respect. Bryant’s commendation of another coach’s career should be high enough praise for any critic.



The Bear not cooperating with a new fangled female sideline reporter.