Remember the Rose Bowl: part one, Stanford vs. SMU, 1936

On New Years’ Day 1936 the SMU Mustangs represented the Southwest Conference 2,000 miles from home in the Rose Bowl — the first Texas school to do so, and the last for seventy years. To their opponent, Stanford, the Pasadena showcase was nothing new. The appearance was the sixth in school history and third consecutive. Having lost the previous two Rose Bowl Games to Columbia in 1934 and then an Alabama squad in 1935 that featured a young end named Paul Bryant, the Indians were in no mood to let SMU take the laurels.

Under third-year head coach Claude Thornhill, Stanford had stormed to Pasadena as 8-1 Pacific Coast Champion with only a one-point loss at UCLA blemishing the record. Thornhill had played for Glenn Scobey Warner at Pitt and later followed his mentor out west to learn the coaching trade. By the time Warner left Stanford following the 1932 season for Temple, the final destination of his forty-four year coaching career, he had led the Indians to three Rose Bowls and established the school as the West Coast’s football power. He had done so with technically sound, tried-and-tested methods that even by the 1930s were already seen by many as somewhat old fashioned. But then, a veteran coach who had graduated Cornell in 1894 and was known by the nickname “Pop” was hardly likely to embrace much new wave thinking. His successor, a former lineman sarcastically nicknamed “Tiny” on account of his hulking stature, unsurprisingly upheld all of his predecessor’s methodology. Behind the straight-ahead running of all-America fullback Bobby Grayson and a bruising line led by Jim Moscrip, another all-America at left end, Stanford’s “vow boys” had pounded their way to the only three-year run of successive conference titles in school history. The freshman class of 1932 acquired their name after vowing together that they would never receive the kind of thumping at the hands of the hated USC Trojans which the varsity took that year. And they never did, going a perfect 3-0 against USC.

Facing Stanford that clear, sunny January 1st was a team that provided both a mirror image and a stark juxtaposition. The top-ranked, unbeaten Ponies were also at the height of their program’s historical powers. And SMU also featured two all-America selections — left halfback Bobby Wilson and powerful left guard J. C. Wetsel. Like Stanford, SMU had only recently parted ways with a legendary coach. After three conference championships in thirteen seasons and an 84-44-23 record Ray Morrison had returned home to coach his alma mater, Vanderbilt, the preceding year. Morrison’s successor, Madison “Matty” Bell would achieve a 79-40-8 mark through twelve seasons, including a perfect 12-0 regular season his first year. Bell, a Fort Worth native, had played for tiny Centre College in Kentucky, and had coached at TCU and then Texas A&M prior to taking the SMU job. Bell led his team past his former employer TCU and its great star Slingin’ Sammy Baugh in a 20-14 thriller to clinch the Rose Bowl berth. Both TCU and SMU employed offensive styles that the New York Times called:

“…the wide open style of play that has been increasingly adopted in all sections except the west coast.”

True to form the Rose Bowl unfolded as a battle of old versus new school, each team continuing the approach that had carried them so far. Stanford attempted only five forward passes, completing just 2-for-43. Two were intercepted. In contrast the Indians ground out a relatively productive 113 yards on the ground, and elected to punt fifteen times. As was not uncommon in football through the 1930s, many of Stanford’s punts were surprise “quick kicks” on first down designed to pin the opponent deep when no return man could run the ball back. With senior quarterback and Pasadena native Bill Paulman punting for a forty-yard average and the larger Stanford line successfully hurrying the SMU pass-attack, the quick kick strategy proved remarkably effective. Using field position and conservative play Stanford outlast SMU for a final score of 7-0. And that despite being outgained by a margin of seventy-one passing yards and nine Pony first downs to just six for the Indians.

A surprise kick actually set up the game’s only score late in the first quarter. At midfield on first down Paulman pinned SMU on their five-yard line. The Ponies could not escape and kicked back. Their punting would be second-rate all day. Quarterback John Sprague and halfback John Finley shared eleven punts for just a thirty-four yard average. When Finley kicked the ball out of his endzone in the first quarter he was horrified to see halfback James Coffis return it fifteen precious yards. Working from the Pony forty-two Stanford took advantage with an uncharacteristic play when Grayson threw a twenty-three yard completion to Coffis. After two rushes for no gain Grayson burst around right end for seventeen yards. On the next play a reverse to left halfback Bob “Bones” Hamilton carried Stanford to the one-yard line, from whence Paulman stepped home running free as a fake hand-off to Hamilton motioned the SMU line to the wrong direction.

Despite having gained a touchdown with relatively creative play Thornhill decided to withdraw into more cautious tactics for the remaining three quarter, seeking to preserve the Indians’ one-score lead. SMU passed the ball thirty times, an amazing number for the era. Unfortunately the Stanford line successfully penetrated the Pony backfield with enough regularity to disrupt the SMU air-attack. The Ponies never managed to complete passes with sufficient consistency to throw keep drives moving. Occasional short gains were peppered with enough incompletions that while SMU’s tactics impressed the predominantly West Coast crowd, they availed little. Finley, Wilson, and Sprague combined for only 11-of-30 passing. Worst of all, they were picked off a crippling six times — usually at decisive moments which allowed Stanford to “bend but not break” on defense before the phrase had been coined.

Stanford defenders breaking up SMU's usually reliable passing attack

Faced with a physical team that was disrupting its preferred style of play, the SMU offense was forced into trickery to gain its only realistic scoring opportunity. On the next Stanford possession after Paulman’s touchdown Hamilton attempted a rare pass only to be picked off by Sprague. Feeling unable to run into the traffic in front Sprague quickly threw a lateral to Wilson, setting up a short return by the all-American. The Ponies then ran a double-lateral hook and ladder to the Stanford five-yard line. Finley began the play with a forward pass to Harry Shuford, who tossed a short lateral to Wilson. The halfback then rifled a bullet-like second lateral back across to Finley who was darting out of the backfield. He almost reached the endzone before Stanford defensive backs ran him down. Unfortunately for SMU, the shorter field then returned the advantage to Stanford's bigger frontline. Wilson was hit for no gain on the next play, fumbled and center Wes Muller recovered for the Indians.

SMU ended the half with another frenetic burst of offense. Pinned at their own five, Wilson and Finley fired off a series of short passes to reach halfway before time expired. The promising end to the first half proved chimerical. After the break SMU managed little on offense. The Stanford line wore SMU down, holding the Mustangs to just eighty-five total team yards rushing, and coming up with crucial interceptions. In the end a seven point lead proved plenty, and Stanford actually came closest to a second score of the game when a twenty-seven yard field goal try from Moscrip [set up by an interception of Wilson, naturally] drifted wide in the third quarter.

The great 1935 SMU Mustangs

Bell’s team, the rapturously received SMU marching band, and the quaintly dressed Texas boosters all returned the 2,000 miles home with nothing. The one fanatic who hitch-hiked the entire way must have felt particularly disappointed. Doubtless, however, he never regretted making the trip. Not only has SMU never returned to Pasadena, but until the BCS era they remained the only Texas school to have made the trip. Not until Oklahoma crushed Washington State 34-14 on New Years’ Day 2003 did another former Southwest Conference member play in the “Granddaddy” [OU was a charter member of the SWC in 1915 but remained only until 1919]. Two years later the University of Texas played a thriller against fellow historical heavyweight Michigan, running out a one-point winner in a 38-37 final. Texas returned the following year to upset USC behind the incredible Vince Young, coming back late to win 41-38.

This year, on January 1st 2011 the TCU Horned Frogs became only the third Texas school to play in Pasadena, and the only one besides UT to be crowned champion. Senior quarterback Andy Dalton succeeded where even Slingin’ Sammy had failed in 1935, leading the Frogs to college football’s most prestigious bowl game. He also succeeded where Bob Wilson had failed, leading his team past a bulkier Wisconsin squad to a thrilling 21-19 win. Like SMU, the Horned Frogs will almost certainly never be asked to return. But like the Dallas man who loved his 1935 Ponies enough to thumb his way to California and back, no one in Fort Worth cares. The little guys from the old Southwest Conference had their day in the sun.


[Sources: New York Times; Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

Forward to the Past: the SWC reborn?

A busy off-season of college football rumor-mongering and high-stakes brinkmanship appears to have ended a long way short of the "revolutionary" realignment that seemed all but a done deal until the 11th hour of the twelve-day Big XII missile crisis. A sport which often infuriates even its most loyal partisans by the almost imperceptible slowness with which it reforms itself off the field appeared to be on the very verge of a near instantaneous leap into the far reaches of an utterly unkown future. The men at the very center of the game made public comments based on the assumption that this shift would certainly take place. Bob Stoops referred to the proposed Pac-16 as "very exciting" and indulged in on-the-record comments about Oklahoma's prospective new conference rivalries. Deloss Dodd's, the ever-present University of Texas Athletics Director, gathered his school's coaches to inform them that the Big XII was dead and that the Longhorns would be heading west.

Then... nothing. Or almost nothing. The Mountain West switched Utah for Boise. The two most old-school conferences finally got a championship game by adding Nebraska to the Big Ten [12] and Colorado and Utah to the Pac. The Big XII [10] decided that championship games are for conferences that like making life harder for their champions and engaging in actual competition. Notre Dame breathed a sigh of relief. And that was all.

The question we are left with is whether the crazy off-season of 2010 ["expansion-palooza" as some are calling the affair] was a near total shakeup masterminded by a single outsider [former Tennis executive now Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott] or the next incremental step in a gradual, inexorable evolution toward the long expected "age of the super-conference." Due to the lightening pace at which rumor became event and event became non-event there is, I think, a general tendency to view this entire affair as an aberration. Many commentators are giving Larry Scott massive credit for "shaking up" the stolid, crusty Pac-10 and coming nearer than any thought possible to advancing college football more than one step forward in a single move.

Viewed in light of the conversations that surrounded the last major wave of realignment, however, this summer's events seem less unprecedented and revolutionary. Back in 1988 then SEC commissioner Roy Kramer spotted a potentially lucrative loophole in an NCAA by-law that implicitly did not apply to football. The rule states that conferences made up of twelve or more members may decide regular-season champions through championship games. Kramer accurately predicted that a one game playoff for a two-division, twelve-member SEC could generate massive revenue as well as the national prestige with pollsters that the league had historically lacked. The search was on for the best fitting two schools to incorporate.

Meanwhile, the once-mighty Southwest Conference was undergoing an existential crisis. No SWC school could boast a national championship since the 1970 Longhorns. During the ensuing two decades every member institution barring Rice, Baylor, and Arkansas had met with major NCAA sanctions on account of cheating scandals. A negative cycle of pay-for-play slush fund arms races and rival schools turning one another in to the authorities culminated with SMU receiving a one-year total suspension of its football program after the 1986 season. There was some symmetrical justice in this move as it had been ultra-rich oilman and SMU booster William Clements who first set the league on its slippery slope to financial depravity. By 1986 Clements occupied the Texas governor's mansion. The unrepentant Mustang-backer sensationalized a state whose tolerance for football motivated madness is remarkably high by instructing SMU to continue its slush fund payments to players even after existence of the practice had come to public light.

Cash incentives for players and recruits had been an open secret in the SWC for years. Gary Shaw claimed in his sensational 1972 expose on the Darrell Royal regime, Meat On The Hoof, that on his recruiting visit to SMU coaches had unabashedly asked him what kind of car he wanted to drive and promised that one would await him upon his enrollment in Dallas. Shaw claimed he had partly chosen Texas precisely because UT made no such offers. Coaches on Austin only told him, "If you come here you will have a chance to start." But after Royal retired in 1976 the 'Horns began to loose their overwhelming competitive advantage and UT also slid into the new culture of cheating. Between 1981 and 1984 SMU compiled a 41-5-1 record and earned three SWC championships with teams made up of blue-chip recruits who had gone to Dallas for money, stayed for money, and played for money. Conference rivals who cried foul were no more than pots screaming "black" at the kettle. By the time Roy Kramer began tentatively searching for new SEC members in 1989 the SWC had become a national laughing stock and byword for disgrace.

When Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles retired in 1976 they unknowingly took the Southwest Conference's former glory with them.

Frank Broyles, Royal's old sparring partner then Arkansas AD, chaffed under the guilt-by-association his beloved Razorbacks suffered. Broyles was also an astute business manager. He had already done more than anyone to move Arkansas toward the modern age of athletics finance, increasing alumni donations and exploring all manner of new revenue streams. As part of that process Broyles petitioned the SWC for permission to negotiate an independent distribution contract for University of Arkansas radio broadcasts. That request was denied.

Other league members did not want to allow the Razorbacks, who alone enjoyed the advantage of not sharing their state with any rival school, any revenue stream or media market it did not have to share. That short-sighted decision alienated power-brokers in Fayetteville and only heightened the mistrust that was rampant within the SWC ranks.

A former University of Texas women's athletic director Donna Lo-piano summed the situation up best, telling Sally Jenkins:

"[The SWC] is a bunch of institutions that care more about themselves than each other. It's a bad business conference."

Arkansas people began to cast hungry eyes over the SEC's notoriously passionate fan bases and the cache new visiting conference mates would bring. As one Arkansas athletics department official astutely foresaw:

"You don't have to worry about selling out the stadium—you have to worry about expanding it."

SWC average attendances fell consistently through the 1980s while those across the SEC only rose. And home gates were only the tip of the iceberg. By 1990 the complete overhaul of college football's relationship to television broadcasting was in full swing. The sixty-three member College Football Alliance had recently signed a $300 million five-year deal with ABC effective to begin in 1991. The promised riches that led to the landmark Oklahoma Board of Regents vs. NCAA Supreme Court case in 1984 were finally beginning to materialize. If University of Arkansas officials felt alienated by the refusal of the SWC brethren to liberate their radio broadcasting rights, they experienced even greater emotions when considering the possible resources conference TV deals might command in the brave new world of post-NCAA monopoly contract negotiations. The 1990s promised to be an very uncertain decade for collegiate football, and athletics directors worked tirelessly to figure out the best options for their institutions.

Many factors remained uncertain, but several issues could not have been clearer. Firstly, the money collegiate football could command in its immediate future promised to dwarf past revenue. Secondly, through conference-based contracts individual schools could hope to gain a larger slice of the pie than they had under the old NCAA contracts. Consequently, the factors that had created the long-established conference alignments that had defined the game during the twentieth century would necessarily be superseded by new considerations. If Arkansas bolted, the SWC would not only be a discredited, scandal-ridden hive of mutual distrust and institutionalized backbiting, it would also be a single-state league with little appeal to national broadcasters.

While the SEC looked to expand, add a championship game, and promised to command big bucks on the open market, the SWC became a decreasingly appealing asset. Officials at Texas and Texas A&M did everything they could increase their market share in the ailing conference. In 1992, the first year Arkansas played in the SEC, the SWC introduced new revenue sharing arrangements. The league scrapped its ancient 50-50 division of gate revenues between home and away teams. Member institutions playing in televised non-conference games were to retain 80% of the revenue generate rather than the previous 50%. And schools participating in post-season play were to keep the first $500,000 before sharing the remainder with the league as opposed to the previous $300,000. As the SWC cash-cow grew sicker the Longhorns and Aggies milked it harder and kept a greater share. In a statement that rings with starling familiarity to football fans in 2010 DeLoss Dodds, whose tenure as AD in Austin began back in 1981, brazenly told a reporter:

"The world is going to dictate where Texas goes. The marketplace will dictate it."

The very portrait of dysfunction.

The openness with which UT officials implicitly acknowledged that the school was considering following Arkansas out of the SWC created panic in the state legislature. David Silbey, a State Representative and Baylor alum, threatened that if the Longhorns and Aggies left the SWC without his Bears:

"The next time they want to talk about appropriations for new physics professors, they'll have to come through me."

Such threats will surface every time conferences realign. Schools that can command the highest market share will go looking for more, and those that cannot will threaten, rant, claw, beg, and sell their dignity cheap to avoid the ultimate uncertainty of temporary homelessness.

Market driven conference realignment in the early 1990s also created headaches for independents. As future television revenues seemed predestined to follow the most attractive and prestigious conference lineups, the east coast's host of historic independents looked for safe harbors in which to anchor their football programs. The Big East Conference, formed primarily for basketball in 1979, began conference play in football in 1991 to provide a more stable future for nervous independents such as Miami, Boston College, Syracuse, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Rutgers. When Penn State began Big Ten play in 1993 Notre Dame stood alone as the last great independent. Within three short seasons a landscape that had once been filled with independents who had every hope of playing in major bowls and winning national titles [as the Hurricanes, Nittany Lions, and Fighting Irish often did] was all but devoid of such schools.

Only Notre Dame's own lucrative mystique allowed the Great White Whale of conference realignment to hold out. Even then, expectations of the Irish's impending move to the Big Ten ran wild. The possibility of that move created a nervous apprehension in Big East country then as it still does today. One Big East AD commented to a reporter:

"Big Ten officials have declared a moratorium [of four years] on expansion, but who knows if they'll stick to it, once they see the writing on the wall?"

Then as today the Big Ten had its "timetable" and appeared to hold more cards than other conferences. But the bottom line was and always will be the market. Money might make the Big Ten move at any moment in any one of a number of directions. After that everyone else would have to move as well. Of course, Notre Dame didn't want to move. NBC's relationship with ND football began in February of 1990 and has funded Irish resilience at premium rates of return ever since. That precious money, the lifeline keeping Rockne's legacy of lone defiance against the simultaneously loved and hated Big Ten alive, allowed ND athletics director Dick Rosenthal to state emphatically:

"We've been an independent for 148 years. We are independent by desire."

Twenty years on that same money allowed current Notre Dame AD Jim Swarbrick to state that his school's "strong preference" remains independence [a state of being sought over every alternative save Armageddon].

The potential wild card in the whole process both in the early 90s, as today, was post-season revenue. Power players want to figure out the way to maximize bowl revenue while minimizing the number of mouths that revenue feeds and the list of schools that enjoy the opportunity of winning a national championship. Within two seasons of Arkansas' departure from the crumbling SWC the members of the College Football Association had negotiated a post-season structure known as the Bowl Coalition, which pitted the two highest ranked member teams in a championship bowl. This embryonic system grew into the current BCS with the inclusion of the Rose Bowl conferences in 1998. Bowls wanted the most lucrative matchups. Conferences wanted guaranteed bowl berths to add to their new TV contracts. No one except the fans wanted the unpredictable chaos of a playoff, which might generate more money but would also expose bigger fish to post-season competition and claims to revenue shares from upstart minnows.

Orange Bowl president Arthur Hertz stated to Sports Illustrated:

"I'm told by our legal people that if the Big Eight is not constituted the same as it was when we signed the contract [in 1988, with NBC, for six years], then we have the right to reevaluate."

In other words, conference realignment offered the opportunity for renegotiated post-season contracts that could mirror the game changing value of new regular season conference contracts. In such a market the parochial appeal of smaller conferences like the Big Eight and SWC held limited appeal. Frank Broyles saw the writing on the wall and even before Arkansas had officially accepted an invitation from the SEC publicly predicted:

"The '90s are predicted to be moving in the direction of three super-conferences, each with a major network."

Dodds sensed the future direction of college football with equal clarity. Bigger conferences housing multiple heavyweights and boasting blockbusting championship games were the wave of the future. The old SWC was not.

Viewed in light of the landscape as it stood in 1990, the summer of 2010 seems less revolutionary and more a case of 'same song, different verse.' In that same light the final outcome of the Big XII missile crisis seems even more surprising. It also would appear to be utterly unsustainable. The same factors which made the old SWC unstable and undesirable after the departure of Arkansas makes the current Big XII [10] a necessarily impermanent solution. The show may have been temporarily saved at the eleventh hour by money Dan Beebe raised from sources presently known only unto God and a select few other similarly tight-lipped individuals, but in the grand scheme simple market economics must dictate that the patch job will not last. Who in their right mind beyond the Texas-Southwest region will tune in on a weekly basis come fall Saturdays to witness the ritual ass whippings Texas and OU will most assuredly dole out to the grateful likes of Kansas, Iowa State, and Baylor?

Tom Osborne in 2010. Not so keen on Texas.

In 1990 the University of Arkansas left the old SWC because the league had decayed to a shell of its former self. A once-proud conference [home to the state of Texas' first national championship team and first Heisman winner -- neither of which hailed from Austin] had become an irrelevant, parochial group of infighting, backbiting brethren whose incessant scandals reflected poorly on the Hogs and had even begun to cost their athletics programs precious revenue rather than provide it. Association with the dysfunctional Southwest Conference family had, quite simply, become a liability where once it had been an asset.

In June of 2010 the University of Nebraska fled the company of its century-long conference mates for the safe refuge of Big Ten Country. For fifteen years Huskers have indignantly felt the offensive implications of the expanded Big XII's revenue sharing arrangement [which reflects more nearly the post-1992 SWC than the old Big Eight], and the location of the conference headquarters in Dallas. The extra second which miraculously appeared on the clock at the end of the 2010 conference championship game [much to Tom Osborne's chagrin] was, perhaps, the final straw. In pastures new Big Red can be one of twelve equally heard voices at the table rather than one ten utterly irrelevant ones.

Texas politicians and the complete dependence of OU football on its annual date at the state fair in Dallas may be able to keep the rump of the Big XII together for a while, but neither can force the football pedigree rich flagship institutions of other states to suffer bad company indefinitely. Texas politics could not keep Arkansas in the fold back in 1990 when common sense and market economics made the SEC an attractive prospect. Nor could they keep Big Red in the fold when the stable, equitable, lucrative, and cordial Big Ten came calling twenty years later. They, Dan Beebe, nor any other force save God himself will not prevent the Big XII [10] from crashing in a blaze of unmarketable ignominy sooner or later.

Questions have been raised as to the new name for the now numerically challenged Big XII. Presuming the obvious title of "Longhorn Athletic Conference" will not be adopted for fear of depriving Adam his fig leaf, there really is only one sensible choice:

The Southwest Conference.

Abandonned rivalries: Big Red and the Six Dwarves

I haven't posted in several weeks because I've been rather busy, but also because my internet time has been entirely consumed by my morbid fascination with the current conference realignment process. At the time of writing Nebraska is officially in the Big Ten and Colorado officially in the Pac Numeral. Texas A&M is busily flirting with the SEC and imagining a future as a football school of national import in its own right. Texas is apparently considering every single option to figure which one means the most money with the least accountability and easiest schedule.

Anything could happen. But this blog is not about the present or future of college football. All we know about the relation of the current situation to the game's past at this moment is that Nebraska's century-long relationship with the Six Dwarves, the old Big Eight's perennial whipping boys, is over.

I wrote recently about the travesty of downgrading the OU-Nebraska rivalry when the Big XII was formed back in 1995. A few months ago that decision [taken largely with a total lack of courage and foresight by now-discredited people at OU such as then head coach Gary Gibbs] was just a big shame. Now it looks like it might prove an error so costly that it sowed the seeds of the Big XII's demise even at the very moment of its inception. For decades OU and Nebraska played every Thanksgiving Friday in the national spotlight before an audience of millions of spell-bound football fans who couldn't believe the hard-hitting, ground eating rushing attacks these Great Plains powers perennially produced. The winner of that game almost always won the conference. Fairly often they would win a national title, too. At very least they would likely earn a trip to Miami at New Year. The OU-Nebraska game mattered. A lot.

It mattered so much that without it people in Lincoln began to feel alienated in and by their own conference. As Matt Hinton has recently been reminding people, the Big Eight absorbed half the Southwest Conference -- not viceversa. Texas and Co. were the refugees from a discredited, crumbling wreck of a league. The Big Eight was a nationally relevant conference with a strong brand that at the time rested on the edifice of Big Red's unstoppable Triple-Option. In the fifteen years since that time the OU-Nebraska game, stripped of its prime time billing on Thanksgiving weekend, has become secondary in national import to the Red River Shootout. OU-Texas is now the League's annual feature presentation. Nebraska has no great rival and as a consequence has suffered a loss of relevance. The contrived NU-Colorado rivalry has, to say the least, lacked even a fraction of the mystique that saturated the great Oklahoma-Nebraska games of yore.

The silver lining of Nebraska's move to the Big Ten will hopefully be the restoration of the OU series to an annual event, preferably on Thanksgiving. OU played Texas every year out of conference for more than a century before the formation of the Big XII. It would be no different now to add NU to the non-conference slate. This move would be a big gain for college football in general and Nebraskans in particular.

Far less likely to survive the shake-up in any form are Big Red's six lesser 'rivalries' with the soup and potatoes of their old Big Eight menu, the Six Dwarfs.

NU first met Kansas and Missouri on the gridiron in 1892, only the third year of Big Red football. Iowa State joined the slate in 1896. Colorado followed in 1898. Nebraska first joined a conference when the Missouri Valley was formed in 1907. For the first two-decades of its existence the conference grew steadily into a large and unwieldy group that never played a round-robin slate in football. Kansas State first played NU in 1911 and joined the MVC two years later. Oklahoma A&M joined the league in 1925 but never played Nebraska in the three seasons before the league split in 1928. The bigger state schools split from their smaller bedfellows to form a more cohesive football conference in 1928. The new Big Six then became the Big Seven with the addition of Colorado in 1947, then the Big Eight with Oklahoma State in 1958.

Since their first meetings Nebraska has only not played Kansas in 1904 and 1905. Iowa State only fails to appear on the schedule in the years 1902-04, 1920 and 1925. Kansas State is missing in only 1917-19 and 1920-21. Mizzou disappears from 1903 to 1910 and again from 1913-17 and 1920-22 but appears every year thereafter. The Colorado series skipped 1906 and 1908-11 before a long break between 1920 and 1948. Oklahoma State never played Nebraska at all until 1960, but the two then met every year until 1995 and every second year since.

Those six series, especially against KU, constitute some of the longest standing rivalries in college football. They are also some of the most lopsided. Versus Kansas Big Red is a whopping 90-23-3. Mizzou has fared little better at 64-36-3. Kansas State's 77-15-2 constitutes the second-worst effort percentage-wise, while Iowa State owns the longest winless streaks. En route to the ugly end of an 85-17-2 head-to-head record the Cyclones have failed to beat Nebraska for over a decade in five separate stretches and beat them only once between 1978 and 2001. Against Colorado Big Red is 48-18-2, and against Oklahoma State an overwhelming 36-5-1.

For a century Nebraska football literally ran roughshod over these opponents, riding them to forty-six bowl invitations, forty-seven conference championships, and five national titles. When Nebraska played other big boys out of conference the Huskers rarely disappointed and won more often than not. Nebraska also owns a very respectable 38-44-3 record against Oklahoma -- the Big Eight's other juggernaut. There is no doubt that Nebraska football is no mirage created by inflated records racked up against weaklings and only weaklings. Whether under Dana X. Bible, in Bob Devaney's Power-I, or Tom Osborne's Triple Option, Nebraska has never feared clashing heads with fellow heavy weights. But as is the case with all great collegiate programs, the foundation upon which those great championship bouts versus fellow giants rests is a consistently solid conference record against a host of obliging lesser-lights.

Without the Six Dwarfs the Big Eight's big two would unquestionably have amounted to a less perennial brand of large. Those rivalries were rarely interesting, almost never commanded a national TV audience, and will be mourned by no one outside of Big Eight country. But make no mistake; while moving to the Big Ten will likely be a good decision for Nebraska, the step will forever change the face of Big Red football.

So long, friends. And thanks for all the wins.

Line it up and run it

Three minutes into the second half on a sunny late-September afternoon in 1995 at Notre Dame Stadium, University of Texas sophomore quarterback James Brown approached the ball on his own twenty-two yard line. His Longhorns trailed 13-19 after a first half featuring plenty of offense from both teams. There was plenty more to come. The exciting dual-threat Brown led his team on a seventy-eight yard scoring march to take a 20-19 lead. Texas’ defense answered with a stop to give Brown the ball back and momentum appeared to be shifting toward the ‘Horns. But after moving the ball just inside field goal range a huge sack put Texas in a second-and-seventeen situation stranded in no-man's land. On the next play receiver Justin McClemore dropped a pass that would have gained the yardage back. On third down Brown forced a careless pass toward Mike Adams and was picked off at the Notre Dame twenty-eight yard line. The Irish responded emphatically with a four play, one minute drive to the end zone that started a deluge. Randy Kinder's three-yard scoring run was the first of five Irish touchdowns in the game’s final twenty minutes. Texas managed only one sustained drive in the final period and crashed to a 55-27 defeat.

Explanations for the Texas loss were plentiful. The nation’s seventieth ranked rushing defense entered the game with its leader, defensive end Tony Brakens, suffering a fractured tibia and listed as a definite non-starter. In the event Texas head coach John Mackovic decided that with only a fifth-year senior who had never forced his way into the starting line-up to call on as backup, Brakens would have to play. Brakens ended the day with three quarterback hurries, equalling the total contributed by the rest of the defense. A unit that relied so heavily on contributions from walking-wounded could hardly be expected to contain a running back in Kindler who entered the game averaging 7.2 yards a carry. Kindler went on to finish the season with 809 yards. His fellow running back Autry Denson added 695, and fullback Marc Edwards contributed 717. This imposing three-man rushing rotation followed the lead of highly touted signal caller Ron Powlus, whose eventual season totals of 1,853 yards and twelve scores on a 60% completion rate prevented opposing defenses from simply loading the box. That backfield playing behind a solid line led by Dusty Ziegler, a senior center later drafted by the Buffalo Bills, made the Irish offense a force to be feared. Only in their opening loss, a two-point upset against eventual Big-10 champion Northwestern, did the Irish score less than twenty points all year. Little wonder that Notre Dame compiled 249 team rushing yards on 55 attempts against Texas. Powlus only threw the ball twenty-eight times, but completed sixteen for 273 yards and two scores with only one interception. Notre Dame exposed Texas’ defense. They did no less to several others before January.

The Texas defense ranked only fifth amongst Southwest Conference members through two games despite the ‘Horns having played two teams in Pitt and Hawaii that had gone 3-8 the previous season. But on the other side of the ball Texas had plenty to boast about. They traveled to South Bend ranked no worse than third in the Southwest Conference in passing, scoring, and total offense. Notre Dame defensive coordinator Bob Davie noted Brown’s 6-0 career records as a starter and praised Texas’ offensive chemistry to reporters. In his post-game interview Davie summarized his team’s preparations, saying:

“Our whole thing coming in was that we didn’t want this to turn into a track-meet.”

In the end only Texas errors prevented that outcome. Despite the lop-sided final score Notre Dame only outgained the Longhorns by ninety-yards, 511 to 422. All of those extra yards came in the final twenty minutes, aided by two Texas interceptions and a lost fumble. During the first period Notre Dame had taken a 10-0 lead on a sixty-four yard punt return from Emmet Mosley. The last points of the half came from a blocked PAT which Allen Rossum returned eighty yards. Even with those mistakes the ‘Horns might have led at the break had Brown not lost a fumble on the Irish seventeen early in the second quarter. The half ended on a high snap that ruined a field goal attempt with only three seconds remaining. Through four quarters a combined four picks, two lost fumbles, and twelve points given up or thrown away on special teams nullified the impact of over four hundred yards in offensive output.

Only one Longhorn produced a flawless performance. Freshman running back Ricky Williams carried the ball fourteen times for seventy-three yards [a 5.1 yard average] and a touchdown. In only his third game as a Longhorn Williams had yet to assert himself as the central cog in Texas’ offensive engine. Mackovic preferred to keep his game plan balanced, hoping to outsmart his opponents as much as outmuscle them. Without doubt there are times and places for clever strategy and occasional trickery in football. But more often than not, coaches establish legacies of greatness because they recruit, manage, motivate, and utilize the best talent in the most effective way. As the old adage goes, no one ever won the Kentucky Derby on a mule. Even one month into his freshmen year it was clear that Ricky Williams was a stallion. Clear to all, that is, except Mackovic.

Texas rushed the ball thirty-seven times against Notre Dame and passed thirty-seven times: perfect balance. The 'Horns gained 178 yards from scrimmage on the ground and 335 passing . Even with five sacks costing most of the team's seventy-seven negative rushing yards the passing game was not unsuccessful in terms of raw offensive output. Mackovic clearly felt confident enough to stick with his game plan. Unfortunately, he continued to do so after the tide began to turn against Texas. Brown carried a shoulder injury into the game, and though he claimed afterward to have felt no discomfort his passing numbers diminished progressively. He hit one receiver, Mike Adams, five times for 141 yards in the first half alone but failed to find him once after the break. The second half disintegration of Texas’ passing game finished symbolically on a twenty-nine yard pick-six with forty seconds left on the clock. Only twice in the second half did Texas sustain field-length drives; Notre Dame seemed to march at will. Texas held the ball almost exactly fifteen minutes during the first half, losing the time of possession battle by less than a minute. The ‘Horns also converted four of nine third downs. After the break time of possession fell to barely eleven minutes, and third down conversations fell from nearly fifty percent to less than a third at two of seven. As an offensive battle in which two ranked teams combined for nearly a thousand total yards wore on, Mackovic's balanced strategy floundered. A declining completion rate from his quarterback put his team in third-and-long situations and resulted in turnovers.

After the game Lou Holtz praised Ricky Williams and stated that if he had the use of such a talented back he would put the ball in his hands just about every down. In fact that is basically what Holtz did with the perfectly capable backs in his own stable. Notre Dame ran the ball fifty-four times against Texas for 249 yards, passing only twenty-eight. The Irish ran wild, riding their option attack to an absolute rout. But there was no good reason Mackovic couldn’t have answered in kind.

Williams left UT after his senior season with a Heisman Trophy and as the NCAA all-time rush leader after surpassing Tony Dorsett’s twenty-two year old record of 6,082 yards by nearly two-hundred. It took Mackovic a surprisingly long time to give Williams the touches his performances demanded. After his first three games as a Longhorn Williams had carried the ball 38 times, a 12.6 carry-per-game average. His season total finished at only 12.7 cpg, despite his impresive yard-per-carry rate of nearly six on 166 rushes for 990 yards. As a sophomore he rushed 205 times for 1,272 — fifteen times a game for a 6.2 average. As a junior those figures increased 1,878 on 279 carries — twenty-five carries a game for a 6.73 average. That season Texas squandered a plethora of talent to somehow finish 4-7. Mackovic was duly fired and replaced with North Carolina head coach Mack Brown. In Brown’s first season Williams saw the ball 361 times [over thirty times per game], 2,124 yards [a 5.9 yard average], and won the Heisman.

Players generally improve with time and entrusting freshmen with too much responsibility is not often wise. But Ricky Williams was no ordinary freshman. His yard-per-carry rate remained steady around a highly impressive six from begining to end of his collegiate career. Williams was almost certainly as ready for thirty touches a game in his freshman campaign as he was when Mack Brown arrived in Austin three years later. Unfortunately for Texas fans, and ultimately for the man himself, Mackovic apparently lacked the vision or the courage to make a choice that seems simple in retrospect. His is a depressingly familiar cautionary tale of a coach out-thinking himself in an effort to employ the most innovative strategy.

Lou Holtz had the right idea. Even if you hand the other team your playbook, they still have to actually stop your guys.

(Sources: USA today CFB encyclopedia; Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Dallas Morning News; CFB data warehouse; Texassports.com)

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)

Whatever happened to OU-Nebraska?

My last post recalled the Big Eight glory days of the OU-Nebraska rivalry. On November 7^th 2009 the Sooners and Huskers played out a depressing 10-3 Nebraska win which featured a single touchdown, scored on a drive of one yard. The game will not enter the cannon of great and memorable meetings in this storied series. Both the 2009 Huskers and Sooners have had their problems at the quarterback position while fielding first rate defenses. It wasn’t surprising that the game proved a less-than appetizing spectacle of mutual offensive inertia. Naturally every great rivalry series will occasionally provide an underwhelming spectacle. That in itself is not a problem. The sad fact about this game is that Oklahoma will not play in Lincoln again until 2013. Since the inception of the Big XII the OU-Nebraska series has only been played two of every four years. Season ticket holders in Lincoln and Norman only enjoy the opportunity of seeing their erstwhile rival as often as they can vote for who resides in the White House. That, in my opinion, is a travesty.

So what ever happened to the OU-Nebraska game?

During the 1984 off-season the U.S. Supreme Court heard and ruled upon a land mark case launched two years earlier to challenge the NCAA’s centrally negotiated television rights monopoly. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma vs. the NCAA proved to be college football’s Brown vs. Topeka. This decision combined with the growing number of channels available to American television sets via cable to pave the way for the near-saturation point levels of exposure enjoyed by the game today. Most importantly, the decision gave individual schools and conference the rights to control and distribute the revenue their games generated. This revolution turned the historical rationale for conference alignments on their heads. Geographical cohesion, natural rivalries, travel costs, institutional bonds and any number of factors that had created and sustained conferences through the mid-1980s were increasingly marginalized as the golden calf of TV revenue grew larger and demanded ever greater sacrifices.

In 1991 the SEC expanded to 12 teams in order to take advantage of a previously over looked NCAA by-law stating that a conference of twelve teams might form into two divisions and create a football championship game. Conference commissioner Roy Kramer saw an opportunity for a high profile game with unparalleled revenue generating capability. He was exactly correct. The SEC set a decade of conference musical chairs in motion after the 1991 season by extent ending invitations to independent South Carolina and long-time Southwest Conference member Arkansas. An ongoing dispute over the school’s radio broadcast and revenue rights made Arkansas administrators only too eager to bolt. This realignment immediately produced two unintended consequences. Firstly, it showed other schools and conferences the immense financial and publicity value of the two-division, championship game format. Secondly, it rendered the SWC an irrelevant, parochial conference geographically rooted in the local identity and tangled political life of a single state.

From the late 1960s onwards a cycle of cheating involving recruitment violation and payment of players infected the entire SWC. Struggling conference rivals attempted to keep from slipping too far behind the increasingly powerful Longhorns and Aggies. Eventually these unscrupulous practices unraveled the entire league. After the NCAA handed SMU’s football program a one-year suspension for the 1987 season boosters at various schools began a sordid retaliatory process of mutual muckraking that reduced the league to an utterly discredited public family feud. Once Arkansas departed UT chancellor William Cunningham began to explore the possibility of following suit. Despite initial flirtations with the academically alluring Pac 10 and Big 10 the most logical choice was the Big Eight. Conversations began primarily with the athletics director of longtime non-conference rival Oklahoma Donnie Duncan. With the model of the SEC’s lucrative expansion as a guide an agreement emerged by February of 1994 to marry the Big Eight with the four largest and most politically influential Texas universities. ABC’s initial contract with the new Big 12 was worth a base $90 million over five years with an extra $10 million incentive to add a championship game. The league obviously possessed the super-regional appeal that the SWC had long since lost.

Conference realignment, the conference championship format, and an increasing volume of nationally televised games through a growing entourage of cable network partners ushered in a new era for college football. Naturally, and perhaps fittingly, many aspects of the game’s former landscape changed. Conference commissioners and school administrators had to balance the weight of history and tradition with the generally more weighty imperatives of garnering the public interest and athletics revenue necessary to sustain competitive advantages. For the Big XII, the two division format added a championship game and created a juggernaut conference of national consequence. But it also involved a geographical divorce for the old Big Eight. Moving OU and Nebraska to different divisions meant potentially losing an annual series that had provided some of college football’s most memorable games and largest television audience. In the SEC several schools refused to allow realignment to disrupt the history of their most important annual fixtures. In order to maintain the Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee rivalries the league created four other annual inter-divisional series. This balance the mathematics of an eight game regular season and maintained the fixtures that created the most local and national interest in the league.

Why did the Big XII decide not to pursue a similar option in order to maintain the OU-Nebraska series? I recently discussed this question with Daily Oklahoman columnist Barry Tramel, an outspoken advocate of restoring the OU-Nebraska series to an annual fixture. According to Tramel the old Big Eight rivalry posed two major problems for the new conference alignment. Firstly, the game had traditionally been scheduled for late November since it almost invariably constituted a de facto conference championship play-off. In that slot the fixture garnered enormous national interest and large TV ratings. The new two-division format generated the distinct possibility Nebraska and OU would meet one another in the conference title game not infrequently. In that case a regular season fixture in November would lose the winner-takes-all relevance that had long made it a national staple.

Secondly, in the mid-1990s little appetite for maintaining the series existed in Norman. The possibility was raised of playing the game as a non-conference fixture on the two years of every four that the schools did not meet in conference play. Nebraska lacks a natural geographic rival and over the long history of Cornhusker football only Oklahoma has provided an annual game against an equally weighted powerhouse. Naturally folks in Lincoln wanted to maintain the annual meeting. But times were hard for OU, which had not won a conference title since 1987. NCAA sanctions and negative publicity resulting from recruiting violations and several high-profile player arrests led to Barry Switzer’s tumultuous and bitter departure in 1988. From 1989 to 1994 Gary Gibbs posted an unimpressive 44-23-2 record with only a single win over each of Nebraska and Texas. 1995 brought the disastrous single season tenure of the fossilized Howard Schnellenberger. John Blake failed to right the ship from 1996 to 1998 with an inglorious 12-22 record. While the 1990s were nothing but unkind to OU Tom Osborne’s Cornhuskers won seven conference and two national championships. Offered an opportunity to drop the Huskers from the schedule two of every four years, Donnie Duncan jumped at the chance. The Big XII replaced OU on Nebraska’s annual November slate with Colorado, the only other team from the old Big Eight that might even attempt to claim anything like national prominence. Suffice to say that this annual rivalry game has thus far failed to match the glory years of the OU-Nebraska series.

Despite his columns appealing to the weight of tradition and the spirit of competition, Tramel does not see any momentum for the idea of restoring the series. Short of adopting Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy’s highly unpopular and wildly unrealistic suggestion of an eleven-game, round-robin conference schedule [which would obviously mean eliminating the lucrative championship game for which the conference was initially created], there is no chance that OU and Nebraska will play annually anytime soon.

Board of Regents vs. NCAA and the explosion of television coverage for college football that followed have, largely speaking, been good for the game. They have certainly been good to fans, who can now see almost every game of any significance nationally televised somewhere on their dial. But no transition between historical eras is ever without cost. The Big XII omelet involved the breaking of several proverbial eggs. The messy divorce of the old SWC has made life very difficult for several of the former member schools not fortunate enough to be taken along to the new Promised Land.

By comparison to the continued struggles of the football program at once-proud SMU perhaps the downscaling of the OU-Nebraska series is a relatively minor consequence. But anyone who remembers the days when the Big Eight's two great colossus programs perennially crashed into one another at the business end of the AP poll is likely to disagree.

(Sources: SI scorecard, 03/07/94; Dunnavant, 50 year seduction; cfbdatawarehouse.com; Boyles and Guido, USA Today CFB encyclopedia; oral interview with Barry Tramel; Sally Jenkins, SI, Sorry state)