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]

SEC coaching rivalries: Johnny Vaught vs. Paul Dietzel, 1955-1961

I doubt that the memory of any SEC coach towers over the program he led the way Johnny Vaught does Ole’ Miss. Fans and commentators only somewhat familiar with Southern football would doubtless point to the Bear at Alabama. But Paul Bryant is far from being Alabama’s only winning coach. Thomas and Wade before him, and Gene Stallings after him all earned national titles. Thomas and Wade both left Alabama with winning percentages over .810, comparing favorably to the Bear’s .824. Between 1947 and 1970, and a valedictory season in 1973, Vaught went 190-61-12 in Oxford – a win percentage of .745. The second best mark for a Mississippi coach over more than five games is N. P. Stauffer with .690 from 1911 to 1913. Since Vaught retired, David Cutcliff’s .600 effort from 1998 to 2004 is the closest any successor has come.

Even more significantly, Vaught’s six conference titles are the only ones Ole' Miss has ever won. Until the second coming Manning in the form of Eli, chances are that anything you know about the entire history of Rebel football happened with Vaught on the sideline.

Vaught grew up in Olney, Texas before moving to Fort Worth to live with his grandmother and attend Polytechnic Heights High School. He played his first varsity prep football game against Poly’s local rival, the legendry Masonic Home “Mighty Mites.” Poly lost 40-0. Vaught learned a lot about grit, resolve and team psychology from Poly’s frequent bouts with Masonic Home (which the Mites generally won despite considerable disadvantages in size and manpower).

As a guard in college, playing for TCU under Francis Schmidt, Vaught learned valuable lessons about strategy. TCU’s teams were known for offensive innovation in the 1930s. Schmidt, who moved on to Ohio State in 1934, and his successor Dutch Meyer, ran numerous variations of the single and double wings as well as the spread. Often throwing the ball 30-40 times a game in an age when 150 attempts a season was a lot, TCU confused and out strategized bigger opponents. None of this was lost on Vaught, who despite not being large even by contemporary standards led TCU's line for several seasons. In 1932 every starting TCU lineman won all-Southwest Conference honors.

Vaught worked as a line coach at North Carolina in the late 1930s when the Tar Heels were a national power. He served in the Navy during WWII and took the Mississippi job after the 1946 season. He would never coach anywhere else. The 1946 Rebels had finished a woeful 2-7. One year later Vaught’s first team finished 9-2, went undefeated in conference play and won the SEC for the first time in school history. Vaught brought a new attitude to Oxford. He was serious about football, a thinking coach and a winner. His first act as head coach was to order the state highway department to dig a new practice field in an eight-foot pit. He surrounded the pit with trees and campus cops and went to work. Vaught’s practices were always secret, and with good reason. His flexible strategic approach to offensive planning was, like Schmidt and Meyer at TCU, years ahead of the times. Vaught routinely surprised opponents who looked far more talented on paper.

The most famous example of Vaught’s coaching genius came in November 1969 at Tennessee against Doug Dickey’s undefeated, top-ranked Volunteers. Vaught’s underrated Rebels were 5-3, but had taken all their losses on the road and two of them by a single point each. Junior quarterback Archie Manning had amassed 1,394 yards and 6 TDs on 128 completions in 222 attempts. He had also run for 363 yards on 100 carries with 11 TDs. Despite Manning's impressive stats Tennessee’s all-American linebacker Steve Kiner brashly called Mississippi’s players “mules” in an interview several weeks prior to the season. Tennessee fans, supremely confident in their team, compounded the insult by wearing buttons reading “Archie who?” Someone even found the spare cash to pay for a small plane to fly over Mississippi’s practice field and drop leaflets reading “Archie mud”. Naturally common opinion in Mississippi was that an unknown Vol backer had paid for the stunt, but no one ever claimed credit and at least one Rebel beat writer suspected that Vaught had organized it himself in order to rile up his players.

Vaught knew Tennessee would build their defensive game plan around Manning’s scrambling outside play. He spent the entire week working on inside blocking and went into the November 15th meeting in Jackson prepared to run draw plays with running backs Bo Bowen and Randy Reed. On the Rebels’ first possession Manning led an 82 yard drive in 11 plays for a score, almost entirely on hand-offs. Just as Vaught predicted, Tennessee loaded the edges of the line. The Vols, including an injured Kiner watching from the sideline, reeled as Ole’ Miss ran over them inside. Six Tennessee starters left the game with injuries as a surging Mississippi team romped to a 38-0 win that could easily have been even more lopsided. Locals watched aghast and sheepishly removed their buttons as UT’s national championships hopes went up in flames.

Vaught led Mississippi to 18 bowl games, including 14 straight from 1957 to 1970. He won six Sugar Bowls, was SEC coach of the year six times, and earned three national titles with various polls other than the AP in 1959, 1960 and 1962. Although the great Archie Manning played for Vaught in the late 1960s his best seasons came in the late 1950s and early 60s. All four of his ten win seasons occurred between 1955 and 1962. Only once in that stretch did he win less than nine games. Four of his six Sugar Bowl championships came in those eight seasons. And as good as those fat years were for Vaught, they would have been even better were it not for Paul Dietzel and his LSU Tigers.

Dietzel grew up in Fremont, Ohio. He played one year of college ball at Duke before joining the U.S. Air Force for WWII. He completed his college career after the war as an all-American center at Miami, Ohio before taking assistant coaching jobs at Cincinnati, Kentucky and Army. Dietzel learned from the best in his profession, working for Paul Bryant in Lexington and Earl Blaik at West Point. When a struggling LSU hired Dietzel to his first head coaching job in 1955 the school did not gain a proven commodity, but they knew their man possessed pedigree. Even still, Dietzel’s career in Baton Rouge started slowly.

The Tigers were not the most talented southern outfit and had not fielded truly great teams in several decades. LSU posted losing seasons in 1955 and 1956, before improving to a still underwhelming 5-5 in 1957. Then Dietzel hit upon an idea that changed his fortunes. In 1953 substitution rules had been enacted which effectively restored football to a one platoon game. Coaches attempted to find the best ways around the rules, sharing talent across various units to reduce the drop off between their starters and second string. But no one came up with a more effective method than Dietzel engineered in 1958.

During pre-season drills Dietzel divided his unfancied Tigers into three units. He selected his best eleven men and designated them the first team for both offense and defense. His second eleven he designated the second string offense. For his second string defense Dietzel created a unit from mostly underclassmen and walk-ons which he named “the Chinese bandits”. Despite largely lacking talent and only playing in relief situations to keep the starters fresh, the bandits developed a feisty character, a true espirit de corps and immense popularity. Members of the unit temporarily promoted to the second string in place of injured players asked Dietzel to move them back to the bandits as soon as possible. They performed admirably, blocking punts on several occasions to give the offense prime field position. Their spirit inspired better play out of LSU’s stars, and with a first team back field featuring future Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon that improvement was costly to opponents.

Paul Dietzel and Billy Cannon

Cannon grew up in Baton Rouge and sold peanuts at Tiger stadium as a boy. The all-American prep star had no end of scholarship offers but was only ever going to LSU. The stud lived up to his billing, gaining 512 yards in eight games as a sophomore in 1957, his first varsity season. In 1958 Cannon’s team best 686 yard on 115 carries (5.9 ypc) led LSU to an undefeated 11-0 season crowned with a 7-0 win over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl and an AP national championship. Dietzel came out of nowhere to lead the Tigers to the Promised Land, picking up Football Coaches Association coach of the year honors on the way.

LSU’s success set Cannon up for a Heisman run as a senior. Dietzel’s Tigers went 9-2 in 1959 and after a disappointing 5-4-1 campaign the following year went 10-1 in 1961 with an Orange Bowl win. Dietzel compiled a 46-24-3 record in seven seasons with three bowl appearances, a national title and a Heisman winner for his resume. Of those 24 losses only seven occurred after his first three years. For four seasons Dietzel threatened to establish LSU as a national power, but after his successful 1961 campaign accepted an offer to take over as the head coach at West Point.

Despite his early promise Dietzel never again attained the prominence he enjoyed in Baton Rouge. He was the unfortunate victim of changing winds in college football. In 1961 the service academies were still elite programs and coveted coaching jobs. Army’s Pete Dawkins had claimed the 1958 Heisman Trophy. Navy had two Heisman winners in 1960 and 1963 -Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach. But neither program has earned a Heisman Trophy or so much as flirted with the top of the polls since. Top recruits simply did not want to join the services after the early 1960s. Starved of the best talent Dietzel went a disappointing 21-18-1 in four seasons at West Point. He decided to cut his losses and moved on to a long career at South Carolina, where he compiled a respectable record of 155-119-8 but made only one bowl appearance and never sniffed a national title chase. In retrospect, leaving Baton Rouge was a mistake for Deitzel. As a consequence of the relative obscurity his successive coaching career suffered, one of the better four year spells in SEC coaching history is now largely forgotten. Probably only LSU and South Carolina fans would mention Dietzel in conversations about great SEC coaches. But for four brief and fierce seasons, Paul Dietzel joined Johnny Vaught in ruling southern football.

In the seven seasons that Dietzel and Vaught coached against one another their teams actually met eight times. Back in those days it was not uncommon for the Sugar Bowl to select two SEC teams if they were the best available, so LSU and Ole’ Miss squared off twice in 1959. Vaught edged the series 4-3-1. Between 1958 and 1961 the two coaches won three of four SEC championships. After Dietzel left for Army Vaught won the next two SEC titles outright without too much difficulty. Vaught won the first three head-to-head meetings, but from 1958 Dietzel went 3-1-1 against Ole’ Miss with the one loss coming in the Sugar Bowl.

On October 31st 1959 the undefeated, third ranked Rebels rolled into a hostile Halloween Baton Rouge environment for a night game in Tiger stadium. Waiting for them were Dietzel’s undefeated, top-ranked LSU. The Tigers has not lost since a home date against Mississippi State on November 16th 1957. The week before that game they had dropped a close 12-14 decision in Oxford. Paul Dietzel, Billy Cannon, the Chinese Bandits and every other Tiger did not feel like returning to the habit of losing to Ole’ Miss.

Despite the inhospitable roars of “Go to Hell Ole’ Miss” from 67,000 rabid home fans, a defensive slug-fest developed with the Rebels finding a 3-0 lead before the break. Early in the third quarter that lead disappeared when Cannon padded his Heisman resume with an interception on defense. Later, with ten minutes remaining in the fourth, the game turned on exactly the kind of play that often decide defensive stand-offs. A Rebel punt to the LSU 11 was fielded by who else but Billy Cannon. The all-American back virtually assured himself of a Heisman trophy as he clutched the ball tightly to his chest and deftly held his balance after a near-stumble. A hit a few yards upfield seemed for a split second to have floored him, but Cannon righted himself again, stepped on the gas and ground his way through a crowd of pursuing Rebels before bursting into daylight at the LSU 40-yard line. He tore away to the end zone at top speed to give LSU a 7-3 lead it would eventually hold with a last-minute goalline stand.

Unfortunately, the Tigers went on to lose in Knoxville the following week. That cost Dietzel a second national title as undefeated Syracuse took the AP crown behind the running of future Heisman winner Ernie Davis. The Orangemen went on to beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl while Sugar Bowl selectors took the opportunity to match the nation’s number two and three teams in a Dietzel-Vaught rematch. In the end, it seemed LSU’s magic had dried up. The Rebels won a disappointing affair easily, 21-0.

LSU-Mississippi would not come up in any conversation about great SEC rivalries, and with good reason. After Dietzel left for West Point in 1962 the two programs never again reached national prominence at the same time. The history of the series, which LSU leads 55-38-4, predominantly constitutes long winning streaks by one school or the other. Rarely have the two programs exchanged blows in alternating years for sustained periods. Only for four short seasons did the two schools share the perch a top the SEC. But for those seasons, if for those only, the LSU-Ole’ Miss rivalry attained epic proportions that deserves to be remembered with the conference’s greatest.

The 1956 Heisman Trophy

1956 provided probably the most interesting and controversial Heisman trophy race in college football history. That year more than half-a-dozen players had a legitimate claim and might have taken the prize any other season. This crowded field of worthy candidates virtually guaranteed that any result would leave a bitter taste for some. No single Heisman year more clearly defines the dominating shadow the award casts over college football, both for good and for ill.

In the modern era college football’s premier award has evolved into a media driven runaway-train. Every season begins with one or two clear favorites, decided on publicity power and the record of program he represents as much as individual talent. As of 2008, ten schools have claimed 14 of the last 16 Heisman trophies: Notre Dame, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Miami, Florida and Florida State. These are the schools with the most wins and/or greatest media draw over the last two decades. As Chris Huston will tell you, the Heisman is as much about which school a player represents as it is about the player himself. Things weren’t so different in 1956.

Notre Dame had gone 8-2 in 1955 under second-year head coach Terry Brennan, who despite his youthful age of only 28 reached 17-3 in two seasons. The Domers’ only losses came at the hands of 9-1 Michigan State, then enjoying their golden age under Hugh Dougherty, and on the road at USC. The memorable performances of multi-threat halfback Paul Hornung only added to expectations. As a junior the "Golden Boy" had gone 46 of 103 passing for 743 yards and a 9-10 ratio, in addition to carrying 92 times for 472 (a 5.1 yard average) and 6 TDs. Hornung also kicked 5 PATs and 2 field goals. Heading into the fall of 1956 Hornung had name recognition, impressive stats, played for a winning team expected to improve, and possessed limitless personal appeal. He was boyishly handsome, devilishly cocky and irresistibly talented. But most of all, he played for Notre Dame. Sports writers in the mid-fifties loved the Irish with abandon. So in early September, the Heisman seemed to be Hornung’s to lose.

Hornung competed against probably the largest and most talented crowd of Heisman hopefuls ever. Down in Knoxville, standout Tennessee halfback Johnny Majors led the Vols to an unbeaten regular season on his way to a career total of 2,575 rushing yards. The Vols shocking upset loss to Baylor in the 1957 Sugar Bowl occurred after the voting, in which Majors polled second. Five places behind him, the nation’s leader in total offense, Stanford’s John Brodie, gained only gained enough votes to come in a lowly seventh!

At Oklahoma, the defending national champions and odds-on favorites to repeat, Bud Wilkinson’s amazing winning streak stretched back to September 1953. Halfback Tommy McDonald finished second nationally in touchdowns with 17. His own teammate, OU halfback Clendon Thomas, denied him the national scoring title by a single TD. McDonald finished third in the voting with 973, just ahead of Oklahoma’s All-American center and linebacker Jerry Tubbs. A few of Tubbs’ 724 total votes would easily have made McDonald coach Wilkinson’s second Heisman winner, but Tubbs and McDonald essentially cancelled one another out. No member of the Sooners' 1956 class claimed the Heisman despite having never lost a single collegiate game.

Finishing fifth on the ballot was a senior running back from Syracuse by the name of Jim Brown. The consensus All-American back had carried 128 times in 1955 for 666 yards and 7 TDs. Although these numbers were impressive they proved insufficient to capture the attention of national writers who doubted the credibility of East Coast, Independent football. ‘Cuse could not claim a single championship or bowl win. Their only post-season appearance, the 1953 Cotton Bowl, had resulted in a 61-6 thrashing at the hands of mighty Alabama. If the Irish had pedigree to spare, the Orangemen could hardly buy it. Since taking over as head coach in 1949 Floyd “Ben” Schwartzwalder had only reached a mediocre 35-27-1 in seven seasons -- all while facing opponents the writers viewed with suspicion. Syracuse football had never produced a single household name at any position. In September 1956 the national spotlight rested on the hopeful Irish, the unstoppable winning streak, and the indomitable Tennessee Vols. Few national fans and pundits spared a thought for lowly Syracuse.

Jim Brown forced his way onto the national stage and into Heisman contention in the same way he forced his way into opposition backfields: with a peerless combination of size, brute force, speed, and startling finesse. Brown racked up 986 yards on 158 carries for 13 TDs and a 6.3 yard average. He was also a crushing middle linebacker and, like Hornung, carried most of his team’s place kicking load. At around 230lb Brown was a monster in the age of mostly white-bred one-platoon football. He routinely stiff-armed hopeless tacklers into the turf, but his game cannot rightly be characterized as a mere matter of raw power. Teammates said Brown used only the energy required for the play at hand. He always conserved his strength for the moment of greatest need. Whenever the situation truly demanded a marathon effort, Brown seemed to have an extra gear and would leave tacklers standing.

Somehow the indefatigable Brown also possessed sufficient surplus energy to letter in track and field, basketball and lacrosse. Brown averaged 15 ppg in basketball his sophomore year and 11.5 ppg his junior year. He contributed in multiple track and field events, routinely making the difference between victory and defeat at meets. He lettered four years in lacrosse, topping the national scoring table his senior season and leading Syracuse to a 10-0 record: its first unbeaten campaign since 1922. The most famous incident of Brown’s illustrious collegiate career occured after his football eligibility expired. On a clear May day in 1957 he competed against Colgate in high jump, winning the event before the Orangemen’s final lacrosse fixture against Army. As Brown attempted a change into his pads some teammates, frantically fearing defeat against their arch-rival, found him in the locker room and begged him to contribute in two other events. Brown placed in javelin and discus before leading the lacrosse team to an 8-6 victory with two goals while still wearing his track shorts. The track and field team triumphed by 13, the exact number of points Brown's performances added.

Jim Brown suffered in the Heisman race because he did not play a football game truly in the national spotlight until his final appearance, in the 1957 Cotton Bowl. By that point the trophy had been awarded. Had the Downtown Athletic Club waited until after the bowls (as it still doesn’t but absolutely should), voters would have been impressed as Brown carried Syracuse almost single handedly against a TCU team that ranked as undoubtedly the best opponent the Orangemen faced during his collegiate career.

Led by their own All-American, halfback Jim Swink, the Frogs had dominated the Southwest Conference. TCU’s diversified passing attack proved a handful for the Orangemen. The Horned Frogs scored a touchdown in each quarter, three of them on drives of over 60 yards. Of TCU’s 335 total yards, 202 came on 13 complete team passes of 16. The entire Frog team combined for just 133 rushing yards. Brown made 132 alone in reply. He scored the first three Syracuse touchdowns and ground out much of the yardage on the drive late in the fourth quarter that set up a 27 yard TD pass from Chuck Zimmerman to Jim Ridlon.

On Syracuse's first scoring drive, in the second quarter, Brown kick-started a comeback with a searing run of 24 yards. He added 6, 5, and 18 before a 2 yard plunge across the plane – all coming after he set the drive up with a 30 yard kick return from the end zone. From goal line to goal line Brown accounted for 90 of the 100 yards. The run-focused Orangemen made only 3 of 7 passing for 63 on the day, but one of those completions came on a fullback toss from Brown to Ridlon for 20 yards. Brown also added a kickoff return of 46 yards and attempted all four PATs. His play alone would have earned a hard fought tie had Narcico Mendoza not burst through the line to block his third kick. The two-point conversion did not enter college football until 1958. Given the opportunity Brown would surely have been the odds on favorite to tie the game from three yards inside the final two minutes. As it was, his failed PAT attempt made the difference.

There simply has never been a college athlete like Jim Brown. There never will be again. Yet he finished only fifth in the Heisman voting his senior year. Fifth: for the premier award in the sport at which he excelled more than any other. Surely Brown deserved the Heisman?

In the end Paul Hornung claimed the award – the first player ever to do so without gaining the most first place votes. Hornung polled fewer first place votes than both Johnny Majors and Tommy McDonald. Majors also beat him on second place votes. Brown polled only half of Hornung’s 1,066 total votes, despite gaining only 79 fewer first place votes. Hornung became the only player to claim the Heisman after a losing season. This result still stands out to many as one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in college football history. Even Notre Dame writers acknowledge that the “Golden Boy” hardly deserved the crown.

Steve Delsohn wrote: “Hornung didn’t deserve it. Not with three touchdown passes and 13 interceptions. And not on a 2-8 team. The Heisman should have gone to Jim Brown. The magnificent Syracuse fullback averaged 6.2 yards a carry, gained 986 yards, and scored 14 touchdowns. But, in 1956, Jim Brown had the wrong color skin.”


In response to such assertions it must firstly be noted that Paul Hornung was an outstanding football player. Voters did not simply look for any old character to palm the trophy off onto because Brown was black. On any ordinary Notre Dame team Hornung would have claimed the Heisman in a cake walk. He starred in football, baseball and basketball at Flaget High School in Louisville, setting statewide records and attracting the persistent attention of Bear Bryant, then head coach at the University of Kentucky. Almost sixty years since he graduated, the Kentucky High School Athletics Association still bestows the annual “Paul Hornung Award” on the state’s outstanding football player.

The “Golden Boy” was an extremely versatile player. In addition to attempting the majority of Notre Dame's passes he was a stand-out defensive back and a considerable rusher, gaining 472 yards on 92 carries as a junior. He also featured as a place kicker and punter. He finished second in Heisman voting as a junior. Ohio State’s Howard “Hop-along” Cassidy claimed the prize with an impressive 964 yards rushing and 15 TDs. Cassidy was a great running back. But Hornung was so much more.

After entering the 1956 season as Heisman favorite Hornung amassed 1,337 yards total offense, second highest in the nation. He added 420 yards rushing and 3 TDs to his passing totals. Many feel that his dire passer ratio of 3 TDs to 13 INTs resulted from the graduation of Notre Dame’s entire 1955 receiving core. Hornung was the sole highlight on a woeful Irish team. In his final collegiate game, a gruelling road test at USC which he played with two sprained thumbs, Hornung accounted for 354 yards total offense, including a 95-yard kick off return for a touchdown. Notre Dame lost.

In the mid-fifties, under the leadership of controversial President Father Theodore Martin Hesburgh, the University of Notre Dame deemphasized football for the only time in its history. Hesburgh sought to reestablish the primacy of the school's academic reputation and did so by very publically reducing football scholarships. Those cut backs began to bite in 1956, leaving the Irish numerically thin and relatively talent starved. Irish fans still argue as to how far Hesburgh’s actions really cost their football team, but head coach Terry Brennan and several former Irish coaches were in no doubt. What is absolutely certain is that 1956 was the historical nadir for Irish football. And in that darkest hour only the star of Paul Hornung shone true to the Notre Dame tradition.

Hornung went on to become a hall-of-fame pro star with the Greenbay Packers. He led the NFL in scoring from 1959 to 1961 and was league MVP consecutively in 1960 and 1961. His 19 points in the 1961 NFL championship game remain the individual record. In 9 seasons as a pro he made 66 of 140 field goals (not a bad record for the era), averaged almost 7 yards per pass attempt, and scored 50 rushing TDS with a 4.2 yards per carry mark.

The legendry Vince Lombardi once gave Notre Dame’s “Golden Boy” the highest possible praise, saying:

“Paul Hornung could do more things than any man who ever played this game.”

No doubt several other players hold manifestly justifiable claims to the 1956 Heisman trophy. But whatever can be said about the controversial award, it is impossible to claim that Paul Hornung was catagorically undeserving.

Race did factor into the 1956 Heisman chase, but not in the sense that many commentators believe. It is hard to conclude that the college football establishment was not prepared for a black Heisman winner when only five years later the same voters granted the award to Ernie Davis, the next 'Cuse running back to wear Brown's jersey number. In fact, the racial barriers that most hurt Brown’s chance of earning college football’s top award lay within his own school.

Brown attended Syracuse at the urging of Kenneth Molloy, a prominent alumnus and personal supporter from his hometown of Manhasset, Long Island. Schwartzwalder did not want Brown on his team and only accepted him under pressure from Molloy. Brown did not even have an athletic scholarship his freshman year. Molloy and other local supporters in Manhasset raised money to pay his school fees - a fact Brown only learned later.

Syracuse had already experimented with one black football player. A talented quarterback named Avatus Stone had endured two seasons of dehumanizing treatment before seeking refuge in the Canadian Football League in 1952. Stone was not allowed to eat or room with white teammates. Coaches punished his mistakes disproportionately and forbade him from fraternizing with Caucasian coeds. When Stone protested and reacted with anger, several times striking out physically at coaches and players, he was labeled a troublemaker.

Initially Schwartzwalder told Molloy that he never wanted another black player on his team. They were “too much trouble.” But Brown toughed it out, used his righteous anger to fuel his performances, and played his way onto the team.

Brown faced the same abuse Stone suffered through. He was isolated, ostracized and struggled to rise up the depth chart despite his eminent talent. He saw little playing time as sophomore, entirely because of bigotted animosity from the coaching staff. On several occassion his mentor and ally Roy Simmons, the Syracuse lacrosse coach, talked Brown into staying in school after he resolved to quit.

Under-utilized on a mediocre team, playing as an Eastern Independent for a coach with an unimpressive track record, Brown’s position entering the 1956 season could hardly have contrasted more starkly with that enjoyed by Paul Hornung. Brown had never played in a bowl. He had not earned national attention as a junior, and he did not play for a fashionable team. The 1955 Orangemen had won only five games to Notre Dame's eight.

Then as now, media relations, program prestige and access to the national TV and radio spotlight decided the Heisman trophy race as much as talent. Ernie Davis won the trophy in 1961 not because the intervening years had wrought a massive racial sea-change in America. They hadn’t. Davis won because Brown’s talent and sheer resolve broke the Syracuse coaches. Schwartzwalder started Davis as a sophomore in 1959. The Orangemen rode his running to an 11-0 season, a Cotton Bowl victory over Texas, and the school’s only national title. By his senior year the eventual Heisman winner was a recognized star on a prominent team with an AP championship in the bank.

The reality of how the Heisman trophy winner is largely selected actually makes Hornung’s triumph an important and satisfying record. Once, if only once, a man on a losing team has earned college football’s highest award for recognition of individual talent. The trophy is supposed to acknowledge the single greatest player in the game. Instead, it has increasingly become an award for the designated leader on the nation’s most successful and fashionable team. It grows more unsatisfying every year.

Were I the sole arbitrator of the annual Heisman race, the 2008 trophy would have gone to Todd Reesing, QB of the 7-5 Kansas Jayhawks. He plays at an unfashionable school but his numbers compare favorably to Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow. No player does more with less. Isn’t that what separates individual greats from the herd? And has any player in college football history ever done more with less than Paul Hornung, who in 1956 single-handedly defended the honor and glory of the Notre Dame tradition on the worst Irish team of all time?

When the Downtown Athletic Club of Manhatten first informed John Heisman, one of the great architects and evangelists of the game, of their intent to name an award for the sport’s outstanding player after him, he protested. Heisman did not want to lend his name to anything that singled out one man in a team game. Compare this view of the sport to current media coverage that elevates Tebow so far above the Gators that his image now eclipses an entire university. Heisman no doubt turns in his grave every time an ESPN commentator recounts the tale of Tebow’s tear-jerking postgame press conference following the famous home loss to Ole’ Miss. Just as Heisman warned, the trophy that took his name fails to represent the root of college football's genius. Our sport's premier award has become a mockery and lies in dire need of reform.

Next year, I suggest bestowing it upon the noble and talented leader of a uninspiring sub .500 team.

(Sources: CFB data warehouse; Hornung stats: ESPN Classic on Hornung; Syracuse stats on Brown; Brown’s hoops stats; Mike Freeman, Jim Brown; Steve Delsohn, Talking Irish; SU box score of the Cotton Bowl; http://www.heisman.com/; Vols rush stats; John Devanny, Winners of the Heisman Trophy; Dan Jenkins, Greatest Moments)

Mr Slingin' Samuel Baugh

We lack a definitive, scientific way to determine the best college football player of all time. So, in the interest of fairness and in order to settle a futile dispute, let’s just declare me the final arbiter and agree that it is clearly Sam Baugh.

Baugh died on December 17th, 2008 aged 94. Here in Fort Worth Baugh is a legend and revered local hero. He is also celebrated by those with a good knowledge of NFL history. Any one familiar with his career is in no doubt that his name belongs in any footballing pantheon of national notoriety. In everything he did on the field, Baugh stood out. But off it he was humility incarnate. He never brazenly promoted himself. It even took the providential intervention of the football gods to bring Baugh’s talent to light at all. Growing up in the central Texas town of Temple the odds did not favor him. Clearly the only genuine star on a woeful middle school team, his coach saw nothing to lose in moving him from end to the backfield before he was either old or big enough to be there. Fortunately his father found work with the Santa Fe Railroad and packed the family off to tiny Sweetwater in west Texas. Playing on much better teams Baugh reached the State High School playoffs twice. But it was as an inspired third baseman that he attracted the attention of Texas Christian University’s baseball coach, Dutch Meyer.

Baugh headed to Fort Worth to play baseball in 1933 with many predicting a big league future. Mercifully, the gods intervened again. Francis Schmidt, after quietly putting together impressive football teams that won two Southwest Conference titles in four years, earned an irresistible job offer from Big Ten giant Ohio State. TCU moved Dutch Meyer over to football as Schmidt’s replacement. One of Meyer’s first acts, and either his most farsighted or fortuitous, was to convince Baugh to follow him. Meyer liked Baugh’s arm, his accuracy and his attitude and saw the young athlete as the key to his system. Perhaps Meyer’s love of baseball gave him a unique perspective on football. For whatever reason, he saw potential in the passing game that his peers did not. He instituted a pass-oriented short yardage system not unlike the more recent not-so-revolutionary ‘West Coast offense.’ With Baugh’s prodigious skill at the heart of operations Meyer’s Horned Frog teams went 29-7-2 in his first three seasons, winning the 1936 Sugar Bowl and 1938 Cotton Bowl. Baugh made the Camp All-America team twice and compiled 3,384 yards and 39 touchdowns. Texas Tech routinely posts such numbers today in their non-conference slate vs. Sun Belt scrub teams alone, but in the mid 1930s such stats literally boggled the mind.

Baugh’s career at TCU provided countless highlights, including a national championship effort at the second annual Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, 1936. The Horned Frogs ground out a bruising win over LSU by the spectacularly old-school margin of 3-2 (recently displayed for modern audiences by Auburn and Miss. State). On an oppressively rainy January day Baugh punted the water-logged football 14 times for a 45 yard average. But for all his wins with all their air of herculean perfection, Baugh’s TCU fame remains inextricably tied to a fateful home loss against cross-town rivals SMU on Nov 30th 1935. That day Baugh garnered highly deserved praise in the national press. But when in the end he came up short, showing himself mortal.

With the Great Depression showing no sign of abating, folks in North Texas needed something to cheer about. Regardless of the hard times, around 40,000 found the spare change to buy tickets that by kick-off were selling for the prohibitively princely sum of $1.65. No one doubted the value of their purchase as two star-studded teams presented the best of Southwest Conference football to the nation. With Meyer’s Frogs tied for first in the AP poll and Matt Bell’s Mustangs in fourth, both perfect at 10-0, big names headed to Cowtown from every corner. Fort Worth was then an obscure outpost, barely on the map half a century. The Southwest Conference was in its twentieth season but still languished far behind the Ivy League, Big Ten and Pacific Coast Conference in prestige and media attention. But with a Rose Bowl bid at stake New York Sun sports reporter Grantland Rice, a college football legend in his own right, refused to miss the spectacle. Texas football did not disappoint. Rice called the show: “one of the greatest games ever played in the sixty year history of our nation’s finest college sport.”

Led by SMU’s own All-American half-back Bobby Wilson, the Mustangs jumped out to an early 14-0 lead on 73 and 80 yard drives. TCU quickly pulled themselves out of their early slump. Baugh was far from the only star on the team. All American center Darrell Lester and All Conference back Jimmy Lawrence were only two of the other Frogs earning accolades of their own. But the team had only one undisputed leader and darling. Baugh did everything he could to find the win, throwing for 180 yards and a touchdown on 17 of 44 passes. Drops accounted for 8 of his incompletions. Baugh blamed himself, claiming that he threw too hard in an effort to defeat SMU’s tight coverage. Wilson later magnanimously insisted that his opponent’s passes had been manifestly catchable.

The game winning score came out of punt-formation on a fourth down heave from the TCU 37 yard line with seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. In those days an incomplete pass to the end zone counted for a touchback, so with nothing to lose SMU called pass and Bob Finley lofted the ball down field. In addition to his outstanding offensive play and consistent half-century punting Baugh was also a standout defensive back. He knew the pass was coming and was the closest TCU man to the action when who else but the irrepressible Wilson made a twisting catch, falling backwards over the goal line. The helpless Baugh could only watch aghast. He responded by driving TCU down the field before stalling at the 30. On the ensuing SMU drive Wilson gifted Baugh one last chance by fumbling at the Frog 18. TCU reached the opposing 25 yard line as the clock expired, leaving Baugh within sniffing distance of goal in a crushing 20-14 upset. No. 45 could do many things, but not bend time.

Grantland Rice, with his usual propensity to over-dramatize, captured the game’s frantic final moments, writing that Baugh’s “passing attack was eating up ground when the whistle blew with SMU supporters almost in a panic against the deathly machine gun fire.” Boston Globe writer Bill Cunningham summed up Baugh’s immense talent in a folksier fashion, penning words now immortal to every TCU fan: “Mr. Slingin’ Samuel Baugh can chunk that cabbage. He throws that plaything in all modes and tenses, short or long, high or low, hard or soft.”

Yes sir, Sammy Baugh could do it all; but not that day. Rice and sports writers of his ilk have always looked to make immortals of a few men. In reality, the appeal of our best athletes is surely that they are only men like us. Humility remains Baugh’s noblest and most admirable characteristic.

Baugh played for the Washington Redskins from 1937 until 1952. I won’t sully the pages of this blog with too much pro-football talk - If you want that, see the New York Times obituary – but a brief look at the NFL’s records pages speaks volumes for Baugh’s lasting impact on the game. He ranks first or second in multiple categories including most seasons leading the league in punting, passing, completions, completion percentage, pass attempts, yards gained, and lowest percentage of passes intercepted. He holds the NFL record for average gain per completion in a single game. His career average yards per punt is the NFL’s second highest and his single season average the highest. When the sun sets for its final time Baugh will still be the only player to have thrown four touchdowns and intercepted four passes in the same game (unsurprisingly achieved against the Detroit Lions – 1943). Most impressively, Baugh is the only name that appears consistently on the NFL’s all time record lists predating the 1960s. His athletic accomplishments stand up to rigorous comparison with the best of today’s game. Off the field, he surpassed them all.

Baugh spent years at the top of the professional game in the nation’s capital, but he remained a small town Texan to his core. He spent as much time as possible with his wife and children on their land in Rotan, Texas and retired there to peaceful quietude as soon as his playing days were done. Baugh was no recluse though. He unabashedly expressed due confidence in his ability, for humility is certainly not self deprecation. Probably the two most famous Baugh stories capture this contrast most acutely.

In Baugh's first Redskins practice head Coach Ray Flaherty approached his highly touted QB and said:

“They tell me you’re quite the passer.”

“I reckon I can throw a little bit,” Baugh answered.

“Show me,” Flaherty challenged. “Hit that receiver in the eye.”

Baugh came back like a flash:

“Which eye?”

For all his tongue-in-cheek assuredness, Baugh never demonstrated the self-congratulatory egotism that mars the modern game. He never signed any balls in the end zone with sharpies hidden in his sock for the purpose. He never swaggered, brayed, crowed, or strutted. Baugh did not win the second annual Heisman trophy, probably because the Southwest Conference in 1935 did not command enough national respect. That honor went to Yale end Larry Kelly, a man who notoriously lacked Baugh’s down-home graciousness. Baugh established the SWC as a recognized power, blazing the trail for another Horned Frog, Davey O’Brian, to earn the league’s first Heisman in 1938. Acknowledging Baugh’s accomplishments the SWC invited Baugh to a dinner for all its Heisman winners in 1995, the league’s valedictory year. Asked by Fort Worth Star Telegram writer Whit Canning how he felt sitting beside the likes of Doak Walker, Earl Campbell and Andre Ware, Baugh replied with a wry but serious smile:

“I feel like the bastard at a family reunion.”

Can anyone imagine Terrell Owens saying that?

(Sources: Dan Jenkins, Greatest moments in TCU football history; Fort Worth Star Telegram obit; New York Times obit; NFL.com; Redskins tribute; Boston Globe and New York Sun)