Coaches and the culture of Notre Dame, part 2: "He's running what?!"

During April of 1930 Notre Dame head coach Knute Rockne and would-be senior tackle Frank Leahy spent two bed-ridden weeks side-by-side in the Mayo Clinic. Rockne had missed much of the 1929 season due to several health issues including a leg ailment. Despite Rockne’s partial absence, his finely-tuned and thoroughly prepared team went undefeated and earned his third national championship. Leahy, a three-year letterman, hoped to contribute to a fourth championship as a senior. Unfortunately he badly injured his knee during spring drills, ending his playing career. Leahy was only average in size but always showed an iron will on the field, playing with an aggressive determination that caught the attention of his coaches. His mind for the game certainly impressed Rockne. As the two men convalesced, Leahy questioned his coach on every aspect of the game, picking his brain for knowledge and insight. Recognizing the young prodigy’s passion and latent talent, Rockne named him a student assistant coach the following season — a repeat national championship campaign.

Leahy was enamored of Rockne’s ability as a coach. He well knew the value of his coach’s experienced views on motivation, alumni relations, player management, tactics, and any number of other topics. But Leahy also possessed a self-assured confidence in his own abilities. As he grew into his own coaching career he did not become a slave to the Rockne mystique. Eventually that helped Leahy to be the first of only a handful of Notre Dame coaches to live with any measure of success in Rockne’s shadow.

After graduation Leahy spent a decade as a line coach, first at Georgetown and Michigan State, and at Fordham from 1933 to 1938. Fellow Notre Dame alumnus Jim Crowley [one of the famed four Horsemen] led some great Fordham teams in the later thirties that were noted for their fierce line play. While in New York, Leahy also passed the Rockne coaching torch on to future NFL legend Vince Lombardi, one of his most outstanding linemen. By 1939 Leahy’s resume was strong enough to earn a head coaching position at Boston College. Leahy wasted no time in leading the Eagles to their first ever bowl appearance, a narrow loss in Dallas' Cotton Bowl to Clemson. The following year Leahy's team went a perfect 11-0, claiming a national championship by beating General Robert Neyland’s Tennessee Vols in the Sugar Bowl. Boston College would not win another championship of any form until 2004.

While Leahy was busy leading the Eagles to preeminence in the East, his alma mater was enjoying far less notoriety under eighth-year coach Elmer Layden. Seven successful seasons with an overall win percentage of .724 at sister Catholic school Duquesne seemed to qualify Layden as successor for the disappointing ‘Hunk’ Anderson. His credentials as a noted former Rockne player didn’t hurt, either — Layden was another former horseman. Unlike the unpopular Anderson, Layden was likeable. He maintained good alumni relations and promoted the school’s image tirelessly. He even managed to heal a rift with the University of Michigan over scheduling that had lasted more than twenty years. Perhaps more importantly, Layden gave Notre Dame backers what they expected by continuing Rockne’s offense and offering virtually no innovations of his own.

"Outlined against a blue-grey October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again." Layden is first on the left.

Layden’s approach was hardly a disaster. After his initial 6-3 campaign his teams never lost more than two games in a single year. He stepped down after the 1940 season with a solid .726 win percentage. Layden's teams rarely lost to Notre Dame’s principle rivals [Army, Navy, and USC]. But making few mistakes is, unfortunately, not the right formula for succeeding Rockne. Layden’s tactics were cautious and outdated. While the talent available at Notre Dame and solid execution of fundamentals could carry any Irish team past most of the opponents on their annual slate, good coaching from more innovative opponents caused serious difficulty. In his final season Layden’s team reached 7-0 and earned undeserved acclaim before finally coming unstuck at home against Iowa in mid-November. Even without 1939 Heisman winner Niles Kinnick [who had entered the navy as a pilot] Eddie Anderson out-coached Layden, leading his Hawkeyes to a one-touchdown upset victory. The following week Notre Dame lost 20-0 at Northwestern and Layden began to feel enormous pressure. Finishing the season with a road win at Southern Cal did not prevent university vice-president Father John Cavanaugh from listening to rumbles of discontent emanating from influential ND backers. Immediately following the season Cavanaugh sent Layden’s assistant Chet Grant on a scouting mission to New Orleans.

Grant observed the Boston College Eagles in practice and attended the Sugar Bowl. Despite his position as assistant coach Grant only wanted the best for his alma mater and recommended that Cavanaugh hire Frank Leahy. Knowing it would cost him his own job, Grant reported:

“Boston College out-smarted, out-charged, out-stayed probably the best team in the country in as well-played a game as I ever saw. Boston College showed me things I didn’t think could be done… I became convinced that Leahy is a coach of destiny.”

Grant was right on two counts. He did lose his job when the new staff came in to South Bend, and Leahy was indeed a coach of destiny. His eleven seasons at ND brought in four national championships. Leahy retired after the 1953, utterly exhausted by his frenetic perfectionist approach, with a head-coaching record of 107-13-9. His win percentage of .864 remains second only in the history of college football to the .881 mark of Knute Rockne himself.

Leahy’s first season was an unbeaten campaign blemished only by a scoreless tie with Earl Blaik’s Army Cadets. The gifted, indefatigable and soon-to-be legendry coach gave every indication of his ability to live-up to Rockne’s legacy. Fans, alumni, and boosters voiced their confidence and joy. But that goodwill and the credit earned in an undefeated freshman season garnered seemed to evaporate when word leaked that Leahy intended to sacriligiously discard the ‘Notre Dame Box’ offense the following season. During spring practices Leahy began work on installing the new T-formation, used to great effect by the Chicago Bears in their stunning 73-0 destruction of Sam Baugh’s heavily-favored Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL championship game.

The Box was Rockne’s variation on the “shift” scheme engineered by the original football innovator Amos Alonzo Stagg. The story of the shift reads like a star-studded overview of the early history of football. The system revolved around a series of pre-snap backfield movements decided at the line of scrimmage according to what the offensive signal-caller saw from the defense. Stagg was nothing if not creative. As a leading member of the collegiate game’s rule committee he was quick to embrace the new forward pass in 1906, drawing up a host of new plays to the delight of his University of Chicago coaching staff. Jesse Harper, a young graduate assistant, learned Stagg’s new scheme and took it with him to Notre Dame when he became head coach there in 1913. The game’s East Coast establishment and press were always more conservative than Stagg and remained skeptical toward the forward pass. Harper shattered that conservatism one historic day in Yankee Stadium. He spent his first pre-season in South Bend practicing forward pass plays with his backfield starters. On November 1st 1913 Notre Dame travelled to New York and stunned a highly-rated Army team, winning 35-13 on the strength of several deep passes from Gus Dorais to Knute Rockne. Later as Harper’s assistant Rockne adjusted Stagg’s shift patterns, dropping the halfback a few feet from the line's unbalanced strong-side to a more flexible backfield position. In Rockne’s system the four backs lined up in a square [or 'box'] pattern and could shift quickly to pass or run to either the strong or weak side. This system was complex, requiring excellent coaching and rigorous practice. Notable Irish alums who learned the Box playing for Rockne included Culry Lambeau, the founder and inaugural coach of the Greenbay Packers, and Frank Thomas, the Wallace Wade's heir at the University of Alabama. Thomas coached several greats at Alabama, including the young Paul “Bear” Bryant and his teammate Don Hutson, who set numerous NFL receiving records out of the Box system playing for Lambeau’s Packers.

Rockne’s tactical scheme saw widespread success and was clearly endorsed by some eminent football greats. Little wonder therefore that no one at Notre Dame thought about changing philosophy for more than a decade after his death. Even while complaining of Layden’s increasingly ineffective, predictable and stodgy teams, no one in South Bend seemed to view the system as the problem rather than the man. The truth was that, like all systems, the box offense had a limited lifespan and inevitably good defenses caught up. It took a man possessed of Leahy’s vision and iron will to see that fact and act accordingly.

In the new-fangled T-formation Leahy’s Fighting Irish opened the year with a 7-7 tie at Wisconsin before losing their home-opener to a Georgia Tech team that eventually finished an unimpressive 3-6. Critics willing to double-guess Leahy came out in droves to howl at his foolish audacity in adopting an unproven offense. Backers clamored for a return to “Notre Dame football” and the following week, despite a convincing win over Stanford, Leahy checked into the Mayo Clinic suffering from “extreme nervous tension”.

Naturally Leahy’s critics disappeared after Notre Dame won a national championship the following season. By the time he retired Leahy had cemented an unquestionable legacy of coaching greatness. Furthermore, the T formation had surpassed Glenn “Pop” Warner’s ‘Single Wing’ variation on Stagg’s shift as the most widely used offense system in football. No doubt few if any of Leahy’s conveniently forgetful critics ever publically ate any humble pie.

Following another disappointing 6-6 season in 2009, Notre Dame parted ways with Charlie Weis. They replaced him with Brian Kelly, erstwhile head coach of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Kelly is an unapologetic devotee of pass-first variations of the spread offense. Recent Notre Dame teams have struggled with numerous problems, but among the more prominent and painful to watch has been an embarrassing inability to run the football. No small amount of nay-saying skeptics on Irish internet chat-boards — which are rarely noted as gathering places of rational, far-sighted individuals — are asking whether Kelly’s scheme is the best way forward for an offense that already can’t run five yards against Powder Puff defenses.

Pass-first spread offenses aren’t my personal cup of tea, and there are plenty of reasons not to like Kelly's system; but the man's resume isn’t one of them. After two decades as a head coach and two upward moves to higher level jobs Kelly owns a .747 win percentage with an overall record of 171-57-2.

My money is on an Irish revival.

(Sources: Krause, ND's Greatest Coaches; Clary, Great College Football Coaches; Sperber, Shake Down the Thunder)

Coaches and the culture of Notre Dame, part one: "you're fired!"

When Knute Rockne took over as head football coach at Notre Dame in 1918 the Fighting Irish were a non-entity compared to the more prominent Western [Big Ten] Conference programs of the region's Protestant-controlled state universities. The league would not permit a Catholic school to join, and often its members would not even play Notre Dame. Until the tenure of Rockne’s immediate predecessor Jesse Harper, no coach had served more than three seasons or twenty games. Notre Dame had a football team, not a program. By the time of his untimely death in March 1931 Rockne had solved Notre Dame’s scheduling problems, built a new stadium, developed a lucrative national fan-base, created a lasting ‘brand’ image, and won 105 football games. He had given the men of South Bend a taste for success and set the bar of achievement very high. So high, in fact, that no division one coach has surpassed his .881 career winning percentage in going-on eighty years.

Rockne inherited many problems when he assumed his role as Notre Dame football coach and athletic director. He left an entirely different set behind him. One of them, every single one of his successors has grappled with every single day on the job: the pressure of sustaining a winning tradition. “Success breeds success” is an old platitude that carries some truth. Even truer is that success breeds the demand for success. At Notre Dame it has also bred a rather unpleasant culture of ousting unsuccessful Rockne successors.

Everyone knew following Rockne would be a nearly impossible task. The man had become a larger-than-life figure, admired and adored nationally. When university president Father Hugh O’Donnell asked Jesse Harper to return to South Bend he consented only to assume the role of athletics director, steering clear of any coaching responsibility. Regardless of the obvious pressures there were several candidates understood to be interested in the job. Some already had head coaching experience elsewhere, but the Notre Dame priests were as insular and snobby in 1918 as they can be today. Frank Thomas was overlooked because Alabama was considered a backwater, insufficient to prepare a coach for Midwestern football. That was surely a mistake.

In the end the job fell to Heartley “Hunk” Anderson, Rockne’s assistant. Hunk had played as a lineman on Rockne’s earliest ND teams, though somewhat undersized at 170lb – even for 1918. A five sport letterman, Anderson was extremely athletic and very talented. Hunk came to Indiana from Michigan because of a hometown friendship with the now legendary George Gipp. His years as a player were the first great era of Irish football, the school lost only two games in his four seasons. He went on to play several years with the Chicago Bears before returning to South Bend as an initially unpaid assistant coach in 1927. Hunk had passion, commitment, a desire to win, a love of the game, and no end of athletic aptitude. He was not at all a poor choice as head coach, at least on paper. Unfortunately he lacked Rockne’s affable charm – but then, who doesn’t?

Rockne had insisted upon complete control of the athletics department, books and all. He could always find grant-in-aid scholarships for his players and maintained a large roster. When Anderson assumed the role Notre Dame Vice-president Father Michael Muclaire made clear that the new era would be different. The priests would subject athletics programs to complete institutional oversight. Anderson enjoyed the same basic amount of scholarship packages from the school that Rockne had been given. What he failed to do was maintain the network of unofficial booster relationships that Rockne had established to provide off-campus jobs for ND players. That system enabled Rockne to take on more and better players, but on Anderson's watch the gravy-train dried up.

The same bullish lack of charisma that inhibited Anderson's efforts at glad-handing boosters also made him a less capable motivator of players. He had always been the aggressive task master as assistant and filled the role admirably. But a head coaching job requires much more. Managerial skills, media relations, giving players a sympathetic ear, inspiring respect, motivating deeper effort… These roles are not new to modern head coaching culture. Hunk did not change the tactics or philosophy that he and Rockne had successfully employed on the field. He stuck with the famous “box” offense, built around controversial multiple-player pre-snap shifts. Anderson knew this system as well as any living man. He could coach it and had done so. His teams did not lack talent. That showed in the fact that they routinely beat the lesser opponents that Notre Dame teams were supposed to beat. But occasional performances began to lack luster. Inevitably, unacceptable losses followed.

Anderson’s career as head coach opened with a 25-0 romp over a useless Indiana team, but questions were raised the following week when the Irish played out a thoroughly uninspiring 0-0 tie against Northwestern at Soldier Field. Following that performance with four wins over lesser teams failed to convince the most powerful newspapers. After a 20-0 win over a comparatively poor Navy side in Baltimore on November 14th one Eastern journalist complained that:

“A stern and fearless [boxing] fight commission with the honor of the grand old game at heart might suspend them for not trying…”

Notre Dame was then 6-0-1, a good record. Anderson was a first-year head coach. The walking legend who had built the program from nothing had died tragically less than a year previously, leaving the team in shock. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect a little grace? But reasonable and the measure of expectation that comes with being Notre Dame football coach had about as much to do with one another in 1931 as they do today. Hunk received no grace.

The following week USC visited South Bend. A crowd of 52,000 watched Anderson’s team control the first three quarters and reach the forty-five minute mark up 14-0. Early in the final period USC began to build momentum but Anderson, not perceiving the shift, pulled many of his first string players. Under one-platoon substitution rules they could not be returned to the game that quarter. Notre Dame’s best players watched helplessly as the Trojans surged to a 16-14 comeback win, sealed on a scoring drive sustained by a reckless penalty that blew a Notre Dame defensive stand. In the final fifteen minutes the Irish had committed errors, relinquished the ball weakly, been out muscled at the line of scrimmage, and fallen foul of a sucker trick-play. Notre Dame had been out coached. Rockne’s teams lost games, sometimes. But they were never out coached, ever.

The 1931 season finished with a 12-0 road loss at Army. One newspaper reported that Notre Dame had so been so utterly inept on offense that Irish coaches suspected Army of knowing their signals. In fact the play-calling was predictable enough that knowledge of the signals was unnecessary. Whispers of Hunk’s inadequacy began, even after one season with a not unrespectable 6-2-1 finish. Rumors were strong enough for the campus newspaper to openly acknowledge. The Scholastic reported that Hunk would stay on, making a point in Anderson’s favor that would be repeated many times for many coaches in future years, regardless of the argument’s relevance:

“Hunk Anderson is a Notre Dame man.”

By the time the following season began Anderson could feel the weight of expectation resting heavily upon him. Once again the schedule provided very few chances to truly prove Notre Dame’s worth. Three wins over Haskell Institute, Drake, and Carnegie Tech by a combined score of 177-0 meant very little and impressed no one but the ever enthusiastic student body. The seemingly surging Irish came unstuck in their fourth game, at Pittsburg. Two interceptions returned for scores in a single minute gave Pitt a 12-0 lead. They held on and late in the game the Notre Dame offense that had scored so freely against minnows looked frantic and clueless. An AP writer described the “strange” sight:

“A Notre Dame team, its assurance and cohesion absolutely destroyed, passing wildly like a bunch of high school kids in a demoralized effort…”

Newspaper exaggeration and speculation abounded to the point that now Jesse Harper had to explicitly address the situation. He told reporters that Anderson would be coaching at ND the following year:

“The fact that he lost one game is no reason to fire him. We at Notre Dame feel he has done a fine job.”

On the face of things there was every reason to agree with Harper’s statement. The Irish answered the Pitt loss with four wins over Kansas, Northwestern, Navy, and Army, giving up only a single touchdown. The Army win, at Yankee Stadium, was particularly impressive. One newspaper called the display “dazzling”. Notre Dame’s countless New York ‘subway alumni’ were thrilled. But the mood did not last. Again Anderson’s team finished the year on a loss, and a most inopportune one. Two weeks and three-thousand miles of rail travel after beating Army in New York the Irish faced USC in Los Angeles. 93,000 came out to witness a dominating physical display up-front from the Trojans, who won handily 13-0.

Over the year Notre Dame had racked up 540 penalty yards against 245 by their opponents. That was sloppy play, even when they were winning. Anderson couldn’t seem to keep referees on his side. He apparently didn’t care about winning the press over, either. After the USC loss he gave only a single interview to one paper, angering a host of Midwestern beat writers who had travelled 2,000 miles to cover the game. Francis Wallace, an influential writer who had always vocally backed Rockne’s Irish, complained that Notre Dame was “learning to lose.” Four losses in two years were, he said, not acceptable in South Bend.

Going into the 1933 season Notre Dame had never fired a football coach. One might be forgiven for thinking that a man with a record of 13-4-1 could hardly be considered a candidate for setting that precedent. And yet the tension around Anderson was palpable. One prominent Irish-Catholic priest wrote in his widely read column that Notre Dame football was “a spiritual service played for the honor and glory of God and his Blessed Mother.” This magnitude of sentiment did not seem overstated to many Notre Dame backers. So when Hunk prohibited visiting priests from watching pre-season practices without letters of clearance from their bishops, the move naturally created a bitter reaction. Most wondered what of such secretive importance had gone on in those practices when the Irish opened with a pathetic 0-0 tie against Kansas. Notre Dame had won its season opener every previous year since 1901.

Only one game into the season Anderson’s uninspiring personality and his team’s poor play had already turned even the home press against him. The South Bend Tribune editorialized:

“This fellow Anderson may be a coach, but if he is, I’m ready to accept my post as ambassador to China.”

An anonymous open letter signed by “an irate fan” and dated the day after the Kansas game ran in several papers. It began:

“There is no disgrace in failure. There is disgrace in sticking through when one sees that he has not measured up.”

Such audacious, irreverent attacks from ordinary fans were par for the course. Rockne had built his success on making Notre Dame the ultra-accessible, globe-trotting team of the huddled masses. He welcomed the sentiment that poor, uneducated, immigrant Catholics possessed a meaningful sense of ownership in his program. With Rockne as coach that ownership only ever took the form of adulation and vicarious enjoyment of ‘their’ team’s success. Rockne never lived [and likely never would have lived] to see that sense of ownership become a problem. But as so many coaches can confirm, the cheers of the emotionally invested turn very quickly to jeers when results begin to waver.

Results did waver. In 1933 Anderson’s team began losing not only crucial games to good opponents, but many games to mediocre one. Losses to Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, Navy, and disdained in-state step-sister Purdue were unacceptable. As was a third straight loss to Southern Cal. By the season finale in Yankee Stadium vs. 8-0 Army Anderson seemed like a dead man walking. To the surprise of all, ND won a field-position battle on a late, late Army punt that was blocked in the endzone for a touchdown. New university Vice-president Father John O’Hara’s praise of the comeback as “a thrilling exhibition of old-time Notre Dame football” sounds to modern ears like the dreaded Board of Trustees ‘vote of confidence’. The fact remained, 13-12 comeback win or no, that Notre Dame had finished 3-5-1: the school’s first losing season since it had played Michigan three times and lost all three in 1887 – its first year of football.

The following week the university announced that both Harper and Anderson had ‘resigned’. Hunk’s position was untenable and he could not have stayed had he desired to do so. Notre Dame had pushed a football coach out of the door for the first time in its history. The man was an alumnus, a celebrated letterman, a former Rockne assistant, and a childhood friend of George Gipp. Anderson could not have been more of “a Notre Dame man”. More importantly, [if being a ND man is important to coaching in South Bend at all] his record over three seasons was a reasonably respectable 16-9-2.

On November 30th, 2009 Notre Dame fired Charlie Weis after a more generous five seasons and with a far less respectable record of 35-27. The university paid him the ungodly $18,000,000 remaining on his ridiculous contract just to get him out of South Bend. Many harsh words were said by fans, media, and general passers-by regarding Weis’ performance. The disgracefulness of “sticking through when one sees that he has not measured up” was oft commented upon. In stark mockery of the chest-thumping promises made at his 2005 introductory press conference, Weis ended as just the latest in a long line of coaches to learn that it is very, very difficult to succeed Knute Rockne.

Even after eighty years.

(Sources: Murray Sperber, Shake Down the Thunder -- Sperber's book is the exhaustive, definitive, must-read resource for the early history of ND football. It is a peerless achievement.)

It's a funny old game

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

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

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

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



Roll Tide, Stephen.

Horns and Tide take it to the wire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

Clash of the Big Eight titans

Between 1928 and 1940 Nebraska football won nine outright Big Eight championships, six of those coming during Dana X Bible’s eight year tenure as head coach. They did not win another until 1963. In the intervening years Bud Wilkinson turned conference rival Oklahoma into a national juggernaut, going his first eleven years as head coach without losing a single Big Eight game. Up to the time of Wilkinson’s arrival in Norman as assistant to Jim Tatum in 1946 Nebraska held a huge series lead over the Sooners, 16-6-3. The Cornhuskers did not beat OU again until 1959. By the time Bob Devaney became head coach in Lincoln the center of gravity in the series had emphatically shifted with the Sooners winning fifteen of the preceding seventeen. But from that point on, until the Big Eight’s merger with four teams from the old Southwest Conference in 1996, both OU and Nebraska were never far from the business end of college football’s rankings. Their annual clash of titans almost invariably decided the Big Eight champion and often counted for much more. After Oklahoma joined the Big Eight in 1919 the winner of the OU-Nebraska game claimed the conference title a staggering fifty-five times in seventy-six seasons. From 1950 the winner of the game went on to earn a national championship on twelve occasions. No two conference rivals in the college football’s modern era have collectively achieved so much national success.

Dana Bible’s great Nebraska teams largely relied on good coaching of home-state farm boys. In the post-war era as television allowed the game to develop into an inter-regional phenomenon Devaney was able to restore Nebraska’s fortunes by developing national appeal and a recruiting network that spanned a continent. Wilkinson established a legacy in Norman of complete monopoly on in-state talent augmented with cross-border raids of the best Texas High School products. OU and Nebraska football developed into virtual mirror images. Both schools were flagship institutions in sparsely populated, geographically underwhelming football-mad states. Successive coaches at both programs found ways to attract the best players to their quiet towns, enabling them to field technically sound power-running teams characterized by under-stated class. College football evolved from the T and Diamond formations through the wishbone and into the option but one thing never changed. Every year Nebraska and Oklahoma lined up and ran at each other like a head-on train crash. The winner almost always took all.

In 1964 Bob Devaney received a phone call from an ambitious young coach whose three-year NFL career had ended two years earlier. A native Nebraskan and former state prep athlete of the year, Tom Osborne had played his collegiate football at his hometown Hastings College. He talked Devaney into giving him a position as an unpaid graduate assistant and started out coaching receivers in exchange for a dorm room and meals with the team. Osborne possessed a brilliant mind and in addition to pursuing his doctorate in educational psychology impressed Devaney as a coach sufficiently to earn the job as Nebraska offensive coordinator by 1967. Osborne possessed not only obvious tactical genius and profound organizational skills but also a rare personal touch. In 1969 he recruited Johnny Rodgers, a troubled young man from Omaha’s north side who had both been stabbed and shot another boy in the stomach before his sixteenth birthday. As a Nebraska freshman in 1970 Rodgers was involved in a gas station robbery that earned him two years probation. Osborne took responsibility for young man’s development and under his tutelage Rodgers stayed clear of trouble and played well enough to win the 1972 Heisman Trophy. Under Devaney Nebraska won consecutive national championships in 1970 and 1971. Osborne took over as head coach in 1973. The two men had successfully engineered a football revival in Lincoln. Most impressively they had done it without requiring a corresponding drop off in productivity from conference rival Oklahoma. In Devaney’s second championship year Chuck Fairbanks’ OU Sooners finished 2^nd in the final AP poll. The two rivals played out a 35-31 Nebraska win in Norman that is widely considered to be ‘the game of the century’. Between 1970 and 1975 Oklahoma and Nebraska each won two national championships. Only once in those six seasons did either team finish outside the AP top ten [OU’s 20^th place finish in 1970].

The same year Osborne assumed command in Lincoln Oklahoma’s own long-standing assistant moved up to the head job in Norman. Barry Switzer, a cock-sure young Arkansas graduate, took over for Fairbanks who moved to the NFL. He set about installing a version of Darrel Royal’s new 'wishbone' offense and saw immediate success [even despite NCAA sanctions for transcript irregularities dating to Fairbanks’ tenure]. Switzer’s teams smashed national records for offensive output on the ground. His first Sooner team went 10-0-1 finishing in the AP poll behind only Woody Hayes’ Buckeyes and Ara Parseghian’s Fighting Irish. Switzer won his first five meetings with Osborne, including a1975 home date in which the unbeaten, second ranked Huskers suffered a 35-10 humiliation at the hands of a seventh ranked OU squad that had picked up an inexplicable loss to the visiting Kansas Jayhawks the preceding week. Osborne’s first five Nebraska teams were good. They were excellent, in fact. From 1973 to 1977 Nebraska went 4-1 in the post-season, including victories over Texas in the 1974 Cotton and Florida in the 1975 Sugar Bowl. But they were not good enough to beat OU.

When the Sooners travelled to Lincoln for Switzer and Osborne’s sixth meeting as head coaches on November 11^th 1978 they were again ranked number one and standing unbeaten at 9-0. Behind the explosive running of junior halfback Billy Sims, who would claim Oklahoma’s third Heisman Trophy that year, the Sooners led the nation in rushing with a massive 415 yards per game. Overall, the fourth ranked Huskers were even more productive. Despite a 3-point performance in their season opening loss at eventual national champion Alabama, Nebraska was averaging 515 yards total offense and scoring 41.5 points a game. While neither team relied on vertical passing to any great degree the Huskers showed slightly more balance. Operating out of the Sooners' precision wishbone attack quarterback Thomas Lott was averaging less than seventy yards passing. His counterpart Tom Sorley was passing for 175 yards a game, which only helped Nebraska’s own impressive performances on the ground.

Johnny Rodgers, Barry Switzer and Tom Osborne in more recent times

During a joint mid-week press conference Osborne played some public mind-games, intentionally downplaying his team’s chances. He told reporters in Switzer’s hearing:

“We have good running backs. [Rick] Burns or [Isaiah] Hipp could contribute to their team, but we don’t have anyone they even recruited out of High School.”

Burns had been an overlooked running back out of Wichita Falls, while Hipp was a walk-on from rural Chapin, South Carolina. Despite leading his home-town Eagles to two state AA championships and amassing nearly 3,000 career yards Hipp was not recruited by any college due to a shoulder injury he suffered as a senior. As a High School freshman in 1971, Hipp had watched the OU-Nebraska game on television. Despite never having been near the state of Nebraska he decided on the spot that wanted to be like Johnny Rodgers and would only play for the Huskers. Without any prior contact with Osborne Hipp scraped the money together to fly to Lincoln. He enrolled at NU and managed to catch the coaching staff'’s attention in walk-on try outs. He broke out as redshirt sophomore in 1977 with several hundred yard games, including a 77-yard TD against Indiana that is still Nebraska’s longest scoring run. Hipp was typical of Osborne’s Cornhuskers. Nebraska coaches found talent from across the country, and sometimes talent found them. Osborne’s staff improved players as well as any program in the nation. He may have been serious in talking about his team as over-looked, under-talented and generally not good enough for Norman. But Osborne knew his I-formation offenses, alternating lightening tailbacks Hipp and Tim Wurth with bruising fullbacks Burns and Andra Franklin, could rack up points on anybody. Against Nebraska's prolific offense backed up by famed “black-shirt” defense and playing at home, even Barry Switzer’s Sooners would struggle.

Isaiah Moses Hipp, walk-on

Although the matchup pitted the nation’s two leading offenses both coaches predicted a defensive battle. They were exactly right. In typical fashion OU and Nebraska pounded each other at the line of scrimmage all day. Eventually the narrow margin of victory came from a few fumbles caused by the handful of crucial hits that somehow stood out amid a great host of punishing, text-book tackles.

Virtually nothing separated the teams. Nebraska outgained Oklahoma by only twenty-two yards, 361 to 339. OU ran the ball sixty-one times, Nebraska sixty-two. Oklahoma made only thirteen first downs to Nebraska’s eighteen, but as was characteristic of the wishbone the Sooners made longer runs and outgained the Huskers on the ground by nearly eighty yards and 1.5 yards per carry. OU drew first blood, reaching the end zone on their second possession. The Sooners drove twenty-six yards to the Nebraska forty-four before Billy Sims kick-started his monster day by skipping through the line over right tackle, shaking off a Husker defender at the NU thirty-five and disappearing for a score. Sims was on his way to a 153 yard, two touchdown day and for a moment it looked as though Nebraska would be out classed again. The Huskers followed OU’s score with a Berns fumble on his own thirteen yard line. Fortunately for Osborne the blackshirts responded. Nebraska stuffed OU and pushed them back a yard on the first two plays. On third-and-eleven Lott went around left end on a QB keeper only to meet linebacker Lee Kunz at the corner and have the ball mercilessly stripped. Kunz’ points-saving takeaway provided the first in a string of OU turnovers that defined the game.

The wishbone, like any option offense, can chew up plenty of clock and cover a lot of territory – sometimes quickly in big plays. But the system is one dimensional, and never more so than in Switzer’s version. Lott finished the day with telling passing statistics: zero completions on two attempts. Nebraska defenders knew what was coming and brought pressure consistently, flying to the ball. For success, the wishbone requires misdirection, superior blocking schemes, and above all, ball security. On Oklahoma’s next possession Lott led his team to the Nebraska forty-three before a busted pitch out gave up another turnover. The Sooners simply could not afford such mistakes, but they kept coming. OU put the ball on ground nine times and lost it six. Even the irrepressible Sims was not immune. He lost two fumbles, including one at the Nebraska three yard line in the final minutes of the game with only a field goal separating the two sides. After the game a dejected Sims refused to cut himself any slack, telling reporters:

“I just got hit. But it was carelessness, not the hit. I don’t think I played a good game at all.”

Sims did play a good game. Running backs didn’t gain 150 yards with two scores against Nebraska on poor performances. Not with Osborne running the show. Sims lost the ball because of the hit. OU kept losing the ball all day because everywhere they turned there was a Husker waiting with a hit.

Nebraska answered OU’s relentless ground game with slightly more in the way of balance and variety. After the Sooner’s second turnover Nebraska took the ball fifty-seven yards the other way on a drive that including a ten-yard pace run from Hipp, a deep ball from Sorley to receiver Junior Miller, and a sideline flare pass that Burns converted to a first-and-goal at the OU nine. The drive finished with a straight up power run from Burns out of a deep set I. Nebraska had found their rhythm and very nearly scored again seconds before the break after forcing a David Overstreet fumble on Oklahoma’s own twenty-eight. On that occasion the OU defense limited the damage and Nebraska kicker Billy Todd found only the right upright from twenty-one yards. But even with the score tied and the Huskers’ finishing the half on the disappointment of a botched field goal, it was clear which team possessed the momentum.

The second half picked up exactly where the first had left. Overstreet lost a second fumble on exactly the half way line following a crushing hit from Nebraska’s Derrie Nelson. After OU held the Huskers to nothing on two plays Sorley went deep to Miller again, this time for a thirty-three yard gain. The Nebraska quarterback finished the day with a competent 111 yards on 8 of 20 attempts. That was 111 crucial passing yards more than Oklahoma managed. From third-and-ten Nebraska might have let another turnover slip without converting to points, but Osborne’s power-running offense was backed up by just enough aerial proficiency to keep his team on the field. Four plays took Nebraska the remaining distance with Hipp deftly evading tackles on a quick-footed scoring run from eight yards out.

Nebraska had a precious 14-7 lead but Oklahoma answered immediately. The Sooners drove seventy-three yards on the next possession, showing what they might have done had they been able to protect the football more consistently. Sims capped the march with a thirty yard touchdown run, bursting over the right end of the line before reaching the end zone untouched. For once on the afternoon a Sooner back made a big play without taking a hit or having to physically break a tackle. That would be the last time. On a fifty yard march beginning late in third quarter Sorley brought Nebraska back inside the Sooner ten with a first-and-goal before finally settling for another short field goal attempt from Todd. On his second try the Husker specialist finished the job. Nebraska had a three point lead. Ten minutes later when Sims lost the ball for Oklahoma’s sixth and final time after OU had once again ground their way into scoring position, Osborne finally had his win over Switzer.

The two coaches went head-to-head a total of seventeen times with Switzer earning a clear advantage 12-5. Neither man ever coached at another school. Both achieved astounding success despite sharing a tiny conference with an equally weighted powerhouse rival. Switzer coached at OU until 1988going 157-29-4 with two national titles and at least a share of twelve conference championships. Osborne stayed at Nebraska for a quarter century, eventually surpassing even Bud Wilkinson’s Big Eight win tally with a career record of 255-49-3. He earned three national titles and at least a share of thirteen conference championships. As both assistants and head coaches the tenures of Barry Switzer and Tom Osborne provided the golden age of a rivalry that defined college football on the plains of Middle America for more than half a century.

The defining play of the greatest college game ever played

(Sources: SI, Hipp: Wonder walk-on; AP poll archive; cfbdatawarehouse.com; College football’s 25 greatest teams; Great college football coaches; Fort Worth Star-Telegram)