Time to start preparing

Judge Smails · Jun 28, 2013

62 days to go ...

USC in the top 10: From 2002-07, USC appeared in the AP top 10 for 62 consecutive weeks, an FBS record.

The AP College Football National Championship Trophy ... this one is USC's from the 2004 season

In 1997, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was developed to try to unify the poll results by picking two teams for a "real" national championship game. For the first several years the AP Poll factored in the determination of the BCS rankings, along with other factors including the Coaches Poll and computer-based polls.

Because of a series of controversies surrounding the BCS, the AP demanded in December, 2004, that its poll no longer be used in the BCS rankings, and so the 2004-2005 season was the last season that the AP Poll was used for this purpose.

In the 2003 season the BCS system broke down when the final BCS standings ranked the University of Southern California (USC) at #3 while the two human polls in the system had ranked USC at #1. As a result, USC did not play in the BCS' designated national championship game. After defeating another highly ranked team, Michigan, in its final game, the AP Poll kept USC at #1 while the Coaches Poll was contractually obligated to select the winner of the BCS game, Louisiana State University (LSU), as the #1 team. The resulting split national title was the very problem that the BCS was created to solve, and has been widely considered an embarrassment.

In 2004, a new controversy erupted at the end of the season when Auburn and Utah, who both finished the regular season 12-0, were left out of the BCS title game in favor of Oklahoma who also was 12-0 and had won decisively over Colorado in the Big 12 Championship game. USC went on to a win easily over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl while Auburn and Utah both won their bowl games, leaving three undefeated teams at the end of the season.

Also, in that same year, Texas made up late ground on California (Cal) in the BCS standings and as a result grabbed a high-payout, at-large spot in the Rose Bowl. Previous to that poll, Cal had been ranked ahead of Texas in both human polls and the BCS poll. Going into their final game, the Golden Bears were made aware that while margin of victory did not affect computer rankings, it did affect human polls and just eight voters changing their vote could affect the final standings. Both teams won their game that week, but the Texas coach, Mack Brown, had made a public effort to lobby for his team to be moved higher in the ranking. When the human polls were released, Texas remained behind Cal, but it had closed the gap enough so that the BCS poll (which determines placement) placed Texas above Cal, angering both Cal and its conference, the Pac-10. The final poll positions had been unchanged with Cal at #4 AP, #4 coaches, and #6 computers polls and Texas at #6 AP, #5 coaches, and #4 computer polls. The AP Poll voters were caught in the middle because their vote changes were automatically made public, while the votes of the Coaches poll were kept confidential. Although there had been a more substantial shift in the votes of the Coaches Poll, the only clear targets for the ire of fanatical fans were the voters in the AP Poll. While officials from both Cal and the Pac-10 called for the coaches' votes to be made public, the overtures were turned down and did little to solve the problem of AP voters. Cal went on to lose to Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl. Texas defeated Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

Many members of the press who voted in the AP Poll were upset by the fiasco and, at the behest of its members, the AP asked that its poll no longer be used in the BCS rankings. The 2004 season was the last season that the AP Poll was used in the BCS rankings, it was replaced in the BCS equation by the newly created Harris Interactive College Football Poll.

Starting the streak ... NOVEMBER 3, 2002
Palmer passes for 448 yards, 5 TDs vs. Ducks on Oct. 26, 2002

Even though they were trailing at halftime, Carson Palmer and the rest of the Southern California offense were confident of an easy victory over Oregon. The Ducks' defensive vulnerability was easy to spot.
"We knew they couldn't stop us offensively and they didn't stop us offensively,'' Palmer said after the Trojans (No. 16 ESPN/USA Today, No. 15 AP) turned a five-point halftime deficit into a 44-33 victory over Oregon (No. 12 ESPN/USA Today, No. 14 AP).
"The feeling in the locker room was that we were going to blow it out,'' he said. Palmer threw for a career-best 448 yards and matched a school record with five touchdown passes. "I loved every second of it,'' Palmer said. "There's nothing better than playing in this place and beating these guys.''
With an upset loss to Arizona State last Saturday, any aspirations Oregon (6-2, 2-2 Pac-10) had for the Rose Bowl are likely dashed. The Ducks dropped consecutive games at home for the first time since they lost to Washington State and UCLA in 1997. However, Southern California (6-2, 4-1) stays in the conference title hunt for a trip to Pasadena. The Trojans snapped a four-game losing streak against Oregon.
Palmer's five touchdown passes tied Rodney Peete's mark in 1987 against Stanford. Palmer completed 31 of 42 attempts with one interception. Palmer's 448 yards passing broke his own school record. He threw for 411 yards in a loss to the Ducks last season. Freshman receiver Mike Williams caught 13 passes for 226 yards and two touchdowns for the Trojans. It was his fifth straight game with a TD reception.

After the win, USC moved from #15 to #11 and with #9 NC State losing ahead of them during a bye week, the Trojans found themselves at #10 in the Nov. 3, 2002 AP poll.

They would finish 2002 at No. 4 following the Orange Bowl win over Iowa.

After starting the 2003 season at #8, USC moved up to the 3-spot before losing the 3 OT thriller with Cal and falling back to #10 in the Sept. 28 poll. The Trojans would not lose again and were crowned AP National Champions after defeating Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

In 2004, USC went wire-to-wire as No. 1, with #2 Oklahoma creeping close only in the Week 8 - Oct. 14 poll after its 12-0 win over #5 Texas. The Trojans thumped the Sooners in the Orange Bowl.

The 2005 season was nearly a repeat as the Trojans went into the National Championship game having never given up the #1 spot in the AP poll. A loss to Texas in the Rose Bowl, knocked them back to #2.

Despite 2 losses in the 2006, USC never dipped below #9 in the AP Poll, falling at Oregon State as the #2 team (next poll at #9) and dropping the regular-season finale at UCLA again as the #2 team. They played Michigan in the Rose Bowl ranked #7.

USC was preseason No. 1 in 2007 and raced out to 3 easy wins before getting by pesky Washington, 27-24 in Week 4. The next week, USC would fall at home as 41-point favorites to Stanford and drop to #10 in the AP poll.

Ending the streak ... After a narrow win over Arizona the following week, the Trojans fell again to #14 in the Week 8 poll.

Judge Smails · Jun 29, 2013

61 days to go ...

Number of 1,000-yard rushers last season: 61 different players rushed for at least 1,000 yards last season, the most since 2002.

Ka'Deem Carey, Arizona
Started and played in 13 games at running back ... Named to eight All-America teams, including Walter Camp, The Sporting News and the Associated Press, to earn consensus All-America honors from the NCAA ... All-Pac-12 First-Team ... A member of the Maxwell Award Watch List ... College Football Performance Awards National Running Back of the Year ... College Football Performance Awards National Player of the Week and Pac-12 Player of the Week for his performance in the Colorado game ... A four-time Offensive Player of the Week, selected by the Arizona coaching staff ... The nation's leading rusher in yards per game (148.4) and total yards (1,929) ... Broke Trung Canidate's single-season school-record rushing mark of 1,602 yards from 1999 in the first quarter of the Arizona State game on Nov. 23 ... Against Colorado on Nov. 10, he broke the Pac-12 and UA single-game rushing records with 366 yards on the ground ... His 1,929 yards rank No. 5 in Pac-12 single-season history ... Carey's 24 touchdowns (23 rushing and one receiving) ranked No. 5 nationally and No. 1 in the Pac-12 while breaking the Arizona single-season rushing TD school record ... The first Wildcat to register back-to-back 200-plus yard rushing games (366 vs. Colorado, 204 at Utah) and is just the third to have multiple 200-yard games in his career ... Topped 100 yards rushing in 10 games, just a year after the Wildcats broke 100 yards as a team only five times in 12 contests in 2011 ... Finished the season with 2,248 all-purpose yards, falling one yard shy of Dennis Northcutt's single-season school record of 2,249 set in 1999.

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<tbody>[TR="class: ysptblthbody1, bgcolor: #CCCCCC"]
[TD="class: yspdetailttl, align: left"]Name[/TD]
[TD="class: yspdetailttl, align: left"]Team[/TD]
[TD="class: yspdetailttl"]G[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Rush[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg7, bgcolor: #666666"]Yds[/TD]
[TD]Y/G[/TD]
[TD]Avg[/TD]
[TD]TD[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Ka'Deem Carey[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Ariz[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]303[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1929[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]148.4[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.4[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]23[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Stefphon Jefferson[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Nev[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]375[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1883[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]144.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]24[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Montee Ball[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Wis[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]356[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1830[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]130.7[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]22[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Jordan Lynch[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]NIU[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]294[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1815[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]129.6[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]19[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Le'Veon Bell[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]MI St[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]382[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1793[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]137.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]4.7[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Kenjon Barner[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Ore[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]278[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1767[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]135.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.4[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]21[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Johnathan Franklin[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]UCLA[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]282[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1734[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]123.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Antonio Andrews[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]W KY[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]304[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1728[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]132.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.7[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]11[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Beau Blankenship[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Ohio[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]312[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1604[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]123.4[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]15[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Stepfan Taylor[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Stan[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]322[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1530[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]109.3[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]4.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Kerwynn Williams[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]UTSt[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]218[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1512[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]116.3[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]15[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] David Fluellen[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Tol[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]259[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1498[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]124.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Zurlon Tipton[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]CeMI[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]252[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1492[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]114.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]19[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Robbie Rouse[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]FrSt[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]282[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1490[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]114.6[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.3[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Kasey Carrier[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]N Mex[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]255[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1469[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]122.4[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]15[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Adam Muema[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]SDgSt[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]237[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1458[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]112.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]16[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Bishop Sankey[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Wash[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]289[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1439[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]110.7[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]16[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Dri Archer[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]KeSt[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]159[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1429[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]102.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]9.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]16[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Joseph Randle[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]OK St[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]274[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1417[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]109.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Johnny Manziel[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]TAMU[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]201[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1410[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]108.5[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]7.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]21[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Jahwan Edwards[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]BaSt[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]232[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1410[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]108.5[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Todd Gurley[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]UGa[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]222[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1385[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]98.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]17[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Venric Mark[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]N.W.[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]226[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1366[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]105.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] George Winn[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Cinc[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]243[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1334[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]102.6[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.5[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Eddie Lacy[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Ala[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]204[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1322[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]94.4[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.5[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]17[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Trayion Durham[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]KeSt[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]276[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1316[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]94.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]4.8[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]14[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Zach Line[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]SMU[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]277[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1278[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]98.3[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]4.6[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Braxton Miller[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]OH St[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]227[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1271[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]105.9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.6[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]13[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Denard Robinson[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Mich[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]11[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]177[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1266[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]115.1[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]7.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]7[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow2, bgcolor: #F6F7F2"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Cody Getz[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]AFA[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]11[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]198[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1248[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]113.5[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]6.3[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]9[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: ysprow1"]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"] Trent Steelman[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores, align: left"]Army[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]12[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"][/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]241[/TD]
[TD="class: ysptblclbg6, bgcolor: #FFFFCC"]1248[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]104.0[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]5.2[/TD]
[TD="class: yspscores"]17[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Jordan Lynch, Northern Illinois

Antonio Andrews, Western Kentucky (you put your helmet on, when you're chasing me brah!)

Todd Gurley, Georgia

Venric Mark, Northwestern

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1961 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

In the preseason poll released on September 18, 1961, Iowa was the #1, and its Big Ten rival Ohio State #2. SEC teams Alabama and Louisiana State (LSU) were third and fifth, and Texas was fourth. Rounding out the Top Ten were 6.Michigan State 7.Penn State 8.Kansas 9.Mississippi and 10.Syracuse.

October 28
In a week of shutouts, #1 Michigan State beat Indiana 35-0, and #2 Mississippi had an even bigger blowout, 47-0, against Vanderbilt. #3 Texas beat the visiting Rice Owls, 34-7, while #4 Alabama won at Houston over the Cougars, 17-0. #5 Iowa was on the wrong side of scoreless, losing 9-0 at Purdue. The top 4 stayed the same, while #6 Ohio State, which had won at Wisconsin 30-21, took fifth place from Iowa, whom they would play the following Saturday.

November 4
#1 Michigan State fell to unranked Minnesota, 13-0. At the same time, #2 Mississippi lost to #6 LSU 10-7 at Baton Rouge. The #3 Texas Longhorns beat the SMU Mustangs at Dallas, 27-0. #4 Alabama shut out Mississippi State 24-0. At Columbus, #5 Ohio State beat #9 Iowa 29-13. Texas, Alabama and Ohio State moved up from 3, 4 and 5 to 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and giant-killers LSU and Minnesota were 4th and 5th. Michigan State and Ole Miss fell to 6 and 7.

November 11
#1 Texas beat Baylor, 33-7. #2 Alabama crushed the visiting Richmond Spiders (which would be I-AA later) 66-0 at home. #3 Ohio State won 16-7 at Indiana, #4 LSU won 30-0 at North Carolina, and #5 Minnesota handed formerly first place Iowa its second straight loss, at home, 16-9. #6 Michigan State, too, lost its second straight, falling 7-6 at Purdue. The Top Five remained unchanged.

November 18
Texas Christian University had earlier tied Ohio State 6-6 in Columbus, and bested that with a win over #1 Texas in Austin, 6-0. After the 6-0 loss, legendary Texas coach Darrell Royal uttered his immortal description of TCU:

"They're like a bunch of cockroaches," Royal said. "It's not what they eat and tote off, it's what they fall into and mess up that hurts."

#2 Alabama beat Georgia Tech in Birmingham, 10-0. #3 Ohio State defeated visiting Oregon, 22-12, and #4 LSU hosted Mississippi State and won 14-6 #5 Minnesota defeated #7 Purdue, 10-7, at home. Alabama (9-0-0) rose to #1, with Ohio State (7-0-1) at #2. Minnesota rose to #3, LSU stayed at #4 and Texas (8-1-0) fell from #1 to #5.

Post-Thanksgiving (November 25)
#1 Alabama was idle. #2 Ohio State won at Michigan, 50-20. #3 Minnesota narrowly lost to Wisconsin 23-21. #4 LSU crushed visiting Tulane, 62-0, and #5 Texas 25-0 over Texas A & M. Ole Miss, which was idle, returned to the Top Five.

December 2
#1 Alabama won its annual Birmingham game against the Auburn Tigers, 34-0, to close the season with a 10-0-0 record. #5 Mississippi closed its season at 9-1-0 with a 37-7 win against Mississippi State. The AP's final poll was a Top 20 ranking. With 26 of the 48 first place votes the Alabama Crimson Tide was awarded the AP Trophy, ahead of Ohio State (with 20 votes). The point total was even closer, with 16 points separated the Tide from the Buckeyes (452 to 436).

The final poll was: 1.Alabama 2. Ohio State 3. Texas 4.LSU 5.Mississippi 6.Minnesota 7.Colorado 8.Michigan State 9.Arkansas 10.Utah State 11.Missouri 12.Purdue 13.Georgia Tech 14.Syracuse 15.Rutgers 16.UCLA. Arizona, Penn State and Rice were tied for 17th place, followed by 20.Duke.

Unbeaten and tied only once, Ohio State University qualified for the Rose Bowl. In a move that stunned the sports world, however, the University's faculty council voted 28-25 on November 28 not to accept the invitation, declaring that the school's emphasis on sports over academics was excessive. The wire service commented that "A team of 57 Ohio State University faculty members handed the second ranked Buckeyes their only defeat of the season.". The University of Minnesota took the Buckeyes' place at Pasadena.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUGAR BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#1 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]#9 Arkansas Razorbacks[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]COTTON BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#3 Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]#5 Mississippi Rebels[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ORANGE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#4 LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]25[/TD]
[TD]#7 Colorado Buffaloes[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ROSE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#6 Minnesota Gophers[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#16 UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Other bowls:

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]BOWL[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Location[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Winner[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Loser[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUN[/TD]
[TD]El Paso[/TD]
[TD]Villanova 17[/TD]
[TD]Wichita State 9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]GATOR[/TD]
[TD]Jacksonville[/TD]
[TD]Penn State 30[/TD]
[TD]Georgia Tech 15[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]TANGERINE[/TD]
[TD]Orlando[/TD]
[TD]Lamar 21[/TD]
[TD]Middle Tennessee 14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]BLUEBONNET[/TD]
[TD]Houston[/TD]
[TD]Kansas 33[/TD]
[TD]Rice 7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]LIBERTY[/TD]
[TD]Philadelphia[/TD]
[TD]Syracuse 15[/TD]
[TD]Miami (FL) 14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]AVIATION[/TD]
[TD]Dayton[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico 28[/TD]
[TD]W. Michigan 12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]CAMELLIA[/TD]
[TD]Sacramento[/TD]
[TD]Pittsburg St 12[/TD]
[TD]Linfield 7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]GOTHAM[/TD]
[TD]New York[/TD]
[TD]Baylor 24[/TD]
[TD]Utah State 9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]MERCY[/TD]
[TD]Los Angeles[/TD]
[TD]Fresno State 36[/TD]
[TD]Bowling Green 6[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Ernie Davis was the 1961 Heisman winner ... for more on Ernie, go watch THE EXPRESS on Netflix

The Eighth Wonder of the World: Ohio State University’s Rejection of a Rose Bowl Bid in 1961

JAMES E. ODENKIRK†
Department of Kinesiology
Arizona State University

A most unlikely faculty decision took place on the Ohio State University campus in the fall of 1961. The faculty senate voted to reject an invitation for Ohio State’s football team to participate in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1962. This historic action took place because the faculty believed the tail (football) was wagging the dog (academics). This decision was prompted by evidence of infractions by OSU of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) regulations and questionable behavior by football coach Woody Hayes. This adverse publicity portrayed Ohio’s major university as a “football factory.”

Two protagonists met on the battle field, namely Hayes and Jack Fullen, longtime secretary of the Ohio State University Alumni Association. Fullen had been a critic of the overemphasis of football on the OSU campus. It was David versus Goliath. Amidst anger from alumni, Fullen remained in office fighting a losing battle until his retirement in 1967. Hayes retained his popularity on campus by producing winning teams. The action taken by the OSU faculty was truly the “eighth wonder of the world.” One cannot imagine the OSU faculty attempting to reform king football again.

IN AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN 1948, LIFE MAGAZINE PROCLAIMED Columbus, Ohio, as the football capital of America. It is not uncommon to find respectable, well-dressed patrons in a downtown bar discussing the fortunes of their beloved Buckeyes. One customer suddenly blurts out the words, “And then that damn Shakespeare!” This discussion has nothing to do with Elizabethan literature but rather concerns about a football game Ohio State lost to Notre Dame in 1935. Although the Shakespeare mentioned did indeed have the name of William, in reality he was an All-American halfback for Notre Dame, who threw a game-winning pass in the last few seconds of play to defeat the Buckeyes. These men were simply a few “downtown coaches” doing a little second guessing. “Everybody in Columbus has two jobs,” a cynic once remarked, “his own and coaching the Ohio State football team.”

The Rose Bowl has a venerable history dating back to 1902, when Michigan walloped Stanford 49-0 in the first Rose Bowl game. The contest was a great success and netted nearly $4,000. The following year the big Eastern and Midwestern colleges were unwilling to send a team to the West Coast. The Rose Bowl was discontinued for twelve years until the “big game” returned in 1916. Thereafter, the Rose Bowl developed into one of the nation’s premier sporting events.

In the fall of 1961, the scent of roses drifted eastward from Pasadena to Columbus, home of the then ninth largest state university in the country, and to the Buckeyes, one of the nation’s top-ranked football teams. After an opening game tie, the OSU team, coached by the volatile Wayne “Woody” Hayes, bowled over all of their opponents, including University of California at Los Angeles, the eventual opponent for the 1962 Rose Bowl game. Only hated Michigan remained to be played. On November 25, OSU clobbered the Wolverines 50-20. Back in Columbus the citizenry came down with rose fever. The following day, OSU athletic director Richard Larkins received a call from Tom Hamilton, commissioner of the Athletic Association of Western Universities (forerunner of the PacTen). Would OSU play UCLA in the Rose Bowl game? Ohio State was given three days to respond.

As this scenario unfolded, it is important to identify several key players: the wellknown Novice G. Fawcett, newly appointed president of the university, whom the faculty and student body seemed to like; Woody Hayes, now in his eleventh year as head coach, who had established himself as a winning coach after several tumultuous years; alumni secretary, Jack Fullen, who was volatile and outspoken much like Hayes and a major nemesis to big-time college football; the Wolfe brothers, influential publishers of the Columbus Dispatch, the most powerful newspaper in Columbus; and the fifty-seven-member faculty council, of whom Professor Bruce Bennett, one of the pioneers of the North American Society of Sport History (NASSH), was a member. On the periphery were students, including the football team, the OSU Board of Trustees, alumni, and frenzied Buckeye fans. Without a doubt, the most important body in this situation was the faculty council.

Within faculty circles, the question of whether Ohio State should participate in the Rose Bowl had been festering for several years. Faculty members questioned the commercial aspects of big-time football. They were concerned that OSU football overshadowed the university’s reputation as a center of learning. To many, the Rose Bowl contributed to an overemphasis in athletics. Ohio State utilized the quarter system, making it difficult for Rose Bowl-bound students to attend classes by January 2. The Buckeyes had gone to the Rose Bowl in 1948, 1955, and 1958. In 1958 the Pacific Coast Conference had dissolved, and five members now formed a new organization, the aforementioned Athletic Association of Western Universities.

Concurrently, Woody Hayes was riding high with winning teams. His baptism in the early fifties had been rocky with mediocre teams and planes flying over Ohio Stadium, reverently known as the “Shoe,” pulling banners which read “Goodbye, Woody.” By 1955, with an undefeated season, a victory over Michigan, and the defeat of USC in the Rose Bowl, the banners now read, “We love you, Woody.” The faculty was not so happy. Under the parsimonious leadership of Governor Frank J. Lausche, Ohio had become one of the stingiest financiers of higher education in the country. Faculty members were leaving, graduate programs lost credibility, and the cry went out that there was money for football players but not for scholars.

The last straw for the faculty occurred in 1955 when a land mine nearly destroyed the Hayes juggernaut. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Hayes divulged that he gave extra money to players in need. This infraction of NCAA rules brought an outcry from the usually docile faculty council. An investigation by Big Ten Commissioner Kenneth L. “Tug” Wilson resulted in OSU being placed on probation for at least a year and barred the football team from playing in the Rose Bowl. The NCAA followed with a ban on all Buckeye athletic teams from postseason competition.

Enter one John “Jack” Fullen, longtime secretary of the OSU Alumni Association. The powerful and outspoken alumni director had been supportive of Hayes during his lean years. Now they became bitter enemies. Fullen, who demonstrated intense loyalty to the scarlet and gray, was livid that his alma mater was receiving so much bad publicity because of the overemphasis on football. The alumni director, who had both friends and enemies, continuously chastised Hayes and the football program. He emerged as a lonely figure in Columbus with his slogan, “The football tail is wagging the college dog.”

The tractable faculty finally decided to take matters into their own hands. In 1955, the council set up a seven-person committee to investigate, study, and make recommendations to the faculty council concerning the conduct of intercollegiate athletics at OSU. While this report was being completed, two important events took place. First, the Big Ten Conference, in the face of increasing abuses of the “jobs for athletes” at OSU and other member institutions, adopted the principle of outright grant-in-aid to athletes, based on a uniform formula for determining financial need. Secondly, President Fawcett immediately took steps to guard against a repetition of abuses in violation of conference and NCAA regulations. A man of integrity, Fawcett walked the tightrope necessary to appease the public over such a controversial issue as intercollegiate athletics.

The faculty council proposals, highlighted in what was known as the Fullington Report, initially made a major impact upon the campus population, extending to downtown Columbus, other Big Ten schools, and Western Athletic Conference headquarters in Chicago, and among OSU alumni chapters throughout the country. The principal recommendations adopted by the faculty council and approved by the board of trustees formed the basis for intercollegiate athletic policy at Ohio State. The major significance of the Fullington Report took the control of athletics at OSU from the administration and placed it back with the faculty. The impact of this policy, released in November of 1957, was not immediately apparent. The Buckeyes were in the process of clinching the Big Ten championship. The team was invited to play University of Oregon in the 1958 Rose Bowl, and Ohio State University accepted the invitation. OSU’s net proceeds from this
game totaled $15,522.

However, the fall of 1961 was a different story. During the four years since the Fullington Report was adopted, the faculty council had deliberated on several key issues affecting the athletic program. Most previous decisions were overshadowed by a faculty council meeting held on the afternoon of November 28, 1961. Ohio State had again won the Big Ten championship and was tendered an invitation to play UCLA, a team they had already defeated in regular season play, in the 1962 Rose Bowl. The athletic council, led by the honorable athletic director Richard Larkins, forwarded to the faculty council a motion, passed by a six-to-four vote, to accept the invitation to participate in the forthcoming Rose Bowl game.

When the faculty council gathered in the lounge of the faculty club to begin their deliberations, they were totally unprepared for the scene that ensued. The lounge was packed with faculty members, students, reporters, and news photographers. A battery of television cameras and a representative of a local radio station were in the back of the room.

It should be noted that the faculty council was representative in the true sense of the word. Thirteen members represented the administration ex-officio. The remaining fortyfour members were duly elected from numerous campus academic units. The main arguments in favor of participation in the Rose Bowl are familiar: nothing wrong with having a winning football team; participation in the Bowl game would enhance the reputation of the university in the eyes of those who support it; safeguards against commercialism were in place; and athletics did not overshadow the academic mission of the university. Those opposed to the trip to California were uneasy about the public image OSU portrayed as an “athletic factory”; academic disruptions were prominent in the 1958 Rose Bowl excursion; there was concern that Buckeye boosters were really in control of athletic policy; and favoritism toward football players would occur.

After due discussion, President Fawcett called for the vote. There were fifty-three votes cast, with twenty-five yes-votes and twenty-eight no-votes. Ohio State became the first Big Ten School to refuse a Rose Bowl bid. Minnesota eagerly accepted the bid to become the initial Big Ten team to play in two consecutive Rose Bowl games. Previous contracts had prohibited repeat performances.

All forms of exclamatory behavior broke out over this rejection. Pressure was put upon the conservative University Board of Trustees to reverse the faculty council decision. President Fawcett called members of the board. The consensus of the board members determined that they lacked power to act on this matter without jeopardizing the university’s membership in the Big Ten Conference. John W. Bricker, former U.S. senator and chairman of the board, spoke out in opposition to the faculty council decision. Dr. Les Horvath, a former OSU Heisman Trophy winner, was quoted as saying, “The Ohio State faculty are a bunch of jerks.”

Students were outraged and marched to the state capitol, damaging several vehicles on the way. The faculty council, President Fawcett and Jack Fullen were hung in effigy. After two days of demonstrating, football co-captain Mike Ingram angrily addressed the students: “The team did all the damn work,” he yelled through a microphone. “If the [team] can accept the decision, you certainly can. Now go home.” The demonstration ended. The “big bad” Wolfe brothers went into a harangue of yellow journalism. The names and addresses of faculty members who voted “no” or who were thought to have voted “no” were published in the paper. Subsequently, the Dispatch published where selected faculty members had traveled to professional meetings and the financial amount
allotted for their trips. An editorial exhorted, “The disappointment [of accepting a Bowl bid] comes as a finale to one of the finest football seasons . . . in Columbus . . . which has fostered football as one of the finest traditions of academic life and nurtured the facilities which made it possible. Will Ohio State be any better off as a result? Only in the minds of a few narrow, overly sensitive minds, perhaps.” Fullen responded, “More scholarships for journalism students would produce editorial writers who were less gullible.”

As an aside, Bennett, who voted “no” cautioned against hypocrisy. He reminded the faculty that in the previous year the faculty council had voted to accept a $15,000 share of the Rose Bowl receipts, an action he was not proud of and he thought was wrong. He also commented that the University of Missouri, with a fine team, had also rejected a bowl bid.

What about the two major adversaries, Woody Hayes and Jack Fullen? The conflict was now out in the open. It was Goliath versus David. Initially Hayes greeted the news with a disappointed but restrained comment that football was not important enough to cause a schism on campus.20 Hayes later pressed the attack, “I’m going to learn why . . . [Fullen] representing the university has so much power.”

Fullen was on the defensive and put up a good fight. He commented on one good result from this issue:Because of the violence and intensity of the reaction [in Columbus] local writers proudly labeled the Rose Bowl controversy as the biggest story emanating from [the city] in 1961. Story is right. It reads like fiction and as far as real issues were presented, it was. . . . Many more thousands of thoughtful persons are taking another look at the imbalance in . . . Big Time institutions of Higher Learning and Entertainment. Therein lies higher education’s hope. “Know ye the Truth and the Truth shall make ye free” never had a more significant ring than in this deplorable situation.

Continual barbs were exchanged between Fullen and Hayes, two proud individuals. Fullen was steadily losing ground in his quest for a semblance of sanity in the athletic department. Blocking the 1962 Rose Bowl bid had been an attempt to reassert academic priorities at OSU. That the faculty’s action succeeded for so brief a time dramatically pointed out where the real power of the university resided.

In the spring of 1962, Jack Cole, a wealthy Dayton businessman, formed the Committee for the Advancement of OSU. Advancement was defined as “to get rid of Fullen.” Four new positions were open on the alumni’s board of directors. Cole’s committee candidates won all four seats, further diminishing Fullen’s strength. This panzer-like movement became complete in the fall of 1962. Newly-elected faculty council members, with inside support from the athletic department, voted 36-20 to accept the next Rose Bowl bid when invited. The revolt against the football machine was over. The anti-football faction of the faculty was again entombed; its partisans subdued.

Fullen continued to roar, but few people listened. He hung onto his position until his retirement in 1967. A beaten man, Fullen reminisced, “We lost the Rose Bowl battle and we lost the war to scale down the program. . . . The big loser is [the] Ohio State University . . . the sideshow is still the main attraction and the stuff under the tent is of secondary importance.”

The rejection of Ohio State’s participation in the 1962 Rose Bowl is truly the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” It is nearly inconceivable to envision such an occurrence ever taking place on the Ohio State University campus again. In 1961, not counting the Buckeyes, Columbus was home to one professional franchise, a Triple A baseball team. In 2007 Columbus supports three major professional sport franchises. This increase in number of professional teams in Columbus has had little impact, financial or otherwise, upon the athletic program at Ohio State. The Buckeyes are the number one show in Columbus. The frenzy and insanity associated with collegiate football, and especially at Ohio State, has intensified over the last forty-five years. One needs only to have been an observer at
the national championship game in Tempe, Arizona, in 2003 to substantiate this conclusion.

Television and the attendant financial rewards have been an important factor in this increased display of football frenzy. Enlarged stadiums are filled to capacity. Additional numbers of alumni have strengthened loyalty to institutions with a renowned football history. New and additional bowl games have increased the pot of gold. Select and powerful programs struggle mightily to reach the pinnacle of success in collegiate football, the Bowl Championship Series. The naysayers and reputable critics have been shunted to the sidelines where they converse in hushed voices.

Unless one has been present on The Ohio State University campus for a lengthy period of time, it is difficult to convey to outsiders the intense partisanship and indescribable behavior which takes place in Columbus and at OSU each football season. The same may be said for other institutions, particularly in Division I, that have cherished a longstanding football tradition.

The faculty council displayed courage regarding this volatile issue. However, the faculty’s action turned out to be an aberration. King football had destroyed the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”

Judge Smails · Jun 30, 2013

60 days to go ... (just 2 more months, amigos!!)

Bowl appearances for Alabama: The Crimson Tide have appeared in 60 bowl games, the most in FBS history. Bama is 34-22-3 with one vacated victory in those games and has won four straight.

Since the establishment of the team in 1892, Alabama has appeared in 60 bowl games. Included in these games are 31 combined appearances in the traditional "big four" bowl games (the Rose, Sugar, Cotton, and Orange) and 5 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) game appearances, including three victories in the BCS National Championship Game.

Alabama's first bowl game was in 1926, when Wallace Wade led them to the first of three Rose Bowls during his tenure and defeated Washington 20–19. Taking over for Wade following the 1930 season, between 1931 and 1946 Frank Thomas led Alabama to six bowl appearances including three Rose, and one trip each to the Cotton, Orange and Sugar Bowls. After Thomas, Harold Drew led Alabama to the Sugar, Orange and Cotton Bowls between 1947 and 1954.After a five-year bowl absence, Alabama made the first of 24 consecutive bowl appearances under Paul "Bear" Bryant in the 1959 Liberty Bowl. From 1959 to 1982, Bryant led the Crimson Tide to eight Sugar, five Orange, four Cotton, four Liberty, two Bluebonnet and one Gator Bowls.

After Bryant retired, Ray Perkins extended Alabama's consecutive bowl game streak to 25 years with a victory in the 1983 Sun Bowl. However, the streak ended when the 1984 team finished the season with a record of five wins and six losses and failed to qualify for a bowl for the first time in 26 years. The bowl absence lasted only one season as Perkins led the Crimson Tide to wins in both the Aloha and Sun Bowls before he resigned as head coach following the 1986 season. Bill Curry continued the bowl tradition and led the Crimson Tide to Hall of Fame, Sun and Sugar Bowl appearances in his three seasons as head coach. After Curry, Gene Stallings took Alabama to the Fiesta, Blockbuster, Gator, Citrus and Outback Bowls. Stallings also led the Crimson Tide to victory in the first Bowl Coalition national championship game with a 34–13 victory over Miami in the Sugar Bowl. In August 1995, as part of the penalty imposed by the NCAA for rules violations, Alabama was ruled ineligible to participate in the 1995 bowl season.

Following the retirement of Stallings, Mike DuBose was hired as head coach. After failing to qualify for a bowl game in 1997, DuBose led the Crimson Tide to the inaugural Music City Bowl and Alabama's first BCS bowl berth in the Orange Bowl. After again failing to qualify for a bowl in 2000, DuBose was fired and Dennis Franchione was hired as head coach. In his first season, Franchione led Alabama to the Independence Bowl. In February 2002, the NCAA found Alabama violated multiple rules, and as part of its penalty a two-year bowl ban was imposed to include both the 2002 and 2003 seasons. Eligible again to compete in bowl games, Mike Shula led Alabama to the Music City Bowl and a victory in the Cotton Bowl. However in 2009, Alabama was again found to have violated NCAA rules between 2005 and 2007 and as part of their penalty, the 2006 Cotton Bowl Classic victory was officially vacated. In the week following the 2006 loss to Auburn, Shula was fired and Joe Kines served as interim head coach for the Independence Bowl loss.

In January 2007, Nick Saban was hired as head coach, and has led the Crimson Tide to bowl appearances in each of his five seasons at Alabama. After defeating Colorado in the Independence Bowl, Saban led Alabama to their second BCS bowl against Utah in the Sugar Bowl. In 2009, Saban led the Crimson Tide to the BCS National Championship Game, and defeated Texas 37–21 to clinch the program's first national title of the BCS era. A year after Alabama defeated Michigan State in the 2011 Capital One Bowl, the Crimson Tide defeated LSU in the BCS National Championship Game to clinch the program's second national title of the BCS era. The following season, the Crimson Tide won their second consecutive BCS National Championship Game by a final score of 42–14 over Notre Dame. A win in that game brought Alabama's overall bowl record to 34 wins, 22 losses and 3 ties, placing the Crimson Tide in first place among all FBS schools for both bowl appearances and victories.

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[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Head coach[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]1[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rose Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 20–19[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1926[/TD]
[TD]1925[/TD]
[TD]Washington Huskies[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD]50,000[/TD]
[TD]Wallace Wade[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]2[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rose Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFE6"]T 7–7[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1927[/TD]
[TD]1926[/TD]
[TD]Stanford[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]57,417[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Wallace Wade[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]3[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rose Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 24–0[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1931[/TD]
[TD]1930[/TD]
[TD]Washington State Cougars[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD]60,000[/TD]
[TD]Wallace Wade[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]4[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rose Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 29–13[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1935[/TD]
[TD]1934[/TD]
[TD]Stanford Indians[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]84,474[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Frank Thomas[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]5[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rose Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 13–0[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1938[/TD]
[TD]1937[/TD]
[TD]California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]90,000[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Frank Thomas[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]6[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 29–21[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1942[/TD]
[TD]1941[/TD]
[TD]Texas A&M Aggies[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]38,000[/TD]
[TD]Frank Thomas[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]7[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 37–21[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1943[/TD]
[TD]1942[/TD]
[TD]Boston College Eagles[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD]25,166[/TD]
[TD]Frank Thomas[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]8[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 29–26[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1945[/TD]
[TD]1944[/TD]
[TD]Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Stadium[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]72,000[/TD]
[TD]Frank Thomas[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]9[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rose Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 34–14[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1946[/TD]
[TD]1945[/TD]
[TD]USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD]93,000[/TD]
[TD]Frank Thomas[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]10[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 27–7[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1948[/TD]
[TD]1947[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Stadium[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]72,000[/TD]
[TD]Harold Drew[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]11[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 61–6[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1953[/TD]
[TD]1952[/TD]
[TD]Syracuse Orangemen[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]66,280[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Harold Drew[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]12[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 28–6[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1954[/TD]
[TD]1953[/TD]
[TD]Rice Owls[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]75,504[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Harold Drew[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]13[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Liberty Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 7–0[/TD]
[TD]December 19, 1959[/TD]
[TD]1959[/TD]
[TD]Penn State Nittany Lions[/TD]
[TD]Philadelphia Municipal Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Philadelphia[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]36,211[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]14[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bluebonnet Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFE6"]T 3–3[/TD]
[TD]December 17, 1960[/TD]
[TD]1960[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]Rice Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Houston[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #E3E3E3"]68,000[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]15[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 10–3[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1962[/TD]
[TD]1961[/TD]
[TD]Arkansas Razorbacks[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Stadium[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]82,910[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]16[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 17–0[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1963[/TD]
[TD]1962[/TD]
[TD]Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD]72,880[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]17[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 12–7[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1964[/TD]
[TD]1963[/TD]
[TD]Ole Miss Rebels[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Stadium[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]80,785[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]18[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 21–17[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1965[/TD]
[TD]1964[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD]72,647[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]19[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 39–28[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1966[/TD]
[TD]1965[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD]72,214[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]20[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 34–7[/TD]
[TD]January 2, 1967[/TD]
[TD]1966[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Stadium[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]82,000[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]21[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 20–16[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1968[/TD]
[TD]1967[/TD]
[TD]Texas A&M Aggies[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]75,504[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]22[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Gator Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 35–10[/TD]
[TD]December 28, 1968[/TD]
[TD]1968[/TD]
[TD]Missouri Tigers[/TD]
[TD]Gator Bowl Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Jacksonville[/TD]
[TD]68,011[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]23[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Liberty Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 47–33[/TD]
[TD]December 13, 1969[/TD]
[TD]1969[/TD]
[TD]Colorado Buffaloes[/TD]
[TD]Memphis Memorial Stadium[SUP][A 5][/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Memphis[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]50,042[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]24[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bluebonnet Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFE6"]T 24–24[/TD]
[TD]December 31, 1970[/TD]
[TD]1970[/TD]
[TD]Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]Houston Astrodome[/TD]
[TD]Houston[/TD]
[TD]53,829[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]25[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 38–6[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1972[/TD]
[TD]1971[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD]78,151[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]26[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 17–13[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1973[/TD]
[TD]1972[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]72,000[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]27[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 24–23[/TD]
[TD]December 31, 1973[/TD]
[TD]1973[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame Fighting Irish[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Stadium[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #E3E3E3"]85,161[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]28[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 13–11[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1975[/TD]
[TD]1974[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame Fighting Irish[/TD]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami[/TD]
[TD]71,801[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]29[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 13–6[/TD]
[TD]December 31, 1975[/TD]
[TD]1975[/TD]
[TD]Penn State Nittany Lions[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]75,212[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]30[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Liberty Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 36–6[/TD]
[TD]December 20, 1976[/TD]
[TD]1976[/TD]
[TD]UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]Memphis Memorial Stadium[SUP][A 5][/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Memphis[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]52,736[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]31[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 35–6[/TD]
[TD]January 2, 1978[/TD]
[TD]1977[/TD]
[TD]Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]76,811[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]32[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 14–7[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1979[/TD]
[TD]1978[/TD]
[TD]Penn State Nittany Lions[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]76,824[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]33[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 24–9[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1980[/TD]
[TD]1979[/TD]
[TD]Arkansas Razorbacks[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]77,486[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]34[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 30–2[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1981[/TD]
[TD]1980[/TD]
[TD]Baylor Bears[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]74,281[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]35[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 14–12[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1982[/TD]
[TD]1981[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]73,243[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]36[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Liberty Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 21–15[/TD]
[TD]December 29, 1982[/TD]
[TD]1982[/TD]
[TD]Illinois Fighting Illini[/TD]
[TD]Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Memphis[/TD]
[TD]54,123[/TD]
[TD]Bear Bryant[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]37[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sun Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 28–7[/TD]
[TD]December 24, 1983[/TD]
[TD]1983[/TD]
[TD]SMU Mustangs[/TD]
[TD]Sun Bowl Stadium[/TD]
[TD]El Paso[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]41,412[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Ray Perkins[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]38[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Aloha Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 24–3[/TD]
[TD]December 28, 1985[/TD]
[TD]1985[/TD]
[TD]USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]Aloha Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Honolulu[/TD]
[TD]35,183[/TD]
[TD]Ray Perkins[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]39[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sun Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 28–6[/TD]
[TD]December 25, 1986[/TD]
[TD]1986[/TD]
[TD]Washington Huskies[/TD]
[TD]Sun Bowl Stadium[/TD]
[TD]El Paso[/TD]
[TD]48,722[/TD]
[TD]Ray Perkins[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]40[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Hall of Fame Bowl[SUP][A 6][/SUP][/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 28–24[/TD]
[TD]January 2, 1988[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[TD]Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]Tampa Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Tampa[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]60,156[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Bill Curry[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]41[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sun Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 29–28[/TD]
[TD]December 24, 1988[/TD]
[TD]1988[/TD]
[TD]Army Black Knights[/TD]
[TD]Sun Bowl Stadium[/TD]
[TD]El Paso[/TD]
[TD]48,719[/TD]
[TD]Bill Curry[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]42[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 33–25[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1990[/TD]
[TD]1989[/TD]
[TD]Miami Hurricanes[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]77,452[/TD]
[TD]Bill Curry[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]43[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Fiesta Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 34–7[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1991[/TD]
[TD]1990[/TD]
[TD]Louisville Cardinals[/TD]
[TD]Sun Devil Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Tempe[/TD]
[TD]69,098[/TD]
[TD]Gene Stallings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]44[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Blockbuster Bowl[SUP][A 7][/SUP][/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 30–25[/TD]
[TD]December 28, 1991[/TD]
[TD]1991[/TD]
[TD]Colorado Buffaloes[/TD]
[TD]Joe Robbie Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Miami Gardens[/TD]
[TD]52,644[/TD]
[TD]Gene Stallings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]45[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFE6BD, align: center"]Sugar Bowl*[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 34–13[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1993[/TD]
[TD]1992[/TD]
[TD]Miami Hurricanes[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]76,789[/TD]
[TD]Gene Stallings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]46[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Gator Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 24–10[/TD]
[TD]December 31, 1993[/TD]
[TD]1993[/TD]
[TD]North Carolina Tar Heels[/TD]
[TD]Gator Bowl Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Jacksonville[/TD]
[TD]67,205[/TD]
[TD]Gene Stallings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]47[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Citrus Bowl[SUP][A 8][/SUP][/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 24–17[/TD]
[TD]January 2, 1995[/TD]
[TD]1994[/TD]
[TD]Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]Citrus Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Orlando[/TD]
[TD]71,195[/TD]
[TD]Gene Stallings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]48[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Outback Bowl[SUP][A 6][/SUP][/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 17–14[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 1997[/TD]
[TD]1996[/TD]
[TD]Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]Tampa Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Tampa[/TD]
[TD]53,161[/TD]
[TD]Gene Stallings[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]49[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Music City Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 38–7[/TD]
[TD]December 28, 1998[/TD]
[TD]1998[/TD]
[TD]Virginia Tech Hokies[/TD]
[TD]Vanderbilt Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Nashville[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]41,248[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Mike DuBose[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]50[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Orange Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 35–34[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 2000[/TD]
[TD]1999[/TD]
[TD]Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]Pro Player Stadium[SUP][A 9][/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Miami Gardens[/TD]
[TD]70,461[/TD]
[TD]Mike DuBose[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]51[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Independence Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 14–13[/TD]
[TD]December 27, 2001[/TD]
[TD]2001[/TD]
[TD]Iowa State Cyclones[/TD]
[TD]Independence Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Shreveport[/TD]
[TD]45,627[/TD]
[TD]Dennis Franchione[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]52[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Music City Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 20–16[/TD]
[TD]December 31, 2004[/TD]
[TD]2004[/TD]
[TD]Minnesota Golden Gophers[/TD]
[TD]The Coliseum[/TD]
[TD]Nashville[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #D0E7FF"]66,089[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Mike Shula[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]53[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Cotton Bowl Classic[SUP][A 10][/SUP][/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 13–10[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 2006[/TD]
[TD]2005[/TD]
[TD]Texas Tech Red Raiders[/TD]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Dallas[/TD]
[TD]74,222[/TD]
[TD]Mike Shula[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]54[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Independence Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 34–31[/TD]
[TD]December 28, 2006[/TD]
[TD]2006[/TD]
[TD]Oklahoma State Cowboys[/TD]
[TD]Independence Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Shreveport[/TD]
[TD]45,054[/TD]
[TD]Joe Kines[SUP][A 11][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]55[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Independence Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 30–24[/TD]
[TD]December 30, 2007[/TD]
[TD]2007[/TD]
[TD]Colorado Buffaloes[/TD]
[TD]Independence Stadium[/TD]
[TD]Shreveport[/TD]
[TD]47,043[/TD]
[TD]Nick Saban[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]56[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Sugar Bowl[/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFCCCC"]L 31–17[/TD]
[TD]January 2, 2009[/TD]
[TD]2008[/TD]
[TD]Utah Utes[/TD]
[TD]Louisiana Superdome[/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]71,872[/TD]
[TD]Nick Saban[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]57[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFE6BD, align: center"]BCS National Championship Game*[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 37–21[/TD]
[TD]January 7, 2010[/TD]
[TD]2009[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Pasadena[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #E3E3E3"]94,906[SUP]

[/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Nick Saban[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]58[/TD]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Capital One Bowl[SUP][A 8][/SUP][/TH]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 49–7[/TD]
[TD]January 1, 2011[/TD]
[TD]2010[/TD]
[TD]Michigan State Spartans[/TD]
[TD]Citrus Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Orlando[/TD]
[TD]61,519[/TD]
[TD]Nick Saban[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]59[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFE6BD, align: center"]BCS National Championship Game*[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 21–0[/TD]
[TD]January 9, 2012[/TD]
[TD]2011[/TD]
[TD]LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]Mercedes-Benz Superdome[SUP][A 12][/SUP][/TD]
[TD]New Orleans[/TD]
[TD]78,237[/TD]
[TD]Nick Saban[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]60[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #FFE6BD, align: center"]BCS National Championship Game*[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]W 42–14[/TD]
[TD]January 7, 2013[/TD]
[TD]2012[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame Fighting Irish[/TD]
[TD]Sun Life Stadium[SUP][A 9][/SUP][/TD]
[TD]Miami Gardens[/TD]
[TD]80,120[/TD]
[TD]Nick Saban[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Judge Smails · Jul 1, 2013

59 days to go ...

Billy Cannon wins Heisman: LSU HB Billy Cannon won the Heisman Trophy in 1959 and led the Bayou Bengals to the Sugar Bowl. He remains the only Heisman winner in LSU history.

View attachment 31641

Even by modern standards, Billy Cannon was a rare athlete, combining sprinter speed with brute strength ... Cannon could consistently run a 9.5 in the 100-yard dash and, at 6-1, 210 pounds, he had the size to overpower his opponents as well as outrun them ... In 1957, he was an immediate standout as a sophomore, offensively and defensively ... As a junior, Cannon was the driving force behind the Fighting Tigers as they carved out a perfect season and captured the 1958 national championship ... He passed for a touchdown and kicked the extra point in LSU’s 7-0 win over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl, and earned MVP honors ... Cannon’s most memorable performance came in 1959 against Ole Miss ... Top-ranked LSU trailed the third-ranked Rebels 3-0 early in the fourth quarter, when Cannon fielded a punt at the LSU 11-yard-line and broke seven tackles on his way to paydirt ... LSU won the contest 7-3 ... Considered one of the best collegiate backs of his era ...Was awarded the Heisman Trophy at the conclusion of the 1959 season ... He was given virtually every honor that could be bestowed on an individual, including All-America accolades in 1958 and 1959 ... Cannon was considered almost as valuable on defense as he was on offense ... His 89-yard punt return in 1959 against Ole Miss has become a gridiron legend, but few remember that he and Warren Rabb stuffed Ole Miss at the goal line of a fourth and inches to preserve the dramatic 7-3 victory ... A three-year letterwinner for the Tigers (1957-59), he was also a two-time first-team All-SEC selection (1958-59) ... He went on to have a superb nine-year career in the AFL with the Houston Oilers and the Oakland Raiders ... Ended his professional football career in 1970 with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.

2008 Class of the National College Football Hall of Fame
No. 1 Pick in the 1960 AFL Draft (Houston Oilers)
No. 1 Pick in the 1960 NFL Draft (Los Angeles Rams)
1976 Inducted Into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame
1975 Inducted Into the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame
1959 No. 20 Jersey Retired by LSU Football
1959 Heisman Trophy Winner (Downtown Athletic Club of New York)
1959 AP Player of the Year
1959 UPI Player of the Year
1959 The Sporting News Player of the Year
1959 All-American (consensus)
1959 Outstanding College Player (Columbus, Ohio Touchdown Club)
1959 Walter Camp Memorial Trophy (Washington, D.C. TD Club)
1959 College Back of the Year (Los Angeles Times)
1959 AP Back of the Year
1959 UPI Back of the Year
1959 SEC Player of the Year (Nashville Banner)
1959 SEC Player of the Year (Atlanta Touchdown Club)
1958 UPI Player of the Year
1958 The Sporting News Player of the Year
1958 Outstanding College Player (Columbus, Ohio Touchdown Club)
1958 AP Back of the Year
1958 UPI Back of the Year
1958 All-American (consensus)
1958 SEC Player of theYear (Nashville Banner)
1958 SEC Back of the Year (Atlanta Touchdown Club)
1958 SEC Back of the Year (Birmingham Touchdown Club)
1958 All-SEC (AP and UPI)
1958 Louisiana VFW Award (Louisiana outstanding athlete)
1957 Second-Team All-SEC (UPI)
1957 All-SEC Sophomore Team

Judge Smails · Jul 2, 2013

58 days to go ...

Consecutive Miami home wins: Miami, FL won 58 straight games between 1985 and 1994, the longest streak in FBS history.

[video=youtube_share;4RSl-6uEyfc]http://youtu.be/4RSl-6uEyfc[/video]

MIAMI — The Washington Huskies did something Saturday that no team had done since 1985.

They beat the Miami Hurricanes in the Orange Bowl.

Washington scored 22 points in the first five minutes of the second half and rolled past Miami, 38-20, ending the Hurricanes' NCAA record 58-game winning streak at home.

"As you grow up, you recognize UM as one of the finest programs in the country," Washington fullback Richard Thomas said. "If you don't dream about playing here, you dream about beating them."

The Huskies' onslaught began when Thomas caught a screen pass and turned it into a 75-yard score. Touchdowns on Russell Hairston's 34-yard interception return and Robert Sapp's fumble recovery quickly followed.

The sequence, which stunned a crowd of 62,663, erased Miami's 14-3 halftime lead and left the Huskies in command, 25-14.

When the Hurricanes fell behind, they faded. Washington outscored them, 35-6, in the second half and finished with a 12-minute advantage in time of possession.

"I'm really sort of sick," Miami Coach Dennis Erickson said. "I've never been around a game like that, what happened in the second half.

"At the end of the half, I thought we had control of the game. In the second half they dominated the game physically."

No. 17 Washington, a two-touchdown underdog in the matchup of 1991 co-national champions, improved to 2-1. No. 6 Miami is also 2-1.

"How big of a win? Just huge," Washington Coach Jim Lambright said.

"I feel great now, but I'm sure that 10 years from now I'll feel even better," said Washington's Damon Huard, who passed for 217 yards. "It's something I'll remember for the rest of my life."

The Hurricanes' loss was their first game at home since Sept. 7, 1985, when Florida beat them, 35-23. Current and former players involved in the streak maintain a close relationship, and former Miami defensive lineman Mark Caesar was crying on the sideline after the game.

"I'm ashamed," Miami receiver Chris T. Jones said. "I'll have to look the former 'Canes and coaches in the eye and know that my class is known as the class that lost the streak. I'll have to live with that."

Miami's final victory in the streak--against Georgia Southern three weeks ago--broke the record of 57 home victories set by Alabama.

"I guess everything can't go on forever," said Miami's Frank Costa, who passed for 261 yards but also threw two interceptions. "I hate to be the team to lose it. I didn't want to be here when it ended. It really hurts a lot."

Miami lost despite holding running back Napoleon Kaufman in check. The Huskies' senior tailback gained 80 yards in 28 carries and broke Joe Steele's school record for career rushing yards with 3,094.

"They were talking," Kaufman said of the Hurricanes. "They were saying, 'You're not going to get the Heisman against us.' But that's not what it's all about. We won."

Miami gave up no touchdowns in the first 2 1/2 games of the season before Washington struck three times in rapid succession.

On the second play of the third quarter, Thomas took a screen pass from Huard, broke one tackle and went up the middle of the field to score.

"I felt like a swimmer out there," Thomas said. "Every third stroke, I was looking back."

Huard passed to Dave Janoski for a two-point conversion, trimming Miami's lead to 14-11.

Washington went ahead, 18-14, three plays later on cornerback Hairston's 34-yard interception return. Costa's third-down pass was intended for Jammi German, who slipped and fell before the ball arrived, and Hairston--burned earlier for Miami's touchdown--went untouched down the sideline to score.

"The ball was in the air when Jammi fell," Costa said. "There's nobody to blame. It's a funny game. Anybody can beat anybody with plays like that."

German fumbled the ensuing kickoff when hit by Tony Parrish, and Washington's Jerry Jensen recovered. Six plays later, Huard fumbled at the two on third down, but the ball rolled into the end zone and Sapp--a 280-pound tackle--recovered for another touchdown.

"Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong," Erickson said. "It seemed like everything was snowballing."

Only 4:45 had elapsed in the third quarter.

The Hurricanes mounted two long drives in a bid to come back but had to settle for field goals. Dane Prewitt hit from 19, 38, 38 and 25 yards for Miami.
Washington's John Wales made field goals of 47, 29 and 42 yards.

Huard dived into the end zone to score the clincher on a seven-yard run with three minutes left.

"That was the icing on the cake," Huard said. "I could have laid there forever. Dig a grave. It's the greatest feeling I've ever had in my life."

Said Lambright: "We got stronger and stronger. The wonderful thing is that we were playing a team of this caliber, and it didn't come down to the last second."

The Huskies blitzed Costa relentlessly, and he burned the gambling defense for a big play only once. That was a 51-yard scoring pass play to Yatil Green with 13 seconds left in the half.

Costa then went to German for a two-point conversion to give Miami its 14-3 lead.

Below is the list the longest home winning streaks in college football history.
Miami (Florida): 58 games (1985-1994)
Alabama: 57 games (1963-1982)
Harvard: 56 games (1890-1995)
Michigan: 50 games (1901-1907)
Nebraska: 47 games (1991-1998)
Washington: 44 games (1908-1917)
Texas: 42 games (1968-1976)
Notre Dame: 40 games (1907-1918)
Notre Dame: 38 games (1919-1927)
Florida State: 37 games (1992-2001)
Yale: 37 games (1904-1908)
Yale: 37 games (1900-1903)
USC: 36 games (2001-2003)
Marshall: 33 games (1995-2000)
Nebraska: 33 games (1901-1906)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1958 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1958 college football season was notable in that it was the first to feature the two-point conversion. On January 13, 1958, the 11-man NCAA Rules Committee unanimously approved a resolution to allow teams to choose between kicking an extra point after a touchdown, or running or passing from the 3-yard line for 2 points. University of Michigan athletic director Fritz Crisler said at the meeting in Fort Lauderdale, "It's a progressive step which will make football more interesting for the spectators," adding that the rule "will add drama to what has been the dullest, most stupid play in the game."

Louisiana State University (LSU), with a record of 10-0-0, was crowned the national champion at the end of the regular season by both major polls and would go on to win the Sugar Bowl. The Iowa Hawkeyes who won the Rose Bowl were crowned national champions by the Football Writers' Association of America after the bowl games were played.

In the preseason poll released on September 15, 1958, the Buckeyes of Ohio State University were the first place choice for 46 of 99 writers casting votes, followed by Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Michigan State and 1957's champion, Auburn.

Most teams did not begin play until September 27. On September 13, Kentucky beat Hawaii 51-0 in a game in Louisville, and attempted the 2-point conversion, but without success. One of the first successful 2-point conversions in an NCAA game happened when Iowa State Teachers College hosted Bradley University at Cedar Falls, Iowa on September 13. Max Huffman carried the ball over twice on conversion attempts to give the Panthers of Iowa Teachers a 29-12 win over the Braves.

October 25
For the top-ranked teams, a tie was only slightly better than a loss. #1 Army played to a 14-14 tie against the Panthers at Pittsburgh, and #2 Ohio State tied with Wisconsin at home 7-7. #3 LSU beat Florida 10-7, and the win was enough to propel it to first place. #4 Texas lost to the Rice Owls in Houston, 34-7. #5 Auburn beat Maryland at home, 20-7. #7 Iowa, which beat Northwestern 26-20, rose to 2nd in the next poll.

Poll: 1.LSU 2.Iowa 3.Army 4.Auburn 5.Ohio State

November 22
In New Orleans, the #1 LSU Tigers crushed Tulane 62-0, to close their season with a 10-0-0 record. They would face the Clemson Tigers in the Sugar Bowl. Behind them, were the #2 Auburn Tigers, who beat Wake Forest at home 21-7. #3 Army was idle as it prepared for the annual Army-Navy game. #4 Oklahoma crushed Nebraska 40-7. #5 Wisconsin beat Minnesota to close its season at 6-1-1. #6 Iowa, which beat Notre Dame 31-21, returned to the Top 5. 1.LSU 2.Auburn 3.Oklahoma 4.Iowa 5.Army

On November 29 #2 Auburn defeated Alabama 14-8 in Birmingham to finish its season at 9-0-1. #3 Oklahoma won at Oklahoma State 7-0. In Philadelphia, #5 Army beat Navy, 22-6, to finish its season 8-0-1.

The final AP Poll was released on December 1, and the #1 LSU Tigers, at 10-0-0, won the AP Trophy with 130 of the first place votes. The other 73 votes were spread among 12 schools, including Rose Bowl bound #2 Iowa (17), #3 Army (13), #4 Auburn (9), #5 Oklahoma (10), #6 Air Force (2), #7 Wisconsin (13), #8 Ohio State (3), and #9 Syracuse Orangemen. The United States Air Force Academy football team, nicknamed the Falcons, had a 9-0-1 record in only their second year of playing college football, and accepted a bid to face Texas Christian University in the Cotton Bowl.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUGAR BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#1 LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]#12 Clemson Tigers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ROSE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#2 Iowa Hawkeyes[/TD]
[TD]38[/TD]
[TD]#16 California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ORANGE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#5 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#9 Syracuse Orangemen[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]COTTON BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#10 TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[TD]#6 Air Force Falcons[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
Other bowls:
[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]BOWL[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Location[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Winner[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Loser[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUN[/TD]
[TD]El Paso[/TD]
[TD]Wyoming 14[/TD]
[TD]Hardin-Simmons 6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]GATOR[/TD]
[TD]Jacksonville[/TD]
[TD]Mississippi 7[/TD]
[TD]Florida 3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]TANGERINE[/TD]
[TD]Orlando[/TD]
[TD]East Texas State 26[/TD]
[TD]Missouri Valley 7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]BLUEGRASS[/TD]
[TD]Louisville[/TD]
[TD]Oklahoma State 15[/TD]
[TD]Florida State 6[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
Notably, the Tangerine Bowl initially extended a bid to Buffalo. However, when the bowl organizers told the school that its two black players would not be allowed to play, the team unanimously voted to turn down the bid. The Bulls would not appear in a bowl game until the 2008 season.

The UPI conducted a "small college" coaches' poll. In 1958, the first year for the poll, Mississippi Southern (now USM), which had beaten N.C. State and Virginia Tech en route to a 9-0-0 record, was #1 from start to finish, followed by #2 Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), #3 Arizona State College (Flagstaff), #4 Northeastern (Oklahoma), and #5 East Texas State. The third annual NAIA championship game, held in St. Petersburg, Florida, and called the Holiday Bowl, pitted the #4 Northeastern State Redmen against the Lumberjacks of #3 Arizona State College (Flagstaff) (now Northern Arizona University). Northeastern won, 19-13.

All Or Nothing

In 1958, the University of Buffalo football team won eight of nine regular-season games and was awarded the Lambert Cup as the best small-school program in the eastern United States. Team co-captains Nick Bottini and Lou Reale received the trophy during a Sunday night broadcast of "The Ed Sullivan Show" and dined that evening in Manhattan's famous Toots Shor's Restaurant.

Days later, the Bulls were invited to face Florida State in the 13th annual Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla. -- still the school's only bowl bid in 102 years of football.

In anticipation of their trip south, players were measured for new sport coats at The Kleinhans Company in downtown Buffalo. But before fabric for the coats ever was cut, the university learned that the team's two African-American players, starting halfback Willie Evans and reserve defensive end Mike Wilson, were not welcome in Orlando.

The Orlando High School Athletic Association, the Tangerine Bowl Stadium's leaseholder, prohibited blacks and whites from playing together. Despite the protestations of the Orlando Elks Lodge, the bowl game's sponsor, the Bulls would be allowed to participate only if Wilson and Evans did not play.

The university and coach Dick Offenhamer left it to the team to decide whether to accept the bid. The players gathered in a basement room of Clark Gymnasium on the Buffalo campus to take a vote. Bottini and Reale held small paper ballots in their hands, but before they could pass them out, the players spontaneously and unanimously rejected the bid. "We weren't the same team without Willie and Mike," guard Phil Bamford remembers. "Whether they were benchwarmers or stars, we wouldn't have been the same team."

BOUND BY COLLISION
The drill was called "Bull in the Ring." You stood in the middle of a circle of teammates in linebacker position, arms up and fists clenched. Coach called a name and someone came running to hit you. You absorbed the blow. Delivered your own. Then he called another name, maybe someone behind you, and you spun and rushed to combat again. And so it went. A dozen hits -- maybe more -- at a spell.

Your hands stung at first. Your breath came in bursts. Then you settled in. Collisions expected, pain the norm. After a while, the hits became your measure -- of what the other guy had, of what there was in you, what reserve you could draw on for the battles to come. Over time what mattered was that you suffered together. Every man had a turn. And as a season of practices wore on, the drill developed into an oath, a pledge to go all-out and a call for the other guy to do the same.

Ask quarterback Joe Oliverio, now 69, what it means to be part of a team and for starters he will stand up on the balls of his feet, in linebacker position, and describe "Bull in the Ring." He'll recall how the drill was brutal and long, and Coach Offenhamer was relentless. He'll say there were times he wanted to run out of the circle and never look back. He'll also say, with a light in his eyes that belongs to the 19-year-old quarterback he once was, that he wouldn't trade the experience, hit after rattling hit, for anything in the world.

1/11th OF A PRECISE MECHANISM
Buffalo often began its games with Sweep Right 29. The right tackle pushed forward, both guards pulled wide right, the fullback came hard on the outside shoulder of the left guard, the quarterback pitched the ball to the halfback, and the halfback ran around the corner of the line.

Willie would line up in the backfield for Sweep Right 29 just a step deeper, and a half-step farther to the right, than he did on any other play. He was edging toward the corner of the line. He knew the blocks would be there. He knew his guys up front would open a hole. You practiced for this moment. You were one of 11 moving parts, a critical element in a precise mechanism geared to achieve.

It has been 50 years since '58, but the idea of team for Willie begins by pointing to a newspaper photograph in a wood-bound scrapbook he keeps -- a picture of him coming hard right with the ball tucked under his right arm. This play, this feeling, right here, this is football.

REVELATION
"We were aware of what was going on in the country. But there was very little coverage where we were," Oliverio says. "It was absolutely incredible to us to think that another human being could be treated differently for the color of his skin."

Joe was the first in his family to go to college. He came to UB from North Tonawanda, a suburb between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. His parents were first-generation Italian immigrants. Dad worked in the North Tonawanda paper mill. Mom was a homemaker.

Their neighborhood was white, almost all Italian. Most blacks lived in the city. You played against one another in high school, but you didn't know one another, and what you did know you had heard from aunts and uncles and crusty guys at the barbershop -- suspicious words with old ideas and cruel intentions just below the surface.

University life and Bulls football were revelations. Whites and blacks lived, worked and played together. You brought a black friend from the dorms home to dinner with the folks. You ran sprints alongside a black teammate from downtown one night and an Irish farm boy the next, and when one of you tired the other pushed him on. Things felt simple and bright. Connections came easily. You were from the neighborhood, but with each passing day, you felt like a citizen of some bigger place.

LOOKING OUT FOR "LITTLE EVANS"
The men on Purdy Street in downtown Buffalo called him "Little Evans." He was 8 or 9 years old at the time. They were mostly soldiers home from World War II, many of whom had become firemen and police officers, or shop and club owners in Buffalo. They helped look out for him, something his mother and father appreciated, what with nine other kids at home. Checked Willie's schoolwork. Tossed the ball around. Introduced him to politics and to opera. Taught him how to carry himself. Told him anything was possible.

You believed in yourself because they believed in you, because you were never just you but always a part of the community, of the world they had seen out there and were helping to build back here. They sat up on their porches in the evenings, and you felt them watching as you walked past and you knew you had to be something in this life.

Willie bought his first tailored suit in high school -- blue pinstripes, $65 cash -- and became a tailor for a year between graduating high school and entering UB. He wasn't fast, but he cut a straight line. He was good with pockets, with details. He loved the smell of wool wrapped in bolts. A suit was a statement. A man who wore a suit gave a damn, commanded respect. He played basketball and ran track in those days. He came to the University of Buffalo having played only one year of high school football. The first time Offenhamer called for a "dive," he dove headfirst for the ground. As a freshman he played a total of 3 minutes and 41 seconds. This is a number he remembers. Not "three or four minutes," not "barely at all." Three minutes and 41 seconds, the precisely measured distance between being on the outside looking in and being in the thick of things, between settling and wanting more.

THE POWER OF SHARED EXPERIENCES
Long before there was a vote in a cramped room in the basement at Clark Gym, there were scrimmages that lasted until after dark. "We hit each other so hard that games were nothing by comparison," defensive tackle Jack "Bear" Dempsey recalls. "You felt like King Kong out there because you knew the guy on the other side of the line hadn't worked as hard as you'd worked."

There were blocking sessions on "the log" -- a barely padded telephone pole hanging on a chain from an A-frame -- and tackling sessions on a cement-weighted dummy. "Every day you'd sweat, bleed, get beat-up together," halfback Paul Szymendera says. "What he was going through, you were going through."

"We didn't look at the outside," Bamford says. "We lived together and worked together and struggled together, so we saw the inside of each other."
There was an upset of Harvard in the mud and a trip home to find 2,000 fans waiting to welcome them. "I think we started to believe in ourselves that night," Bamford says.

In Week 4, there was a painful loss to Baldwin-Wallace, coached by Jim Tressel's father, Lee. "Woke us up," guard Stan Kowalski remembers. "Didn't play a close game the rest of the way."

There was Kenny Born quick-kicking a ball into the backside of his blocker and Coach running the clip back, over and over again, during the Monday film session. There was the night the Mohawk Airlines pilot came over the loudspeaker on a bumpy flight over Lake Erie to pray for a safe landing: "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name ..."

There was the surreal day Elizabeth Taylor christened the new UB dorms by presenting the team with a bull that her publicist had purchased from a local farmer.
There were times when a buddy needed a lift home after a late night at the Moonglow, when a newbie needed his tie tied straight before training table at the Saturn Club, when you had to steer a guy through physiology homework or persuade a guy not to quit the squad, no matter what that SOB Offenhamer was putting them through.

"That time was the foundation of the rest of my life," says Van Valkenburgh, who later became a high school coach. "I tried to instill that feeling with all the teams I coached."

And there was from the beginning a sense they were building something together, putting Buffalo football on the map. "There were no real stars," halfback Dick Van Valkenburgh says. "There was no first string, no second string. You pulled for each other."

There is no story here without the vote after the Tangerine Bowl bid. The 1958 University of Buffalo Bulls are remarkable because of those few moments in that cramped space when they said that racial prejudice is simply wrong, because while so much of the country was deeply and often violently dedicated to what divides us, they acted on behalf of our fundamental connection.

But the vote didn't define them. It didn't unite them. It testified to who they already were. It was the logical extension of the sacrifices they made for and beside each other, the sum of the routines and anecdotes that made up their lives together.

ABSTRACT RACISM MADE REAL
Joe felt as if he had been hit between the eyes. One minute the Buffalo Evening News is making plans to send a band down to Orlando with the team, the next minute somebody is telling Offenhamer and Buffalo chancellor Clifford Furnas to leave Mike and Willie at home. He couldn't get his mind around it.

Who or what is the Orlando High School Athletic Association? This is 1958, for god sakes -- the modern world. Who thinks this way anymore? He had seen separate white and black drinking fountains in newspaper photos and heard stories of bus boycotts in Alabama, but all that had seemed a world away. Now the abstract idea of racism is real and immediate. Now the victims are people you know. Now the whole of a toxic tradition is sitting on your front porch. First, you feel the heartbreak. Then comes the rage. They judge you and your teammates? They hit you like this? You want to hit them back. You start to think of the association, of the insidious spirit of all of American prejudice, as next week's opponent. You fall back on something the coaches have repeated a thousand times: Take down the man in front of you. Deliver a blow. Everybody does that and we'll be fine.

It was barely a meeting. There was no discussion. Somebody said, "We're not going." Somebody else said, "Damn right." And they stood together, nodded, put their arms around one another the way men do. And then they walked out. And though they had walked in to that room full of hurt and fear and anger, if they'd had to put a word on what they felt in the moments just after the vote, Joe thinks it would have been "love."

NO VOTE NEEDED
Willie doesn't remember the meeting. He must have been there, but he has no memory of it.

He remembers looking at a picture of Emmett Till, his face swollen and bludgeoned beyond belief, in Jet magazine in 1955. (Till, from Chicago, was murdered for the "crime" of flirting with a white woman while visiting Mississippi.) He and some friends from high school huddled around it at the corner store on Ferry Street and saw a teenager just like them, saw a world they wanted nothing to do with. He remembers being harassed by two Buffalo police officers for carrying a miniature souvenir baseball bat when he was a boy of 11 or 12. It was a toy, but they called it "a club." They took him for a ride just to scare him. He remembers his mother, who was born in Mississippi, never wanting to talk about her life before she came north to Buffalo. After he had been drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the early summer of 1960, he remembers a Bills cornerback, an Ole Miss grad, refusing to speak to him or to any of the black players in training camp. He remembers applying for his first job as a physical education teacher and having members of the school board ask him straight out who he thought he was, trying to land a white man's job. He remembers leaving a job in life insurance a few years later and coming back to teaching because the company wouldn't allow blacks to advance to management positions. But he doesn't remember the meeting in the basement of Clark Gymnasium.

You want to keep some things sacred. You don't want to think about some nobody who has never even met you, some ignorant fool clinging to dumb ideas, dictating your time, altering your experience with this team. You appreciate the way your teammates responded in rejecting the bowl bid. You do. You feel that affection and commitment, and it brings you true joy even now. But to hell with the idea that what you had with them had to be put to a vote at all. To hell with the idea that your status, and Mike's, was ever, even for an instant, anything other than integral. You were a football player on a team that went 8-1 in 1958, and 8-1 again the next year. You were a football player on a team that won the Lambert Cup. You wear a replica pin of the trophy on your lapel to every home game. The vote isn't your story. The game you didn't play is nothing next to the games you did play, nothing next to the feeling when the the gun went off and your effort, and the effort of every man on your side, was enough to win.

TOGETHER AGAIN
On Homecoming Weekend last month, the university invited the '58 Bulls back for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the vote. They gathered at midfield and were acknowledged before a sellout crowd. Willie tossed the coin to begin the game. They stood as a group, the sun shining on their faces, some of them wearing their old letterman sweaters.

"We weren't heroes," Dempsey says. "It was just something you did. It was just the right thing."

It was a familiar routine. A number of them had come together on the Friday night before homecoming at a local bar called Brunner's every year since 1960. They never talked about the Tangerine Bowl or the vote. They talked about work -- many of them became coaches after attending UB -- and about retirement now. They talked about their wives and what their kids were up to, and about how the Bills were looking. They wondered what had happened to the teammates, including Mike Wilson, who they could not track down over the years. They reminisced about surviving "the log." They told tales of the Harvard game. They imagined themselves young again. "Everything takes you back. If you're a football player, when were you happiest? You were happiest playing football," Bamford says. "These guys, these are my buddies and my brothers."

When Gordy Bukaty got a tumor, Jack Dempsey took him to the hospital and visited regularly until the day he died. They stood for weddings. They went to one another's parties. They grabbed a beer from time to time. They stayed connected. The ones who moved away wrote letters. The ones who didn't like to write got regular calls from Dempsey. When Joe's wife, Elaine, passed away six years ago, his phone didn't stop ringing. "I was never alone," he says.

THE TEST OF A LIFETIME
Joe's father used to tell him the most valuable thing a man had was his reputation. Once you lose it, you can't get it back. Take pride in what you do, he said. Always ask yourself, what's right?

He was young and his life was just beginning to take shape when they refused the bowl invitation, but he knew he was being tested that day. He knew they all were. The ideas and truths they had come to believe in and live by, the habits by which they conducted themselves, were at stake in that room.

Fifty years later, you wonder whether it made any difference in the world, whether it will matter to anyone now to learn what they did, before the vote and after.

Fifty years later, after you have raised a son and a daughter and been a schoolteacher and football coach for 33 years, you wonder how to describe what it has meant to you.

You wonder, what's the difference between knowing who you are and having no idea at all?

KEEPING THE WISDOM ALIVE
Willie taught in Buffalo area schools for more than 30 years. He coached football, and tennis and swimming, and ran a city parks program for most of that time as well. "Little Evans" became the mentor.

These days, he's an adviser for the university's alumni association, and coach Turner Gill recently asked him to speak to the 2008 Buffalo football team, a squad that is in a position to receive the university's second bowl bid.

You tell them what the men home from the war told you once upon a time. Keep striving. Don't quit. Anything is possible.

You tell them that if they work together they can achieve something special, something that endures.

You tell them about the Bulls of '58.

B.A.R. · Jul 2, 2013

Terrific read about Buffalo.

Lareux · Jul 2, 2013

@CTG_BAR said:
Terrific read about Buffalo.

It sure was. One thing that stood out though...

Days later, the Bulls were invited to face Florida State in the 13th annual Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla. -- still the school's only bowl bid in 102 years of football.

UB did play a bowl game in 2009 at the International Bowl in Toronto against U Conn. The article was written in 2008, the 50th anniversary of "the vote," so they hadn't received the bowl bid when the article was published. Pretty cool that UB got that bowl bid in the 50-year anniversary season of the vote, seems like it was meant to have things come full circle, so to speak.

Again, great story indeed!!

Judge Smails · Jul 3, 2013

57 days to go ...

Sacks allowed by Washington State in 2012: The Washington State Cougars hope to protect the passer better in 2013. Last season, the Cougars allowed 57 sacks, the most of any FBS team and seven more than the second-worst team on the list (Colorado at 50).

20100911__Colorado-California-Football~p1.jpg

NCAA CAREER SACKS LEADERS (since 1980)
[TABLE="width: 542"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD="width: 43"]Rank[/TD]
[TD="width: 44"]REC*[/TD]
[TD="width: 43"]RTC^[/TD]
[TD="width: 144"]Name[/TD]
[TD="width: 127"]School[/TD]
[TD="width: 51"]Sacks[/TD]
[TD="width: 90, colspan: 3, align: center"]Years[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Derrick Thomas[/TD]
[TD]Alabama[/TD]
[TD]52[/TD]
[TD]1985[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1988[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Tedy Bruschi[/TD]
[TD]Arizona[/TD]
[TD]52[/TD]
[TD]1991[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1995[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Billy Jackson[/TD]
[TD]Mississippi State[/TD]
[TD]49[/TD]
[TD]1980[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1983[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Ron Cox*[/TD]
[TD]Fresno State[/TD]
[TD]47.5[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1989[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Bruce Smith[/TD]
[TD]Virginia Tech[/TD]
[TD]46[/TD]
[TD]1981[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1984[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Mitch Donahue*[/TD]
[TD]Wyoming[/TD]
[TD]46[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1990[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Tim Green[/TD]
[TD]Syracuse[/TD]
[TD]45.5[/TD]
[TD]1982[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1985[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Johnny Jackson[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico[/TD]
[TD]44[/TD]
[TD]1981[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1984[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Terrell Suggs[/TD]
[TD]Arizona State[/TD]
[TD]44[/TD]
[TD]2000[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]2002[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Simeon Rice*[/TD]
[TD]Illinois[/TD]
[TD]43[/TD]
[TD]1992[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1995[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Aaron Wallace[/TD]
[TD]Texas A&M[/TD]
[TD]42[/TD]
[TD]1986[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1989[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Shante Carver[/TD]
[TD]Arizona State[/TD]
[TD]41[/TD]
[TD]1990[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1993[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Kiki DeAyala[/TD]
[TD]Texas[/TD]
[TD]40.5[/TD]
[TD]1980[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1982[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Chad Hennings[/TD]
[TD]Air Force[/TD]
[TD]40[/TD]
[TD]1985[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Chris Slade[/TD]
[TD]Virginia[/TD]
[TD]40[/TD]
[TD]1989[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1992[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Jared DeVries*[/TD]
[TD]Iowa[/TD]
[TD]40[/TD]
[TD]1995[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1998[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Daniel Stubbs[/TD]
[TD]Miami (Fl)[/TD]
[TD]39.5[/TD]
[TD]1984[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Roderick Coleman[/TD]
[TD]East Carolina[/TD]
[TD]39[/TD]
[TD]1995[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1998[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Jason Babin[/TD]
[TD]Western Michigan[/TD]
[TD]38[/TD]
[TD]2000[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]2003[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]DeWayne Patterson[/TD]
[TD]Washington State[/TD]
[TD]37.5[/TD]
[TD]1991[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]1994[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Dewayne White[/TD]
[TD]Louisville[/TD]
[TD]37.5[/TD]
[TD]2000[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]2002[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Mathias Kiwanuka[/TD]
[TD]Boston College[/TD]
[TD]37.5[/TD]
[TD]2002[/TD]
[TD]-[/TD]
[TD]2005[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Derrick Thomas (Alabama) lining up against Tennessee's right tackle in the 1998 Third Saturday in October game, a 35-18 Vols win. Thomas was awarded the Butkus Award in 1988 after a season which saw him set an NCAA record 27 sacks along with finishing 10th in Heisman Trophy balloting. He was also selected as a unanimous All-American at the conclusion of the 1988 season, a season which culminated in the Crimson Tide's thrilling 29-28 victory over Army in the 1988 Sun Bowl.

MOST SACKS IN A SEASON (since 1980)
[TABLE="width: 505"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD="width: 44"]Rank[/TD]
[TD="width: 43"]RES*[/TD]
[TD="width: 44"]RTS^[/TD]
[TD="width: 137"]Name[/TD]
[TD="width: 137"]School[/TD]
[TD="width: 49"]Sacks[/TD]
[TD="width: 51"]Year[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Derrick Thomas[/TD]
[TD]Alabama[/TD]
[TD]27[/TD]
[TD]1988[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Ron Cox*[/TD]
[TD]Fresno State[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[TD]1989[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Chad Hennings[/TD]
[TD]Air Force[/TD]
[TD]24[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Terrell Suggs[/TD]
[TD]Arizona State[/TD]
[TD]24[/TD]
[TD]2002[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Kiki DeAyala[/TD]
[TD]Texas[/TD]
[TD]22.5[/TD]
[TD]1982[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Zeke Gadson*[/TD]
[TD]Pittsburgh[/TD]
[TD]22.5[/TD]
[TD]1987[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Bruce Smith[/TD]
[TD]Virginia Tech[/TD]
[TD]22[/TD]
[TD]1983[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Mitch Donahue*[/TD]
[TD]Wyoming[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]1990[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Mark Byers[/TD]
[TD]UNLV[/TD]
[TD]20.5[/TD]
[TD]1994[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Daryl Knox[/TD]
[TD]UNLV[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]1984[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Chris Wing[/TD]
[TD]Boise State[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]1996[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Tom Burke*[/TD]
[TD]Wisconsin[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]1998[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Elvis Dumervil[/TD]
[TD]Louisville[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]2005[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Jethro Franklin*[/TD]
[TD]Fresno State[/TD]
[TD]19.5[/TD]
[TD]1986[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Joe Campbell[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico State[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]1986[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Kevin O'Brien[/TD]
[TD]Bowling Green[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]1992[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Tedy Bruschi[/TD]
[TD]Arizona[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]1993[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Peter Boulware[/TD]
[TD]Florida State[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]1996[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Tim Ryan*[/TD]
[TD]USC[/TD]
[TD]18.5[/TD]
[TD]1989[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Tedy Bruschi[/TD]
[TD]Arizona[/TD]
[TD]18.5[/TD]
[TD]1995[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Lamanzer Williams[/TD]
[TD]Minnesota[/TD]
[TD]18.5[/TD]
[TD]1997[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Steve Foley[/TD]
[TD]UL-Monroe[/TD]
[TD]18.5[/TD]
[TD]1997[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Air Force DL Chad Hennings racked up 24 sacks in his senior season of 1987, and was a unanimous first-team All-American selection received the Stan Bates Award as the conference's top scholar-athlete, earned defensive player of the year honors from the Western Athletic Conference and the Outland Trophy as the nation's top interior lineman.

<center>

Ron Cox, LB, 1987-1989, Fresno State ... 1987 Freshman All-American and a 1989 3rd Team All-American ... intercepted a Boise State desperation pass and ran the ball 58 yards into the endzone during the 1989 California Raisin Bowl ... played eight seasons in the National Football League with the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. He started as middle linebacker for the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXI.

</center>

Judge Smails · Jul 4, 2013

56 days to go ...

Most PPG scored by a team in a season: The 1944 Army team averaged a record 56 points per game. Over a nine-game schedule, Army scored 504 total points, went 9-0 and won the national championship.

Led by head coach Red Blaik, the team finished with a perfect 9–0 season. The Black Knights offense scored 504 points, while the defense allowed 35 points. At the season’s end, the team won the National Championship and RB Glenn Davis won the Maxwell Award. The team captain was Tom Lombardo. In 1950, Lombardo would be killed in action during the Korean War.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Date[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Opponent[SUP]#[/SUP][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rank[SUP]#[/SUP][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Site[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Result[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]September 30[/TD]
[TD]North Carolina[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Michie Stadium • West Point, NY[/TD]
[TD]W 46–0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 7[/TD]
[TD]Brown[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Michie Stadium • West Point, NY[/TD]
[TD]W 59–7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 14[/TD]
[TD]Pittsburgh[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#1[/TD]
[TD]Michie Stadium • West Point, NY[/TD]
[TD]W 69–7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 21[/TD]
[TD]Coast Guard[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#2[/TD]
[TD]Michie Stadium • West Point, NY[/TD]
[TD]W 76–0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 28[/TD]
[TD]Duke[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#2[/TD]
[TD]Polo Grounds • New York, NY[/TD]
[TD]W 27–7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]November 4[/TD]
[TD]Villanova[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#1[/TD]
[TD]Michie Stadium • West Point, NY[/TD]
[TD]W 83–0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]November 11[/TD]
[TD]#5 Notre Dame[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#1[/TD]
[TD]Yankee Stadium • New York, NY (Rivalry)[/TD]
[TD]W 59–0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]November 18[/TD]
[TD]at Penn[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#1[/TD]
[TD]Franklin Field • Philadelphia, PA[/TD]
[TD]W 62–7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]December 2[/TD]
[TD]#4 Navy[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#1[/TD]
[TD]Municipal Stadium • Baltimore, MD (Army–Navy Game)[/TD]
[TD]W 23–7[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

1944 Army-Notre Dame game played in Yankee Stadium. Army won 59-0 in a battle of top-5 teams on Nov. 11, 1944

It had been thirteen years since Army had beaten Notre Dame. In fact, the last time Army had scored against the Irish was in 1938. The Irish were the defending national champions, but lost many key players to graduation and the armed services. The Irish even lost head coach Frank Leahy to military service, and were now being led by Ed McKeever.

Notre Dame went into the game 8–2. The Army squad was being led by Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard. The Cadets also had a quarterback named Doug Kenna, and a transfer from the University of Texas, sprinter Max Minor.

Army overwhelmed the Irish. Kenna opened the scoring with a run for touchdown. He wasn't done, as he played defense as well, intercepting an Irish pass, which led to a scoring run by Minor. Kenna then pulled a trifecta of sorts, when he passed for a third score. Davis, a late scratch as a starter, also intercepted a pass, and had two offensive runs for scores. By halftime, Army had a commanding 33–0 lead.

Kenna added another scoring pass, and Davis another run for a score. Even Army's back-ups got into the act. Harold Tavzel, a second string tackle, intercepted a poorly thrown pass from the Irish quarterback, and jogged a few yards for a score. When the game was over, Army beat Notre Dame 59–0, handing the Irish one of the worst losses in the programs history.

When asked by a reporter about the score, Army halfback Doc Blanchard said "If there was anyone to blame for the size of the margin, it was Notre Dame, which fired our desire to win with its long humiliation of Army teams."

[video=youtube_share;1mCzx5cDJDg]http://youtu.be/1mCzx5cDJDg[/video]

tipyerbartender1 · Jul 4, 2013

Imagine Army as you now know the team averaging 56 points per game and winning the national championship.

tipyerbartender1 · Jul 4, 2013

That Army-Notre Dame video looks like a football game in the Little Rascals.

Judge Smails · Jul 4, 2013

Tip ... it's crazy what wartime did to the college system ... in the 1944 football poll, wait ... I'll post it

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Ranking[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Team[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Record[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Army Cadets[/TD]
[TD]9-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]9-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Randolph Field Ramblers[/TD]
[TD]9-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Navy Midshipmen[/TD]
[TD]6-3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Bainbridge NTC Commodores[/TD]
[TD]10-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks[/TD]
[TD]10-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]7-0-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]8-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame Fighting Irish[/TD]
[TD]8-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]4th Air Force March Field Flyers[/TD]
[TD]7-0-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]7-2-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]7-0-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]8-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]Norman Pre-Flight[/TD]
[TD]6-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]Illinois Fighting Illini[/TD]
[TD]5-4-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]El Toro Marines[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]Great Lakes Bluejackets[/TD]
[TD]8-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]Fort Pierce NATB[/TD]
[TD]8-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]St. Mary’s Pre-Flight[/TD]
[TD]5-3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]2nd Air Force Superbombers[/TD]
[TD]8-2-1
[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Notice many of the traditional powers suspended their programs and the players went off to 'prep' for some part of the war. Crazy!

Also, if world war broke out today, would the same thing happen?
Would the big-time business of football cease to exist and would 4-star athletes commit to Air Force, Navy, the Columbus, Ohio Regional M1A-Tank Training Academy?

I don't think I want to know the answers to those things as I enjoy my Thursday Nights and my Saturdays just the way they are.

You're right about the video, especially with the sound cut out. Tried finding one from '44 with the volume like a highlight thing, but no luck. Of course, if we talk about the '46 Notre Dame-Army game, then there's stuff everywhere!!!

tipyerbartender1 · Jul 4, 2013

Thanks for posting that poll, Smails. Interesting and amazing. I've always been of the opinion that Norman Pre-Flight never got just due for running the table.

Judge Smails · Jul 5, 2013

55 days to go ...

Hoping Along to the Heisman: Ohio State's Howard 'Hopalong' Cassady won the 1955 award before moving on to a 10-year NFL career with the Lions, Eagles and Browns.

In the fall of 1952 Woody Hayes sent Howard Cassady into his first collegiate game where "Hopalong" scored three touchdowns and began one of the most spectacular careers in Ohio State history. By the end of that career, Cassady had rushed for a total of 2,374 yards and had scored 37 touchdowns.

His senior season of 1955 was a red letter year for Cassady. He was named a unanimous All-America for the second time, won the Heisman Trophy, was chosen Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press and received the Chicago Tribune Trophy as the most Valuable Player in the Big Ten conference. Hayes once said Cassady "was the most inspirational player I have ever seen". He played offense and defense and in 1955 had four 60-minute games.

In 1954 he made his greatest run, an 88-yard, dodging, twisting return of an intercepted pass against Wisconsin.

His son Craig Cassady, lettered at Ohio State in 1973-1975.

"Hop along" was one of Ohio State's best ever, scoring 37 touchdowns in 36 games for 222 points. He gained 2,466 yards rushing for an average of 5.6 per try. A player's player, his 964 yards with a total of 15 TDs was his greatest ever. Overlooked were his sparkling defensive plays; he never had a pass completed over him in four years of Big Ten competition. He held the Buckeyes' yardage-gained record for many years. He was voted All-American during the '54 and '55 seasons. Cassady also played baseball for Ohio State for four years. In 1955, the Associated Press also named Cassady "Athlete of the Yea".

He played 8 years with the Detroit Lions, one year with the Philadelphia Eagles, and one year with the Cleveland Browns, and then formed his own company, which manufactured concrete pipe. That company was sold in 1968 when he moved into selling steel with Hop along Cassady Associates. Howard later worked for American Shipbuilding in Tampa and is currently a scout and coach for the New York Yankees. He and his wife Barbara reside in Tampa, FL. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Howard was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1979.

"Hopalong" Cassady was the first Heisman winner to exceed 2,000 total points and his 1,477-point edge over Jim Swink of TCU was the biggest victory margin to that time. Swink won the Southwest but Cassady won all the other regions, compiling a 594-128 edge in first place votes in voting by 1,324 members of the media.

Two for the price of one! Halfback Howard Cassady of the Ohio State Buckeyes (‘52-‘55) poses with William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other 1955 College Football Notes:

The Oklahoma Sooners win the national championship after going 10-0-0. Although the final poll was taken before the postseason bowl games, Oklahoma played against the nation's other unbeaten and untied (10-0-0) team, the Maryland Terrapins, at the Orange Bowlin Miami, and won 20-6.

In the preseason poll released on September 12, 1955, the UCLA Bruins, 1954's co champions, received 33 first place votes, while Oklahoma had 32. Michigan had 34 votes, but the third most points overall. Other teams nominated for the top spot were defending champ Ohio State, Maryland, Notre Dame, Navy, Miami, Georgia Tech, Iowa, USC, Duke, West Virginia, and Purdue.

On September 24, #1 UCLA and #5 Maryland met at College Park, before a record crowd. UCLA's Doug Peters plunged into the end zone in the first half, but fumbled the ball before crossing the goal line. In the second half, the home team Terrapins had the ball 17 yards from goal, on fourth down. Rather than kicking a field goal, Ed Vereb ran for the winning touchdown, giving Maryland a 7-0 win.

October 1, #2 Michigan beat Michigan State 14-7 before a crowd of 97,239 at home in Ann Arbor. MSU had tied the score 7-7 after an errant punt by Michigan gave them the ball 39 yards from goal. Minutes later, Earl Morrall's punt was blocked to give Michigan the ball on the MSU 21, from which the winning score was made.

October 8 #5 Notre Dame won 14-0 at #15 Miami, with both touchdowns coming on fourth down passes from Paul Hornung, before an Orange Bowl record crowd of 75,685.

October 22 In Minneapolis #1 Michigan faced a 1-3-0 Minnesota team, and was stunned when the Gophers racked up two touchdowns in the first quarter. Michigan's Terry Barr blocked the extra point attempt on the second touchdown, but the nation's #1 team was losing 13-0. Still down 13-7 at the half, the Wolverines fought back. Jim Van Pelt passed to Tom Maentz for a touchdown, and Van Pelt added the extra point to save Michigan, 14-13. Minnesota would go on to a 3-6-0 finish.

November 19 Although #1 Oklahoma was 8-0-0 and host Nebraska was 5-4-0, both had 5-0-0 records in Big 7 conference play when they met at Lincoln. The Sooners rolled, 41-0, to get the Orange Bowl bid. #2 Maryland closed its season with a 19-0 win over George Washington University and accepted the invitation to meet Oklahoma, but what would have been a #1 vs. #2 meeting changed when the Terrapins were rated third by the AP voters.

#3 Michigan State, which had a 5-1 record in Big Ten play, beat Marquette 33-0 in a non-conference game; Michigan's 17-0 loss to Ohio State gave it a 5-2 mark. Ohio State had the better record in the Big Ten, 6-0 overall, but had gone to the Rose Bowl the year before, so MSU got the bid, where it would face #5 UCLA, which beat USC 17-7.

#4 Notre Dame beat Iowa 17-14. Though Maryland, like Oklahoma, was unbeaten, the voters put once-beaten Michigan State in the second spot instead. The poll: 1.Oklahoma 2.Michigan State 3.Maryland 4.UCLA 5.Notre Dame.

On November 26, #5 Notre Dame lost in Los Angeles to USC, 42-20, and dropped to 6th in the final AP poll, where it would be replaced by Ohio State. The other Top Five teams had finished their seasons.

Prior to the integration of sports teams, Miami Orange Bowl stadium hosted the New Year's Day game of the same name, and a December game for historically black colleges, the Orange Blossom Classic.Grambling State (9-0-0) and Florida A & M University (8-0-1) met to determine the best ***** college football team in the nation, with Grambling winning 28-21.

Miami University (Ohio) finished 9-0-0, as did Southeast Missouri State University. Heidelberg College, Hillsdale College, College of Emporia, Maryland State College and Whitworth College. Northern State Teachers College* of South Dakota went 9-0-0, and then lost to Kearney Teachers College in the "Botony Bowl", 34-13, played in Shenandoah, Iowa, on Thanksgiving Day.

Colleges that went 8-0-0 were Alfred University, Drexel University, Albany State College, Centre College, Coe College, Parsons College, Juniata College, Muskingum College, Shepherd College, and Stevens Point College. Trinity College (Connecticut) went 7-0-0.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ORANGE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#1 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#3 Maryland Terrapins[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ROSE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#2 Michigan State Spartans[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]#5 UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]COTTON BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#10 Mississippi Rebels[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#6 TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUGAR BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#7 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]#11 Pittsburgh Panthers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

1956 ORANGE BOWL

1956 ROSE BOWL

1956 COTTON BOWL

1956 SUGAR BOWL

Note: On Jan. 2, 1956, Bobby Grier (pictured above) became the first black player to play in the Sugar Bowl. Leading up to that game, Governor Marvin Griffin of Georgia, a segregationist, demanded that Georgia Tech not play against Pittsburgh because the Panthers' team included Grier.

"The South stands at Armageddon," Griffin said in a telegram to Georgia's Board of Regents, detailing his request that teams in the state's university system not participate in events in which races were mixed on the field or in the stands. "The battle is joined. We cannot make the slightest concession to the enemy in this dark and lamentable hour of struggle."

The day before Griffin’s statement, Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. A black football player had never played in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Pittsburgh officials agreed to participate only if Grier, a fullback and linebacker, could play and if the sections of Pitt fans were not segregated. Georgia Tech students protested at the governor's mansion in Atlanta and marched on the State Capitol, burning Griffin in effigy. Georgia Tech's president said that his team would not break the contract to compete in the Sugar Bowl. The Governor’s attitude did not reflect the attitude of the Georgia Tech players.

Today, Grier is credited as being the first black player to participate in a bowl game in the Deep South. Grier's participation in the 1956 Sugar Bowl is still recognized as a significant moment in bringing an end to Southern segregation.

Michael Oriard, a former captain at Notre Dame who has written several books on the culture of college football, said Grier's participation in the 1956 Sugar Bowl resonated as one of the "last gasps of segregation in the South."

Boston College could not play its star running back, Lou Montgomery, in the 1941 Sugar Bowl. Montgomery was not even allowed to practice or stay at the team hotel; he watched the game from the press box.

So when Pittsburgh's players, coaches and administrators insisted that Grier play, it revealed a significant shift.

"It wasn't the only national racial incident in college football, but it was the last big one," said Oriard, who detailed the controversy in his book "King Football." "The national press was overwhelmingly against Griffin, and it made the South look pretty stupid. It was pretty clear at that point the direction that history was going."

Georgia Tech had played against black players before, including a game at Notre Dame two years before, but never in the South.

"It was made into a situation when the governor acted like a horse's backside," said Don Ellis, a right end for Georgia Tech. "The governor didn't reflect the attitude of the Georgia Tech football team at all."

Griffin ran for governor on a platform of segregation "through hell or high water." In his telegram to the Board of Regents, he went on to say: "One break in the dike and the relentless seas will push in and destroy us. We are in this fight 100 percent."

For more on the 1956 SUGAR BOWL, check out Pete Thamel of The New York Times, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/s...ca5956881&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Judge Smails · Jul 6, 2013

54 days to go ...

The Junction Boys: Bear Bryant took over a struggling Texas A&M program in 1954. Prior to the season, he took the team to Junction, Texas, for a grueling camp that gained legendary status. A&M went only 1-9 that season, but the seeds were sown for the 1955 and 1956 seasons when the team went a combined 16-2-2 and won the 1956 Southwest Conference title.

Paul Bryant, front, and the rest of the 1954-55 Texas A&M football coaching staff

When Bear Bryant took over the Texas A&M football program in 1954, he inherited a team that had lost its last five games by a combined score of 133-41. That season more than 100 Aggie hopefuls arrived in the small town of Junction for the first practice of a now legendary training camp. The sun bore down. The drills escalated. Trainers doled out water like gold, and meals and accommodations were horribly spartan.

Ten hellish days later, only 34 remained to form the 1954 team that would only win one game, but those survivors--and that's what they were--formed the nucleus of the squad that would go undefeated just two years later.

"We lost a lot of games," recalls Gene Stallings, who endured those days as a player and eventually followed Bryant as head coach both at A&M and Alabama, "but Coach Bryant knew what he was doing. Out of the yellow dust and the broiling heat of Junction, he forged a team of champions."

Much of the intrigue surrounding the story of The Junction Boys centers on Coach Bryant's no-holds-barred methods and his relentless coaching style. According to some, "The Bear" earned his nickname by once agreeing to wrestle a carnival bear for a dollar. Bryant was ruthless toward his players during the pre-season camp, intending to discover who the leaders on his team were.

The coach's controversial techniques included denying his players water during their workouts in Junction's 100-plus degree temperatures.

According to sportsjones.com, Bryant head-butted tackle Henry Clark after a blown assignment, leaving the player on the ground, dazed and holding a broken nose.

Dr. Arnold LeUnes, A&M professor of sports psychology, attended the University during Bryant's stay and has studied some of the coach's practices. He described Bryant as an authoritarian figure, reminiscent of a entirely different era in coaching.

"He was strict, enforcing iron discipline," LeUnes said. "At the time, a coach could get away with pretty much anything. You wouldn't find something like that today."

According to espn.com, players who elected to leave the 'boot camp' could collect bus fare from Coach Bryant for their return. Still, most of those who left were too afraid to ask for their free ticket home, finding other means of transportation. Some players ran off during the night, hitchhiking back to College Station to avoid the wrath of "The Bear."

Rob Roy Spiller, who worked for the bus station in Junction at the time, recalls regularly arriving to groups of Aggie football players seeking their freedom from Bryant's camp.

"Where would y'all like to go this morning?" Spiller would ask the players. Most often, he said one of the players would respond, "We don't care. First bus out."

Still, while Bryant ran off most of his team using various coaching methods, the success of the 1956 team and later achievements by team members offer some support for his having either created or identified leaders.

Two players from the team, Jack Pardee and Gene Stallings, went on to become coaching legends themselves, with Pardee twice named NFL Coach of the Year and Stallings winning a national collegiate championship with the University of Alabama. Dennis Goehring, one of the players Bryant tried hardest to run off, became an All-American and later established a prosperous business career in the College Station area.

"Bryant used Junction as a weeding out process," LeUnes said. "I think, somehow or another, that character that Bryant was looking for won out, because he selected some awfully good human beings with that group."

Billy Pickard, associate athletic director for the Aggie football team, was employed as a trainer during the Junction practices. Pickard said he has heard several different renditions of the Junction experience, but remembers 72 players leaving College Station for Junction and 27 returning at the end of the week.

"The number one thing to impress on people is this occurred 48 years ago," Pickard said. "We didn't have tape recorders and you didn't have video to go back and dig it out. You'll hear several different stories."

Pickard said Bryant was no-nonsense, but fair -- especially when it came to players who wanted to quit.

"(The team's center) went to climb the fence to leave, and Coach Bryant hollered 'don't go,' but he did," Pickard said. "Later, he wanted to get back on the team, but Coach wouldn't let him. He told him, 'once you quit there, you're going quit on the goal line.'"

True to legend, surviving the Junction practices was not an easy feat. For Pickard, caring for players on limited sleep was the most difficult part of the practice week.

"I think the thing that stood out most was our living conditions," he said. "In the 10 days we (trainers) were there, we seldom slept more than two or three hours a day, either from taking care of hurt players or running around doing something. The players slept a little more than that, but we were always working."

In addition to enduring "Bryant hell week," the remaining players garnered achievement in their personal lives as well, Pickard said.

"Of all the things you have to remember is the fact that those (players) that came back have all been successful at whatever they chose."

----------------------------------------------------------

1954 COLLEGE FOOTBALL NOTES

The 1954 college football season saw three teams finish unbeaten and untied, with Ohio State Buckeyes and the UCLA Bruins sharing the national championship as the #1 picks of the AP Poll and the UPI Poll, respectively. Although the winners of the Big Ten and the Pacific conferences normally met in the Rose Bowl, a "no repeat" prevented the two champions from meeting. UCLA, which had been in the Rose Bowl earlier in the year, was replaced by conference runner-up USC.

In the preseason poll released on September 13, 1954, #1 Notre Dame had the most points, although #2 Oklahoma had more first place votes (74 vs. 52). Rounding out the Top Five were defending champion #3 Maryland, #4 Texas and #5 Illinois.

September 18
#2 Oklahoma won at #12 California 27-13, and #3 Maryland won at Kentucky, 20-0. Notre Dame and Texas, #1 and #4, were preparing to meet at South Bend to open their seasons. Oklahoma replaced Notre Dame as #1 in the first regular poll. #7 Georgia Tech, which beat Tulane 28-0 in Atlanta, replaced Illinois in the Top Five. Defying high expectations, the Illini would lose their opener to Penn State, 14-12, and finish the season with a 1-8-0 record.

September 25
#2 Notre Dame hosted #4 Texas and won 21-0. #1 Oklahoma beat #20 Texas Christian (TCU) 21-16. #3 Maryland was idle, and #5 Georgia Tech lost to Florida, 13-12. Notre Dame took back over the top spot from O.U., and Texas, Maryland and Georgia Tech were replaced by #8 UCLA (32-7 over Kansas), #10 Wisconsin (52-14 over Marquette) and #11 Iowa (14-10 over #7 Michigan State).

November 20
#1 Ohio State beat #12 Michigan 21-7. In Los Angeles, #2 UCLA beat its crosstown rival, #8 USC, 34-0. #3 Oklahoma beat Nebraska 55-7.

November 27
#1 Ohio State and #2 UCLA had finished their seasons. #3 Oklahoma won its annual season-closer at Oklahoma State, 14-0.

Wisconsin fullback Alan Ameche won the Heisman Trophy in 1954 as the best player in college football and was a unanimous All-American selection. Two other players were unanimous choices among the All-American selectors: Notre Dame quarterback Ralph Guglielmi and Ohio State halfback Howard "Hopalong" Cassidy.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ROSE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#1 Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#17 USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUGAR BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#5 Navy Midshipmen[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#6 Mississippi Rebels[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]COTTON BOWL[/TD]
[TD]Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#10 Arkansas Razorbacks[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ORANGE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#14 Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]34[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

1955 ROSE BOWL ... played in very sloppy Southern California conditions

In his final game Dave Leggett rushed for 67 yards and completed 6 of 11 passes for 63 yards and a touchdown, a 21-yarder to Bobby Watkins to give the Buckeyes a 14-0 lead over the Trojans. Leggett had recovered a USC fumble to set up the score. He had staked the Buckeyes to a 7-0 lead earlier in the second quarter, scoring on a 3-yard run. Ohio State still led, 14-7, in the fourth quarter when Leggett led a 77-yard drive for the game-winning touchdown that capped the 10-0 season and Hayes' first national championship. According to "The Official Ohio State Football Encyclopedia," Leggett was awarded MVP honors in part for "handling the ball 80 times in the rain and mud without a fumble."

1955 SUGAR BOWL

Navy had upset Army, beating them for the fourth time in five years, and with a 7-2 record, the were invited to the Sugar Bowl. They were led by quarterback, George Welsh, and running back, Joe Gattuso. Gattuso, a 175-pound senior, epitomized the Navy squad, playing on both sides of the ball with a helmet that didn't have a facemask. Halfback Jack Weaver had 106 yards rushing. But, it was fullback Gattuso who was given the Warren Miller Trophy as the game’s most valuable player after rushing for 111 yards on 16 carries and scoring two touchdowns. All of this in his first game back since suffering a knee injury. Famed Mississippian and baseball great, Dizzy Dean, was at the game and summed Mississippi’s disappointing day up best perhaps when describing the game like one of his baseball seasons. “I was having my best season, had won 28 games and they gave me a new car and a truckload of presents the day I went after number 29. I got knocked out of the box in the third inning.”

1955 COTTON BOWL ... great video of life in the 50s

[video=youtube_share;2hzhmkiL2kU]http://youtu.be/2hzhmkiL2kU[/video]

1955 ORANGE BOWL

Duke and Maryland didn't play each other in either 1953 or 1954 and the undefeated Terps had represented the league after the 1953 season. Maryland had a tie blemish their conference mark in 1954 so Duke received the conference bid. Duke's opponent was not undefeated Oklahoma. The Big Seven had a no-repeat rule and second-place Nebraska got the nod. Pascal says, "I'll always wonder what might have happened. I'm not saying we could have beaten Oklahoma but I think we matched up real well with them. We had the speed to stay with them." Nebraska was a good team in 1954 but they were not the behemoth they would later become. Duke had a surprisingly easy time with the Cornhuskers. "Coach Murray was all business," says Barger. "We went down there with a purpose. " Nebraska was stunned by Duke's intensity. The line opened huge holes for Pascal, Aldridge and Barger and Duke's option game was operating at peak efficiency. Nebraska tried to exploit Duke's 165-pound defensive end Tracy Moon but without success. Pascal scored from seven yards out early in the second quarter. Following an Aldridge interception, Barger hit Kocourek for a score late in the half. Nebraska closed to 14-7 in the third quarter but a 65-yard touchdown drive made the score 20-7. Fourth-quarter touchdowns by reserves Nick McKeithan and Sam Ebert closed out the scoring. Duke ended the game with an impressive 23-6 edge in first downs and a 370 to 110 advantage in total offensive yardage. Pascal rushed for 91 yards on nine carries, while Barger completed 7-of-9 passes. Duke ended the season ranked 14th.

Judge Smails · Jul 7, 2013

53 days to go ...

Years since Duke's last bowl win: The Blue Devils haven't won a bowl game since the 1960 season (53 seasons ago), but did go to a bowl last season. The bad news? Duke has never gone to a bowl in consecutive seasons.

Blue Devils pose after winning the 1961 COTTON BOWL, 7-6, over Arkansas

In 1930, Wallace Wade shocked the college football world by leaving Alabama for Duke, later rationalizing the move by saying that Duke shared his belief that a school should provide its athletes with a strong academic background. Wade's success at Alabama (three national championships) translated well to Duke's program. The team won 7 Southern Conference championships in the 16 years that Wade was coach. He also led the team to 2 Rose Bowls. Wade's achievements placed him in the College Football Hall of Fame.

The most famous Duke football season came in 1938, when the "Iron Dukes" went unscored upon for the entire regular season. Duke reached their first Rose Bowl appearance, where they lost 7-3 when Southern California scored a touchdown in the final minute of the game on a pass from a second string quarterback to a third string tight end.

Duke would be invited again to make the trip to Pasadena for the 1942 Rose Bowl, this time to play Oregon State. Due to fears of additional west coast attacks by the Japanese in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the decision was made to move the game to Durham. As Duke's stadium was significantly smaller than the regular venue, bleachers were borrowed from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina, which boosted capacity from 35,000 to 55,000. Despite being 3 to 1 favorites, the Iron Dukes would lose the game 20 to 16.

The football program also proved successful in the 1950s and 1960s, winning six of the first ten ACC football championships from 1953 to 1962 under coach Bill Murray. From 1943 until 1957, the Blue Devils were ranked in the AP Poll at some point in the season.

The football program also had a string of successful years in the late 1980s when the team was coached by Steve Spurrier. Spurrier led the Blue Devils to a share of the ACC title in 1989. The 1989 ACC Title was the last title won by a school in the state of North Carolina until Wake Forest won their second ACC Title in 2006.

The team rose to prominence again in 1994, the first season under coach Fred Goldsmith. The team raced out to an 8-1 record, and was briefly ranked as high as #13 in the country before losing the last two games of the season 24-23 to North Carolina State and 41-40 to arch-rival North Carolina. The 1994 team played in the program's first New Years Day Bowl game since 1962, falling to Wisconsin 34-21 in the Hall Of Fame Bowl, now known as the Outback Bowl.

Since 1994, however, Duke's football program has declined, with the team lacking a winning season since. From 1999 to 2007, Duke's football win-loss record was at 13-90; from 2005 to 2007 Duke suffered a 22-game losing streak. In 2008, a judge ruled in favor of Duke after they pulled out of a four-game contract with the University of Louisville; the judge stated that it was up to Louisville to find a suitable replacement as, he wrote in the ruling, Duke's lawyers had persuasively argued that any Division I team would be equivalent or better. Duke's 2009 season gave them five wins and seven losses, the closest the school had come to bowl eligibility since 1994. However, with a 33-30 win against rival North Carolina, the 2012 Duke team has become bowl eligible for the first time since 1994. Duke would end up falling to Cincinnati 48-34 in the Belk Bowl.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

1953 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

1953 finished with the Maryland Terrapins capturing the AP, INS, and UPI national championship after Notre Dame held the top spot for the first nine weeks. The #4 Oklahoma Sooners defeated Maryland in the Orange Bowl, but there was no further polling after the November 30 results were released. However, Notre Dame was selected as the National Champions by 10 other polls and the Oklahoma Sooners received first in 2 polls.

However, despite the team receiving National Championship rings, the University of Notre Dame does not recognize this title due to their policy of only recognizing AP titles. Maryland was also the first champion of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which had been formed earlier in 1953 by seven colleges formerly with the Southern Conference. The year 1953 also saw the Michigan State Spartans, previously an independent, join the Big Nine Conference, which then became the Big Ten; MSU won the conference title in that first year and was the conference representative to the Rose Bowl, which it won 28-20 over UCLA.

On September 26 #1 Notre Dame won 28-21 at #6 Oklahoma. #2 Michigan State won at Iowa, 21-7. #3 Georgia Tech went to #15 Florida and was held to a 0-0 tie. #4 UCLA beat Kansas 19-7. Still at #5, Alabama, trying to salvage some respect against a second unranked opponent, went to 0-1-1 after a 7-7 tie against LSU in Mobile; in the poll that followed, the Crimson Tide fell completely out of the Top 20. #9 Maryland, which had won 52-0 at Washington and Lee, rose to third, and previously unranked Michigan (a 50-0 victor over Wisconsin) entered the poll at fourth.

October 3
With the exception of #4 Michigan, which beat Tulane 26-7 at home, the other top teams won on the road, with #1 Notre Dame at Purdue, 37-7, #2 Michigan State at Minnesota 21-0, #3 Maryland at Clemson, 20-0, and #5 UCLA defeated Oregon 12-0 in an away game. #6 Ohio State, which won 33-19 at California, rose to third in the next poll, knocking UCLA out.

October 24
#1 Notre Dame stayed unbeaten with a 27-14 win over #4 Georgia Tech. #2 Michigan State lost 6-0 at Purdue and #5 Michigan lost at Minnesota 22-0. #3 Maryland won a Friday game at Miami, 30-0. Coming into the Top Five were #6 Baylor (14-13 over Texas A&M), #7 Illinois (20-13 over Syracuse), and #8 West Virginia (52-20 over VMI). The poll: 1.Notre Dame 2.Maryland 3.Baylor 4.Illinois 5.West Virginia

November 21
Number one since the season began, #1 Notre Dame played to a 14-14 tie with Iowa. #2 Maryland closed its season with a 21-0 win over Alabama to finish the season unbeaten and untied, at 10-0-0, to take the top rung on the AP poll. #3 Michigan State closed with a 21-15 win over Michigan. #4 Oklahoma beat Nebraska 30-7, and #5 UCLA beat USC, 13-0.

November 28
The new #1, Maryland, had already finished its season. #2 Notre Dame, with a 48-14 win at USC, and #4 Oklahoma (42-7 over Oklahoma State) were the only Top Five members who hadn't closed their seasons. The following Saturday, December 5, Notre Dame beat visiting SMU 40-14.

In the Final AP poll, released November 30, #1 Maryland, the only unbeaten and untied team, received 187 first place votes, and unbeaten, but once-tied #2 Notre Dame had 141 votes. ACC member Maryland accepted a bid to the Orange Bowl to meet once-beaten (8-1-1), Big 7 champ, and #4 Oklahoma, while #3 Michigan State and #5 UCLA would meet in the Rose Bowl. Notre Dame declined to participate in a postseason game.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ORANGE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#4 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]#1 Maryland Terrapins[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ROSE BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#3 Michigan State Spartans[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[TD]#5 UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]COTTON BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#6 Rice Owls[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[TD]#13 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]SUGAR BOWL[/TD]
[TD]#8 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]42[/TD]
[TD]#10 West Virginia Mountaineers[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

After the AP National Champion Maryland lost in the Orange Bowl, there was a lot of controversy since the AP Poll had been finalized beforehand and could not be changed to take this result into account. ThisMaryland loss resulted in Notre Dame being ranked #1 by 10 polls, including Billingsley, Boand, DeVold, Dunkel, National Championship Foundation, Williamson, and several others. As a reward for beating the Terrapins, the Sooners received #1 from Berryman and Football Research.

In the second quarter, Oklahoma's Larry Grigg started from the Maryland 25, was almost tackled by a Maryland defender, but broke loose and wiggled his way across for the go ahead score. Buddy Leake converted and the score was 7-0. That was the story of the game. It was the only score as Oklahoma’s offensive and defensive lines controlled the ballgame.

Rice's Dicky Moegle, a pink-cheeked teen-ager equipped with jet propulsion and a one-track mind, rolled back the Crimson Tide with one of the greatest exhibitions of football history. He scored three touchdowns, on runs of 79, 95 and 34 yards, and gained a total of 265 yards as the Owls swamped Alabama, 28 to 6, in the Cotton Bowl. The Owls drew a penalty, back to their 5, for illegal motion. Behind great blocking, Moegle bulleted around right end and aimed for the goal line. As he swept by the 'Bama bench, out of nowhere came the Tide's twelfth man, Tommy Lewis, to throw that from-the-bench block. Moegle was cut down and shaken. Lewis was permitted to stay in the game – such a violation of the playing rules has no automatic disqualification penalty – and some of the crowd booed.

[video=youtube_share;eSteCSinjTs]http://youtu.be/eSteCSinjTs[/video]

1954 ROSE BOWL - Michigan State 28, UCLA 20

1954 SUGAR BOWL -- Georgia Tech 42, West Virginia 19

Franklin "Pepper'' Rodgers, Georgia Tech quarterback holds his MILLER MEMORIAL AWARD after going 18-26 for 195 yards and 3 TDs against the Mountaineers

TheGarfather · Jul 7, 2013

Belk Bowl last year, close to the worst beat I ever took.

Judge Smails · Jul 8, 2013

52 days to go ...

Louisiana Tech scoring -- 51.5, to be exact: Louisiana Tech averaged 51.5 point per game last season, the most in FBS. The Bulldogs scored at least 40 points in 11 of 12 games last season, but will have to replicate their production without head coach Sonny Dykes, who is now at Cal.

The Bulldogs finished the season 9–3, 4–2 in WAC play to finish in third place. Despite having one of the most successful seasons in school history, the Bulldogs did not play in a bowl game. They were initially invited to the Independence Bowl but asked for more time to decide to see if other options opened up. No other bowl invited them and the Independence Bowl selected Ohio instead. Louisiana Tech ranked 1st in the nation in scoring offense (51.5 points per game), total offense (577.92 yards per game), and net punting (43.51 yards per punt). Individually, Kenneth Dixon ranked led the nation in scoring average (14.0 points per game), and Ryan Allen led the nation in punting average (48.04 yards per punt).

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Date[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Time[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Opponent[SUP]#[/SUP][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rank[SUP]#[/SUP][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Site[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]TV[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Result[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Attendance[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]September 8[/TD]
[TD]7:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]at Houston*[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Robertson Stadium • Houston, TX[/TD]
[TD]CBSSN[/TD]
[TD]W 56–49[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]29,142[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]September 15[/TD]
[TD]6:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]Rice*[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Joe Aillet Stadium • Ruston, LA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN3[/TD]
[TD]W 56–37[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]23,228[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]September 22[/TD]
[TD]7:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]at Illinois*[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Memorial Stadium • Champaign, IL[/TD]
[TD]BTN[/TD]
[TD]W 52–24[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]46,539[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]September 29[/TD]
[TD]2:30 PM[/TD]
[TD]at Virginia*[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Scott Stadium • Charlottesville, VA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN3[/TD]
[TD]W 44–38[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]42,027[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 6[/TD]
[TD]6:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]UNLV*[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Joe Aillet Stadium • Ruston, LA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN+[/TD]
[TD]W 58–31[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]21,850[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #FFDDDD"]
[TD]October 13[/TD]
[TD]8:15 PM[/TD]
[TD]#22 Texas A&M*[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#23[/TD]
[TD]Independence Stadium • Shreveport, LA[/TD]
[TD]ESPNU[/TD]
[TD]L 57–59[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]40,453[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 20[/TD]
[TD]6:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]Idaho[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Joe Aillet Stadium • Ruston, LA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN+[/TD]
[TD]W 70–28[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]20,255[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]October 27[/TD]
[TD]7:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]at New Mexico State[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#24[/TD]
[TD]Aggie Memorial Stadium • Las Cruces, NM[/TD]
[TD]CSNH/ESPN3[/TD]
[TD]W 28–14[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]12,118[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]November 3[/TD]
[TD]3:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]UTSA

[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#22[/TD]
[TD]Joe Aillet Stadium • Ruston, LA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN+[/TD]
[TD]W 51–27[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]23,645[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #DDFFDD"]
[TD]November 10[/TD]
[TD]6:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]at Texas State[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#19[/TD]
[TD]Bobcat Stadium • San Marcos, TX[/TD]
[TD]LHN[/TD]
[TD]W 62–55[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]17,184[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #FFDDDD"]
[TD]November 17[/TD]
[TD]3:00 PM[/TD]
[TD]Utah State[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]#19[/TD]
[TD]Joe Aillet Stadium • Ruston, LA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN3[/TD]
[TD]L 41–48 [SUP]OT[/SUP][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]25,614[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="bgcolor: #FFDDDD"]
[TD]November 24[/TD]
[TD]9:30 PM[/TD]
[TD]at San Jose State[/TD]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD]Spartan Stadium • San Jose, CA[/TD]
[TD]ESPN2[/TD]
[TD]L 43–52[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]12,326[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 9"]<small>*Non-conference game. [SUP]

[/SUP]Homecoming. [SUP]#[/SUP]Rankings from AP Poll released prior to game. All times are in Central Time.</small>[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

On Friday, November 30, Louisiana Tech was invited to play in the Independence Bowl, but asked for more time as they were in negotiations with the Liberty Bowl and Heart of Dallas Bowl. Louisiana Tech athletic director Bruce Van De Velde and WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd claimed that on December 1, Liberty Bowl executive director Steve Ehrhart guaranteed the Bulldogs a bowl invite. The Independence Bowl offered Louisiana Tech again on Saturday, December 1. After receiving no response, bowl organizers invited the Ohio Bobcats instead. On December 2, the Liberty Bowl extended their remaining bid to Iowa State Cyclones instead of Louisiana Tech. As a result, Louisiana Tech did not play in any of the 2012–13 NCAA football bowl games. The school's administration blamed bowl officials for the situation, which attracted national attention and controversy.

From USA TODAY about the bowl controversy: "In what he called a "late development," the Bulldogs were squeezed out of bowl play as a result of Northern Illinois' leap into the Orange Bowl, the WAC's disintegration and the Independence Bowl's own timeline, which forced Louisiana Tech to make a decision on its postseason plans ahead of schedule.

Van De Velde said that the Independence Bowl issued an invitation to the Bulldogs late on Friday night. In response, the university told the bowl's selection committee that it needed more time to vet the postseason opportunities still on its plate.

Van De Velde said he received a call from Missy Setters, the executive director of the Independence Bowl, on Saturday during halftime of the Oklahoma-TCU game. Setters told Van De Velde that the bowl needed an immediate decision. Van De Velde told Setters that he was still waiting on other opportunities, and that he wouldn't know how the Liberty Bowl and Heart of Dallas Bowl would go until Sunday. Setters replied that if Louisiana Tech wasn't ready to move on Saturday afternoon, the Independence Bowl would take a MAC team – Ohio.

"We had played there in 2008, and the sponsor is a graduate of Louisiana Tech, so I thought they would wait for us," Van De Velde said. "We all agreed we wanted to wait, so we said to them, 'We don't want to turn it down, but we need time to see how this plays out.' "

Waiting cost Louisiana Tech its spot. "They chose to go in another direction," Van De Velde said, rather than wait to see if the Bulldogs chose to play its bowl game in Shreveport.

"We never declined" the bid, Van De Velde said. "We just asked for more time. They felt like they had to move, and I understand. But we felt like we needed time to see how this played out."

Forty teams with records worse than Louisiana Tech accepted bowl bids this season. Ten out of 35 bowl games will include teams with .500 records or worse.

In a perfect world, Van De Velde said, the team would have either gone to the Liberty Bowl or the Heart of Dallas Bowl – the former against Tulsa, the Conference USA champs, and the latter on Jan. 1. The Bulldogs have never played in a January bowl, so the Heart of Dallas Bowl held some appeal. On Sunday, Northern Illinois' BCS berth also shoved the Bulldogs out of both the Liberty Bowl and the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

"We were pretty sure we were headed to the Liberty Bowl or the Heart of Dallas Bowl, but what happened was Northern Illinois moved up to the top 16, and that caused a domino effect that knocked Oklahoma out of the Sugar Bowl," Van De Velde said.

"We thought that if Kent State got beat Friday night, and Oklahoma and Kansas State won, the Big 12 would get two into the BCS and we'd be playing on New Year's Day or in the Liberty Bowl. The Heart of Dallas then filled, and then the Big 12 had an extra bowl-eligible team, and the Liberty Bowl chose them (Iowa State) over us."

Louisiana Tech's avenues for postseason play were also limited by the WAC's dearth of bowl tie-ins. The conference, which is in its last season of existence as a football league on the FBS level, has only one official bowl tie-in, to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl; that bid went to Utah State, the WAC champions. The second-place team, San Jose State, will meet Bowling Green in the Military Bowl on Dec. 27.

"What hurt us is that we're in a conference that's disintegrating," Van De Velde said. "It only has one bowl tie-in. We weren't the champions, Utah State was, and they got that tie-in. Next year, we won't have that issue, because we're going into Conference USA and they have five bowl tie-ins."

As a result of all three factors – the Independence Bowl's timeline, Northern Illinois' BCS run and the WAC's lack of tie-ins – a nine-win team is staying home from bowl play.

"It's just an unfortunate situation that in this particular year, we got caught," Van De Velde said.

Two Bulldogs were honored with prestigious national awards. Ryan Allen won the 2012 Ray Guy Award honoring the nation's best punter to become the first student-athlete to win the award in consecutive years.Colby Cameron won the 2012 Sammy Baugh Trophy honoring the nation's top collegiate passer. Bulldogs were named semifinalists for three national awards including Colby Cameron for the Davey O'Brien Award,Quinton Patton for the Fred Biletnikoff Award, and Matt Nelson for the William V. Campbell Trophy.

For their individual performances during the regular season, several Bulldogs were named to various national All-America Teams. Ryan Allen was named to numerous All-America teams including the Associated Press(AP) All-America First Team, American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) All-America First Team, Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) All-America First Team, Sporting News (TSN) All-America First Team, Walter Camp All-America First Team (WCFF) All-America First Team, CBS Sports All-America First Team, ESPN All-America First Team, Pro Football Weekly (PFW) All-America First Team, and Sports Illustrated (SI) All-America First Team. The NCAA recognizes five All-America lists in the determination of unanimous All-America selections: the AP, AFCA, the FWAA, TSN and the WCFF. Unanimous selections must be selected as first team in all five lists. As such, for the 2012 season, Ryan Allen was named a unanimous All-American. Quinton Patton was named to several All-America teams including the AP All-America Second Team, CBS Sports All-America Second Team, SI All-America Second Team, and PFW All-America Honorable Mention Team. Colby Cameron was named to the SI All-America Honorable Mention Team. Kenneth Dixon was recognized with All-America honors including being named to the FWAA Freshman All-America First Team, CBS Sports Freshman All-America First Team, and College Football News(CFN) Freshman All-America First Team.

The WAC recognized an unprecedented number of Bulldogs for their individual performances with various honors. Colby Cameron was named WAC Offensive Player of the Year, and Kenneth Dixon was named WAC Freshman of the Year. All-WAC First Team selections from Louisiana Tech included Ryan Allen, D.J. Banks, Colby Cameron, Dave Clark, Kenneth Dixon, I.K. Enemkpali, Jordan Mills, Quinton Patton, and Stephen Warner. All-WAC Second Team selections from Louisiana Tech included Chad Boyd, Ray Holley, Oscar Johnson, Kevin Saia, and Myles White.

TheGarfather · Jul 8, 2013

Skip Holtz is an interesting hire. A wide range of possibilities.

Judge Smails · Jul 9, 2013

51 days to go ...

Seasons of WAC football: The conference had been playing football since 1962, but 2012 was its final season as a football-playing conference. All football-playing members have either joined other conferences or gone independent.

The decade of the 2010s began with a series of conference realignment moves that would have trickle-down effects throughout Division I football, and profoundly change the membership of the WAC. Boise State decided to move to the Mountain West Conference (MWC) for the 2011-12 season, and to replace departing BYU, the MWC also recruited WAC members Fresno State and Nevada for 2012-13. WAC commissioner Karl Benson courted several schools to replace those leaving, including the University of Montana, which declined, as well as the University of Denver,University of Texas at San Antonio, and Texas State University-San Marcos, which all accepted effective 2012-13.

But the resulting eastward shift of the conference's geographic center led the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa to reduce travel expenses by becoming a football-only member of the MWC and joining the California-based Big West Conference for all other sports. Further invitations were then issued by the WAC to Seattle University and the University of Texas at Arlington. These changes meant that the conference would have 10 members for 2012–13, seven of which sponsored football, and Benson announced that the WAC planned to add two additional football-playing members to begin competition in 2013. A further boost came when Boise State decided to join the Big East in football, and return to the WAC in most other sports, as of the 2013–14 academic year. So by the end of 2011, the WAC seemed to have weathered the latest round of conference changes, and once again reinvented itself for the future.

But from this seemingly strong position, early 2012 brought forth a series of moves that shook the conference to its very core, beginning with Utah State and San Jose State accepting offers to join the MWC. Four similar announcements followed with Texas-San Antonio and Louisiana Techjumping to Conference USA, plus Texas State and UT-Arlington heading to the Sun Belt Conference, all as of 2013-14. Boise State also canceled plans to rejoin the WAC, instead opting to place its non-football sports in the Big West Conference, before eventually deciding to simply remain in the MWC. These changes left the WAC's viability as a Division I football conference in doubt so the two remaining programs, New Mexico State and Idaho, began making plans to compete in future seasons as FBS Independents.

In order to rebuild, as well as forestall further defections, the conference was forced to add two schools -- Utah Valley University and CSU Bakersfield—which were invited in October 2012 to join the WAC in 2013-14, but this did not prevent two more members from leaving. Denver decided to take most of its athletic teams to The Summit League as of the 2013-14 season, shortly after Idaho opted to return all of its non-football sports to the Big Sky Conference in 2014-15. The conference responded over the next two months by adding Grand Canyon University, Chicago State University, and the University of Texas-Pan American. Then, in February 2013, the WAC announced the University of Missouri–Kansas City would join in the summer of 2013 as well. These changes would put the conference's membership at eight members by 2014 with only one, New Mexico State, having been in the WAC just three years earlier. Due to losing the majority of its football-playing members, the WAC would stop sponsoring the sport after the 2012-13 season, thereby becoming a non-football conference.

FRESNO STATE --- The Bulldogs moved to the Mountain West after 20 years and 75 WAC championships

HAWAI'I --- The Rainbow Warriors moved to the Mountain West after 33 years and 62 WAC championships

LOUISIANA TECH --- The Bulldgos and Lady Techsters had but 12 years in the WAC and won 30 WAC championships before moving to Conference USA

NEVADA --- The Wolfpack moved on to the Mountain West after 13 seasons in the WAC with 22 conference championships

SAN JOSE STATE --- Also en route to the Mountain West, the Spartans won 16 WAC titles in 17 years

TEXAS-ARLINGTON --- After one year in the WAC, the Mavericks are moving on to the Sun Belt

TEXAS-SAN ANTONIO --- With just one year as a WAC members, the Roadrunners take their ball to Conference USA

TEXAS STATE --- After just a year, the Bobcats won 3 WAC championships, but have moved on to the Sun Belt

UTAH STATE --- The Aggies won 32 WAC championships in their 8 seasons with the league and move on to the Mountain West

Judge Smails · Jul 10, 2013

50 days to go ...

Rushing touchdowns in 2012 by top RB prospects: The top four running backs in Mel Kiper's ranking of 2014 NFL draft prospects combined for 50 rushing touchdowns in 2012. Oregon's De'Anthony Thomas (11), Arizona's Ka'Deem Carey (23) and USC's Silas Redd (9) are from the Pac-12, and Lache Seastrunk (7) started at a Pac-12 school (Oregon) before transferring to Baylor.

De+Anthony+Thomas+Nevada+v+Oregon+fiPP6N5gOutl.jpg

2011: Thomas had a standout 2011 season as a true freshman for Oregon. Splitting time between running back and wide receiver, as well as returning kicks and punts, Thomas amassed 2,235 all-purpose yards and scored 18 total touchdowns, setting a school record for number of touchdowns by a freshman. Thomas was the only player in the 2011 college football year to amass 400 yards each in rushing, receiving, and returns. He was a co-recipient of the 2011 CFPA Kickoff Returner Trophy and a freshman all-america selection. He led all freshmen with 18 touchdowns. On January 2, 2012, Thomas recorded two touchdowns and 314 all-purpose yards in the Rose Bowl where Oregon won 45-38 over Wisconsin. In that game, his 91-yard touchdown run broke the previous Rose Bowl record for the longest run from scrimmage. His only other carry in that game resulted in a 64-yard score, giving him a 155 rushing yards on just two carries.

2012: In 2012, Thomas continued his role as an all-purpose weapon for the Ducks. He amassed 701 yards rushing, for 11 touchdowns, and another 445 yards receiving, for 5 touchdowns. Thomas continued to return kicks and punts, including a 94-yard opening kickoff return during the Fiesta Bowl. In total, he recorded 1,757 all-purpose yards and scored 18 touchdowns. Thomas led the Pac-12 conference in rushing yards per attempt with 7.6.

Track and field: Thomas is also a sprinter, with a personal best of 10.31 seconds in the 100 meters and 20.61 seconds (wind aided) in the 200 meters. He won the Los Angeles City Section Championship in the 100m in 2009, and went on to finish 6th in the 100m and 2nd in the 200m at the California state meet. In 2010 he won the LACS championship in both the 100m and 200m, but at the CA state meet failed to move past the preliminary rounds in the 100m and finished last in the 200m final.

2011: Played in 11 games as a true freshman running back ... Second on the club with 425 yards on 91 totes with team-best six scoring runs ... Ran for two scores at USC and at Colorado ... Season-best 67 yards on nine carries against UCLA, season-high 12 carries in both the Oregon and USC games ... Season-best three receptions for 45 yards and a score at USC, plus had a scoring catch at ASU ... Team's top kickoff return specialist with 26 attempts for 549 yards ... Had nine kickoff returns for 197 yards against Oregon, to set school records in both categories.

2012: Started and played in 13 games at running back ... Named to eight All-America teams, including Walter Camp, The Sporting News and the Associated Press, to earn consensus All-America honors from the NCAA ... All-Pac-12 First-Team ... A member of the Maxwell Award Watch List ... College Football Performance Awards National Running Back of the Year ... College Football Performance Awards National Player of the Week and Pac-12 Player of the Week for his performance in the Colorado game ... A four-time Offensive Player of the Week, selected by the Arizona coaching staff ... The nation's leading rusher in yards per game (148.4) and total yards (1,929) ... Broke Trung Canidate's single-season school-record rushing mark of 1,602 yards from 1999 in the first quarter of the Arizona State game on Nov. 23 ... Against Colorado on Nov. 10, he broke the Pac-12 and UA single-game rushing records with 366 yards on the ground ... His 1,929 yards rank No. 5 in Pac-12 single-season history ... Carey's 24 touchdowns (23 rushing and one receiving) ranked No. 5 nationally and No. 1 in the Pac-12 while breaking the Arizona single-season rushing TD school record ... The first Wildcat to register back-to-back 200-plus yard rushing games (366 vs. Colorado, 204 at Utah) and is just the third to have multiple 200-yard games in his career ... Topped 100 yards rushing in 10 games, just a year after the Wildcats broke 100 yards as a team only five times in 12 contests in 2011 ... Finished the season with 2,248 all-purpose yards, falling one yard shy of Dennis Northcutt's single-season school record of 2,249 set in 1999.

2010: Redd, who enrolled at Penn State in January of 2010 after graduating a semester early from high school, ran for 437 yards (second on the team) on 77 carries (5.7 avg) with 2 TDs, plus had 4 receptions for 27 yards (6.8 avg.) and 7 kickoff returns for 147 yards (21.0 avg.), while appearing in 12 games as a first-year freshman backup tailback in 2010. He had 131 yards on 11 carries with a TD versus Northwestern.

2011: Redd earned 2011 All-Big Ten second team and Walter Camp Connecticut Player of the Year honors as a sophomore tailback at Penn State. Overall in 2011 while appearing in all 13 games (starting 11), he ran for 1,241 yards (10th most in a season in Penn State history) on 244 carries (5.1 avg.) with 7 TDs, plus caught 9 passes for 40 yards (4.4 avg.) and had 1 tackle. He had 6 100-yard rushing games, with the last 5 coming consecutively (104 yards with 2 TDs on 12 carries against Indiana State, 129 yards on 29 carries at Indiana, 142 yards on 28 carries versus Iowa, 131 yards with 1 TD on 28 carries against Purdue, a career-high 164 yards with 1 TD on 18 carries at Northwestern and 137 yards with 1 TD on 30 carries versus Illinois). He was the first Nittany Lion with at least 5 consecutive 100-yard rushing games since Curtis Enis had 8 in a row in 1997. An injury to his collarbone and sternum slowed him during the final 3 games of the regular season.

2012: Redd, who transferred to USC in August of 2012 from Penn State and was granted immediate eligibility by the NCAA, was a co-starter at tailback as a junior in 2012. Overall in 2012 while appearing in 12 games (all but Arizona State, which he missed with a sprained ankle) and starting 6 times (Hawaii, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Georgia Tech), he had a team-leading 905 yards on 167 carries (5.4 avg.) with 9 TDs, plus 9 receptions for 113 yards (12.6 avg.) with 1 TD and 1 tackle. He made 2012 All-Pac-12 honorable mention and Phil Steele All-Pac-12 third team. Against Hawaii, he ran for 56 yards on 9 carries, with a 31-yard TD, and caught a 41-yard pass in his first game as a Trojan after transferring from Penn State. He had a game-high 107 yards on 15 carries at Syracuse, then scored a pair of 1-yard TDs while rushing for 17 yards on 13 carries at Stanford. Against California, he rushed for a season-high 158 yards on 21 carries (7.5 yards per carry) with a 33-yard TD (he also caught a pass for minus 2 yards). He had a game-best 77 yards on 17 carries with a 3-yard TD at Utah. He had a game-high 155 yards on 26 carries, with an 11-yard TD (he also had a 57-yard non-scoring run on USC's first play of the game to set up a field goal), and he added a tackle at Washington. He had 13 yards on 3 rushes and caught a 16-yard pass against Colorado. He had 57 yards on 13 rushes with a 10-yard TD and also caught 2 passes for 24 yards at Arizona. He had a team-best 92 yards on 18 carries with 2 short TDs and caught a 20-yard pass against Oregon. He had 8 yards on 3 carries at UCLA and 77 yards on 12 carries against Notre Dame. He had 88 yards on 17 carries along with 3 catches for 14 yards (with a 9-yard TD grab) against Georgia Tech.

2010 (True Freshman - Oregon): Member of Oregon's 2010 travel squad, but did not play, redshirted... Cleared 34.5 inches in vertical leap to top all Oregon running backs in spring 2011... Rushed 11 times for 35 yards and caught seven-yard pass for Green team in UO's spring game.

2011 (Redshirt Freshman): Joined Baylor program in August, 2011, from Oregon, sat out season to fulfill NCAA transfer requirements... Lost year of eligibility.

2012 (Sophomore): Started six of 13 games played in first collegiate season, earned first letter... Burst on national scene over final six games of season, earned Big 12 Offensive Newcomer of Year honors (coaches and Associated Press) as well as All-Big 12 selection (second team: Phil Steele and Waco Tribune-Herald; honorable mention: coaches and Associated Press)... Totaled 1,012 yards and seven TDs on 131 carries, with nine receptions for 107 yards and TD on season... Gained 831 yards and scored six TDs over final six games (138.5 yard-per-game) as BU finished 5-1... 2012 Holiday Bowl Offensive MVP... Set two single-season school records: 7.7 yards-per-rush and four consecutive 100-yard rushing games... 1,012 yards ranks ninth on BU single-season list... Five 100-yard games ranks third on school single-season chart... Accounted for three TDs of 68 yards or longer, eight total plays of 30 yards or longer... Named "All-Texas" second-team in Dave Campbell's Texas Football postseason publication... Made collegiate debut as backup in season-opening win over SMU, had 39 yards on three carries... Through five games as reserve, had 95 yards and one TD on 15 carries (3.0 carries and 19.0 yards per game)... Earned first start in sixth game at Texas, totaled seven rushes for 56 yards... Had breakout game in second start, eighth game win over Kansas, totaled season-high 207 yards: 103 yards on 17 rushes (6.1 per-rush), 91 yards and TD on season-high five receptions (including season-long 68 TD reception)... Ran for 91 yards and three TDs and made 11-yard reception at No. 14 Oklahoma in ninth game... Averaged 159.3 rushing yards-per-game and totaled six plays of 30 yards or more over final four games (all wins)... Burst out with season-high 185 rushing yards and season-long 80-yard TD run on 19 carries in historic upset of No. 1 Kansas State in 10th game... Ran for 136 yards on 19 carries (7.2 per-rush) in win over Texas Tech in 11th game... Rushed for 178 yards and one TD on 16 carries (11.1 per-rush), including memorable, game-clinching 76-yard TD run in which tweaked leg muscle and hobbled final 40 yards outrunning defenders, in fourth quarter of win over No. 24 Oklahoma State in 12th game... Earned Big 12 Offensive Player of Week Dec. 3 for effort in OSU win... Had 138 rushing yards and 43-yard TD on 16 attempts (8.6 per-carry) to earn offensive MVP honors in Holiday Bowl win over No. 17 UCLA.

[video=youtube_share;Q1bmjDLJKkQ]http://youtu.be/Q1bmjDLJKkQ[/video]

Judge Smails · Jul 10, 2013

50 days to go ... (PART 2)

The 1950 college football season finished with the unbeaten and untied Oklahoma Sooners being the overwhelming choice for national champion. But on New Year’s Day, the 9-0-0 Sooners were upset by the 10-1-0 Kentucky Wildcats in the Sugar Bowl.

The #2 team, the United States Military Academy (Army) had been defeated in its final regular season game by 2-6-0 Navy, 14-2. However, the final poll had been issued on November 27, and the bowl games had no effect on Oklahoma’s status as the #1 team.

For the first time, the Associated Press issued a "preseason poll", before most teams played their first games.

In the poll released on September 25, 1950, the defending champion Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were the overwhelming choice for first, with 101 of 123 first place votes. Far behind were #2 Army, #3 Michigan, #4 Tennessee and #5 Texas (which had already won at Texas Tech 28-14).

October 7 #1 Notre Dame lost to Purdue, 28-14, and eventually finished with a 4-4-1 record. #2 Michigan State lost to Maryland, 34-7. #3 SMU won at Missouri 21-0. #4 Army beat Penn State 41-7. #5 Oklahoma beat Texas A&M 34-28. #6 Kentucky registered a fourth shutout and a 4-0 record, with a 40-0 win against Dayton. #7 Texas, which was idle, rose to 4th place.

October 14 #1 Army beat #18 Michigan 27-6 at Yankee Stadium. #2 SMU beat Oklahoma State 56-0. #3 Oklahoma and #4 Texas met in Dallas, with Oklahoma winning narrowly, 14-13. #5 Kentucky beat Cincinnati 41-7. #7 California, which had beaten USC 13-7, rose to 5th in the next poll.

October 21 #1 Army won at Harvard 49-0. #2 Oklahoma beat Kansas State 58-0. In Houston, #3 SMU beat #15 Rice 42-21. In Philadelphia, #4 Kentucky beat Villanova 34-7. #5 California beat Oregon State in Portland 27-0

October 28 #1 SMU was idle. #2 Army won at Columbia 34-0. #3 Oklahoma won at Iowa State 20-7. In Atlanta, #4 Kentucky beat Georgia Tech 28-14. #5 California beat St. Mary’s 40-25 and dropped in the polls. #6 Ohio State beat Iowa 83-21

November 4 #1 SMU lost at #7 Texas, 23-20. #2 Army won at #15 Pennsylvania 28-13. #3 Oklahoma won at Colorado 27-18. #4 Ohio State won at Northwestern 32-0. #5 Kentucky beat #17 Florida 40-6. #7 Texas beat SMU 23-20, and returned to the top five.

November 11 #1 Army beat New Mexico 51-0. #2 Ohio State beat #15 Wisconsin 19-14. #3 Oklahoma won at #19 Kansas, 33-13. #4 Kentucky won at Mississippi State, 48-21. #5 Texas beat Baylor 27-20. #6 California, which was 7-0-0 after a 35-0 win against #19 UCLA, rose to 4th.

November 18 #1 Ohio State lost at #8 Illinois, 14-7. #2 Oklahoma beat Missouri 41-7. #3 Army won at Stanford 7-0. #4 California defeated San Francisco 13-7. #5 Kentucky handed visiting North Dakota an 83-0 defeat to extend its record to 9-0-0, but still faced a final game was against 8-1-0 Tennessee. #6 Texas won at TCU 21-7.

November 25 #1 Oklahoma beat #16 Nebraska 49-35. #2 Army was idle as it prepared for the Army–Navy Game. #3 Kentucky lost at #9 Tennessee, 7-0. #4 California and unranked Stanford played to a 7-7 tie in Berkeley. #5 Texas beat Texas A&M 21-6. Michigan beat Ohio State in the famous Snow Bowl 9-3 (see below). The final poll was released on November 27, although some colleges had not completed their schedules.

On December 2, with its champion status assured, #1 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State 41-14. #2 Army (9-0-0) was heavily favored to beat unranked, and 2-6-0, Navy. Instead, the Philadelphia game turned into a 14-2 win for the Midshipmen.

#3 Texas played a game on December 9, beating LSU 21-6.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#7 Kentucky Wildcats[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]#1 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#4 Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#3 Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#9 Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#5 California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#10 Clemson Tigers[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]#15 Miami Hurricanes[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

The chart below reflects the point total in the 1950 Heisman Trophy voting.
[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #DDDDFF"]Rank[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Name[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Position[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]School[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Heisman points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Vic Janowicz[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]Ohio State[/TD]
[TD]633[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Kyle Rote[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]SMU[/TD]
[TD]280[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Reds Bagnell[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]Penn[/TD]
[TD]231[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Babe Parilli[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Kentucky[/TD]
[TD]214[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Bobby Reynolds[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska[/TD]
[TD]174[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Bob Williams[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame[/TD]
[TD]159[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Leon Heath[/TD]
[TD]Fullback[/TD]
[TD]Oklahoma[/TD]
[TD]125[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Other individual awards for 1950

Outland Trophy (interior): Jim Weatherall, tackle, Oklahoma
Maxwell Award (player): Reds Bagnell, Penn
Walter Camp Award (back): Babe Parilli, Kentucky
Knute Rockne Award (lineman): Bud McFadin,Texas
AFCA Coach of the Year: Charlie Caldwell, Princeton

1950 MICHIGAN - OHIO STATE ... Snow Bowl ... 9-3 Wolverines
The Ohio State/Michigan football game on November 25, 1950 is known as the Snow Bowl, for obvious reasons. As explained in the alumni magazine, Ohio State University Monthly:

“The game was played in the teeth of a full-scale blizzard, five inches of snow on the ground and snow whistling through the air, borne on a 29-mile-per-hour gale. Despite the fact it was the worst blizzard in 37 years in Columbus, the Ohio capital easily defended its title as the football craziest town in the nation. A total of 50,503 persons braved the elements, staying below deck, under the Stadium, until just a few minutes before the kickoff.”

Because of the large crowd, and the mess it would have created to refund the tickets, Ohio State Athletic Director Dick Larkins, after conferring with both Michigan and Big Ten officials, decided to play the game. The game had bearing on who would win the conference and go to the Rose Bowl, and had the game not been played on Larkin’s order, the Big Ten title would have been given to Ohio State by default. Ohio State officials felt that they would never be able to have “lived this down” had that happened.

“The snow, wind, and insecure footing made the game a mockery – an imitation of football only by a stretch of the imagination. The two teams huffed, puffed, bumped and slid. Cold hands refused to hang on to the ball. At the end of 60 minutes of sliding and kicking, Michigan emerged on the long end of a 9-3 count.”

“Volunteers were detailed to special broom duty, keeping the goal lines and the sideline yard-markers swept clean throughout the game. On several occasions, when there was an official’s time-out to measure for a first down, a special crew of sweepers cleared off the snow to find the line.”

“The strategy of both teams became the same: run a play or two into the line – straight in – and then kick, preferably on third down because if a fumble occurred a fourth down for kicking would be available.”

Ohio State scored first after Bob Momsen recovered a blocked kick and Vic Janowicz kicked a field goal. Michigan’s first score of the game came from a blocked kick that rolled out of the end zone for a safety. With 47 seconds remaining in the first half, Michigan’s Tony Momsen (brother of Bob) blocked a punt and fell on it in the end zone for a touchdown and the final score of 9-3.

Vic Janowicz said after the game “It was like a nightmare. My hands were numb (and blue). I had no feeling in them and I don’t know how I hung onto the ball. It was terrible. You knew what you wanted to do, but you couldn’t do it.”

Michigan won the game despite never getting a first down and failing on all nine pass attempts. The teams punted 45 times, sometimes on first down, which is highly unusual in football. The strategy was based on the weather in that both teams felt it better to have the ball in the hands of their opponents near the end zone and hope for a fumble of the slippery ball. The game became famous because of the weather and the difficulty of playing football when the players can't see the lines on the field; film of the game is often shown during television coverage of their annual meeting or when histories of either team are compiled. During the game, two brothers, Bob Momsen from Ohio State and Tony Momsen from Michigan, faced off in college football for the first time.

[video=youtube_share;tP1ZfZMbarI]http://youtu.be/tP1ZfZMbarI[/video]

Judge Smails · Jul 11, 2013

49 days to go ...

Specifically, 49.2: EJ Manuel completed 49.2 percent of his passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield in 2012, best among AQ-conference quarterbacks taken in the 2013 draft.

"You can mold him into something really special. He's raw, but he's that piece of clay where you take him and you can turn him to what you want." -- Mike Mayock

Manuel was a Parade High School All-American, and got his chance to play early for the Seminoles. The Seminoles' 2008 scout team MVP (who missed 2009 spring practice with a broken index finger) won three of his four starts for injured starter Christian Ponder as a redshirt freshman, including a Gator Bowl MVP performance (17-24, 189 yards, 14 rushes for 70 yards and a TD) in the team's comeback win over West Virginia.

When Ponder returned for 2010, Manuel again took a reserve role -– though injuries gave him two chances to start (one win over Clemson and a loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC Championship Game). He also led the Seminoles to a win in the Chick-fil-A Bowl against South Carolina after Ponder suffered a concussion. Manuel's play was not necessarily consistent in his first year as the full-time starter in 2011 (2,666 passing yards, 18 TD, eight INT, 65.3 percent completion rate), and he missed the team's loss to Clemson (and did not start the following week vs. Wake Forest) with his own shoulder injury. He still helped Florida State to a 9-4 record and a third straight postseason win -– showing supreme toughness by playing on a broken leg (fractured left fibula) during the team's Champs Sports Bowl win over Notre Dame, going 20 for 31 for 249 yards and two touchdowns.

Finally, as a senior, Manuel started all 14 games and even topped off the 12-2 season with a decisive Orange Bowl victory. He completed 263 of 387 for 3,397 yards, 23 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He added 310 rushing yards and four touchdowns while dealing with his mother's cancer treatment, something Manuel kept under wraps for a large portion of the season.

-------------------------------------------------

1949 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1949 college football season finished with four teams that were unbeaten and untied-- Notre Dame, Oklahoma, #3 California and Army had won all their games at season’s end. Notre Dame, however, was the overwhelming choice for national champion, with 172 of 208 first place votes. The Irish reclaimed the summit of the AP poll in early October and were challenged only by unranked SMU in the last game of the season. Trailing 13–0 at the half, the Mustangs' junior halfback Kyle Rote thrilled the home fans in the fourth quarter with a pair of touchdowns to tie the score at 20–all. Notre Dame responded with a 57–yard scoring drive to win 27–20 and extend its unbeaten string to 38 games. The Fighting Irish did not participate in the New Year’s Day bowl games, which were played on January 2, 1950.

On October 1 in Seattle, Notre Dame beat Washington 27-7. Oklahoma beat Texas A&M 33-13, North Carolina beat Georgia 21-14, and Michigan won at Stanford, 27-7. When the first poll was issued, Michigan had 34 of the 80 votes cast, followed by Notre Dame and Oklahoma. Tulane University, which had beaten Alabama 28-14 and Georgia Tech 18-0, placed fourth. Minnesota, which had victories over Washington (48-20) and at Nebraska (28-6) was fifth. North Carolina, which had been in the final top five in 1948, was at sixth place.

ARMY SNAPS MICHIGAN STRING, 21-7 ... Cadets Grab 14th in Row As Underdog ... Wolverines Trail Throughout; Sought 26th Straight
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 8 (AP) --- A beautifully-poised Army team snapped mighty Michigan's 25-game winning streak today as it whipped the Wolverines 21-7 in one of the big upsets of the year.
Army, in winning its fourteenth game without a defeat, maintained its jinx over Michigan which has lost all of its Army games.
It was their first loss since they dropped a 13-9 game to Illinois on October 26, 1946 and their worst defeat since Navy took them 33-7 in 1945. Army edged them 20-13 in the 1946 game.
Army wasted little time in letting the sell-out crowd of 97,239 know they were witnessing a real ball game.
They stunned Michigan with an 89-yard first period touchdown march with Quarterback Arnold Galiffa's deadly passing sparking the drive.
The drive started from Army's 11 after Michigan punted out of bounds.
With Galiffa completing two passes to right end Bill Kellum good for 20 and 14 yards, the West Pointers swept along to their 39.
Then Galiffa changed receivers as he hit Left End Dan Foldberg with a 46-yard pass that put the ball on Michigan's 15. Kuckhahn picked up 10 for a first down and then Halfback Frank Fischl broke off left end for five yards and crossed the goal line standing up for Army's first touchdown. Jack Mackmull kicked the point and Army led, 7-0.
Michigan was hard hit as its No. 1 passer Chuck Ortmann suffered a concussion on the second running play of the game and was carried off on a stretcher. He was taken to the University Health Center where doctors said his condition was good.
Late in the period, Michigan Quarterback John Ghindia fumbled and Tackle Bruce Ackerson of the Army grabbed the ball in the air on the 13 and took it to the 10.
Halfback Jim Cain broke loose on the next play for Army's second score as he skirted right tackle and went over standing up. Mackmull kicked the point and Army had a 14-0 margin.

October 29 In Baltimore, #1 Notre Dame defeated Navy, 40-0. #2 Army (the United States Military Academy) defeated the VMI (the Virginia Military Institute) 40-14. #3 Oklahoma beat Iowa State 34-7. In Los Angeles, #4 California beat UCLA 35-21. #5 Rice beat Texas Tech 28-0 to extend its record to 5-1-0. #6 Michigan, which won at Illinois 13-0, returned to the Top Five with a 4-2-0 record.

November 26 #1 Notre Dame defeated visiting USC, 32-0. #3 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State 41-0. #4 Army returned to Philadelphia for the Army–Navy Game and defeated Navy 38-0. #2 California at 10-0-0, and #5 Ohio State, at 6-1-2, accepted bids to play in the Rose Bowl.

The final poll was released on November 28, although some colleges had not completed their schedules. On December 3, the national champs, #1 Notre Dame closed a perfect season in Dallas with a 27-20 win over Southern Methodist University (SMU).

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#2 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]35[/TD]
[TD]#9 LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#6 Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]#3 California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#5 Rice Owls[/TD]
[TD]27[/TD]
[TD]#16 North Carolina Tar Heels[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#15 Santa Clara Broncos[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#11 Kentucky Wildcats[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Leon Hart, the second lineman to win the Heisman Memorial Trophy was the co-captain of Notre Dame's 1949 National Championship team. Considered by some experts to be the greatest all-time All-American end, Hart played both offense and defense. Hart was a savage blocker and tackler, ran the end-around play and from fullback with devastating effect. Hart received every major football award in 1949 including Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press. He was also voted on All-American teams for three of his four years, during which Notre Dame never lost a game.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and was a "Bonus Choice" of the Detroit Lions in 1950. In 1951, he was voted "All-Pro" on offense and defense. In Hart's eight seasons with Detroit they won four divisional titles and three world championships. He and his beloved late wife Lois are parents of five sons and one daughter. They have fourteen grandchildren. Leon passed away September 24, 2002.

Leon was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1973.

The chart below reflects the point total in the 1949 Heisman Trophy voting.
[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #DDDDFF"]Rank[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Name[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Position[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 17%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]School[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Heisman points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Leon Hart[/TD]
[TD]End[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame[/TD]
[TD]995[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Charlie Justice[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]North Carolina[/TD]
[TD]272[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Doak Walker[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]SMU[/TD]
[TD]229[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Arnold Galiffa[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Army[/TD]
[TD]196[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Bob Williams[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame[/TD]
[TD]189[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Eddie LeBaron[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Pacific[/TD]
[TD]122[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Outland Trophy (interior): Ed Bagdon, guard, Michigan State
Maxwell Award (player): Leon Hart, Notre Dame
Walter Camp Award (back): Emil Sitko, Notre Dame
Knute Rockne Award (lineman): Leon Hart, end, Notre Dame
AFCA Coach of the Year: Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma

Judge Smails · Jul 12, 2013

48 days to go ...

Jersey number of Gerald Ford: More famous for being the 38th President of the United States, Ford initially made his name as No. 48 for the Wolverines. He was a center and linebacker on Michigan's 1933 national championship squad.

Ford, 48, standing next to his roommate at Michigan, Willis Ward (61) in the team photo from 1934

As a three year letter winner, Ford was part of 2 national championships (1932, 1933). As far as individual honors, Ford won Michigan’s Meyer Morton Award in 1932 which goes to the player that shows the greatest development during spring football. In 1934 he was elected Most Valuable Player.

As for the 1934 team, it has to be noted that the team was a real stinker. After coming off back-to-back national championships, it was apparently a major rebuilding year. The team only managed one win, a 9-2 squeaker over Georgia Tech in Ann Arbor. For the season the Wolverines were outscored 143-21 and held scoreless five times.

[video=youtube_share;VAxx5UzKqPA]http://youtu.be/VAxx5UzKqPA[/video]

Geoff’s Larcom’s piece in the 12/27/06 Ann Arbor News didn’t shy away from the 1934 season, pointing out a few interesting things. First, that the Georgia Tech game held greater significance. Michigan had an African American player on the team named Willis Ward, with whom Ford roomed at road games. Well, Georgia Tech knew that Ward was on the team & told Fielding Yost that they would not play if Ward participated. Here’s more from the Bentley Museum website:

At least as early as the fall of 1933, the Georgia Tech athletic director had written to Yost asking what was going to be done about Ward, asserting that his team would not take the field if Ward was playing for Michigan. As game day neared the issue became a major controversy on campus and mass meetings and demonstrations were held. Some students and faculty demanded that either Ward must play or the game should be canceled. Others argued that, as host team, Michigan must respect southern customs and hold Ward out of the game. Yost and Kipke did not publicly reveal their decision beforehand, but when kick-off came, Ward was not in uniform.

The incident left Ward angry and, in his view, it demoralized the team for the rest of the season. Ward recalled that [Gerald] Ford considered quitting the team in protest. The team finished with a 1-9 record, the only win coming against Georgia Tech. In later interviews Ward said the episode left him disillusioned with sports and sapped his competitive spirit. He took part in the Olympic trials, but having lost the burning ambition to win, Ward, in his own words, did not train to his peak and failed to make the U.S. team. Willis Ward went on to earn a law degree and had a distinguished career as a lawyer and judge.

For more on Willis Ward and the 1934 protests, check this out ... http://mvictors.com/?p=3691

In 1999 Ford wrote an New York Times Op-Ed piece defending U of M’s affirmative action admissions policy saying, “Do we really want to risk turning back the clock to an ear when the Willis Wards were isolated and penalized for the color of their skin, their economic standing or national ancestry?”

Another interesting item from 1934 that Larcom discussed was the trip to Minnesota to battle for the Little Brown Jug. The Gophers crushed Ford and the Wolverines 34-0 in Minnesota, but the game and the trip made a great impression on Ford. He was touched by the students and fans that were waiting for the team when they returned from the trip the following Sunday morning, despite the big loss and the miserable season. Ford called it a “demonstration of loyalty that I’m sure none of us has forgotten.”

Finally, 1934 was the year that Ohio State started its tradition of giving a charm depicting a pair of gold pants to each player if the Buckeyes defeated Michigan. Funny, that these frequently show up on eBay. Anyway, here’s the explanation of the history of the gold pants from the official Buckeye website:

Gold Pants: A gold charm replica of a pair of football pants is given to players and coaches following wins over Michigan. The tradition started in 1934 when first-year coach Francis Schmidt told those wondering how OSU would fare with its nemesis from Ann Arbor: “They put their pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else.” Schmidt’s Buckeyes then went and defeated Michigan four-consecutive times, all by shutout.

According to the folks that represent his library in Grand Rapids, Ford turned down offers to play for the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers after his senior season. He instead went on to coach boxing and football at Yale while waiting to gain entry to law school.

SIDE NOTE: The 'gold pants' comment brought me straight to the SNL skit about the More Cowbell when Christopher Walken says, "I put my pants on one leg at a time. The only difference is when I'm dressed I make gold records." LOLOLOLOLOL

Here's some Fast Facts from the FORD PRESIDENTIAL WEBSITE:

Assorted Summer and Miscellaneous Jobs:
Filled and cleaned paint cans in family paint business; mowed lawns; handled concessions at an amusement park; washed dishes and grilled hamburgers in a restaurant; Park Ranger, Yellowstone National Park; washed dishes in college fraternity house; model.

College:
B.A., University of Michigan, Class of 1935. Majored in economics. Member of Michagamua (senior men's honor society), Sphinx (junior men's honor society), Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, Interfraternity Council, and Student Council. Played center and linebacker on U-M football team. Started at center and named team MVP in senior year. Played in East-West College All-Star game and Chicago Tribune College All-Star game. Did not earn All-America honors as is popularly believed. Received contract offers from the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions (which Ford turned down in favor of law school).

Law School:
LL.B., Yale University Law School, Class of 1941. Member of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity, and worked as assistant football coach and freshman boxing coach.

Occupation:
Attorney.

Military Service:
During the attack on Pearl Harbor Gerald Ford lived in Grand Rapids and practiced law. He joined the US Navy in 1942 and remained on active duty until 1946. Ford served aboard the USS Monterey and was discharged with the rank of Lt. Commander. He received the following medals and awards: the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-American Campaign Medal with one silver star and four bronze stars, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with two bronze stars. Ford remained in the Naval Reserves until 1963.

Marriage:
Elizabeth Bloomer Warren (b. April 8, 1918), October 15, 1948.

Children:
Michael Gerald (b. March 14, 1950), John (Jack) Gardner (b. March 16, 1952, Steven Meigs (b. May 19, 1956), Susan Elizabeth (b. July 6, 1957).

Congress:
Served Grand Rapids and Kent County in United States House of Representatives, 1949-1973. House Minority Leader, 1965-1973.

Vice President:
Succeeded Spiro Agnew as Richard Nixon's Vice President following Agnew's resignation. Confirmed on December 6, 1973.

President:
Sworn-in as President (at the age of 61 years, 26 days) following Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. Selected Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President. Left office on January 20, 1977, following general election loss to Jimmy Carter.

Presidential Pets:
Liberty, Golden Retriever; Misty, Golden Retriever (Liberty's off-spring); Shan Shein, Siamese Cat.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1948 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1948 college football season finished with several unbeaten teams. The Michigan Wolverines and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were both unbeaten and untied, as were the California Golden Bears and the Clemson Tigers. Ultimately, Michigan was the first place choice for the majority (192 of the 333) of voters in the AP writers poll, but didn’t play in the postseason because of a no-repeat rule for Big Nine schools. Northwestern went to the Rose Bowl instead, and handed California a 20-14 loss.

The Associated Press did not poll the writers until the fourth week of the season. Among the five teams that had been ranked highest in 1947, Notre Dame, Michigan, SMU, Penn State, Texas began play on September 25.

Notre Dame edged Purdue 28-27, Michigan won at Michigan State, 13-7, and SMU won at Pittsburgh, 33-14. The Texas Longhorns lost at North Carolina, 34-7. Northwestern beat UCLA, in Los Angeles, 19-0. In Baltimore, California beat Navy, 21-7. Army beat visiting Villanova 28-0.

The coin toss at the 1948 Texas-North Carolina football game, a 34-7 win for the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill

October 2
In Pittsburgh, Notre Dame shut out Pitt, 40-0, while in Dallas, SMU defeated Texas Tech 41-6. Penn State beat Bucknell 35-0, Michigan beat Oregon 14-0. North Carolina won at Georgia 21-14. Army beat Lafayette 54-7. Northwestern beat Purdue 21-0.

When the first poll was issued, Notre Dame had fewer first place votes than North Carolina (50 vs. 55), but ten more points overall (1,200 to 1,190) Northewstern was third, followed by SMU and Army. Though unbeaten, Michigan was ranked 7th, after Georgia Tech.

October 30
#1 Michigan beat Illinois 28-20, while in Baltimore, #2 Notre Dame beat Navy 41-7. #3 North Carolina won at Tennessee 14-7. In Los Angeles, #4 California beat USC, 13-7. #5 Army beat Virginia Tech 49-7. In the next poll, Notre Dame was ranked at the new number one.

November 6
#1 Notre Dame won at Indiana 42-6. #2 Michigan beat visiting Navy 35-0. #3 North Carolina was tied by William & Mary, 7-7. #4 Army defeated Stanford at Yankee Stadium in New York, 43-0, while #5 California beat visiting UCLA 28-13. Replacing North Carolina in the Top Five was #14 Penn State, which had shut out Penn in Philadelphia, 13-0.

November 13
#1 Michigan beat Indiana 54-0. #2 Notre Dame beat #8 Northwestern 12-7. #3 Army won at Pennsylvania 26-20. #4 California beat Washington State 44-14. #5 Penn State beat Temple 47-0, but still dropped in the next poll. It was replaced by #6 North Carolina, which returned after a win at Maryland 49-20.

November 20
#1 Michigan closed its season with a 13-3 win at #18 Ohio State. #2 Notre Dame and #3 Army were both idle. #4 California beat Stanford 7-6. #5 North Carolina beat Duke 20-0.

November 27
#1 Michigan, which had completed its season, had 105 of 190 first place votes. #2 Notre Dame defeated Washington 46-0.

The annual Army–Navy Game in Philadelphia pitted unbeaten (8-0-0) and #3 Army against winless (0-8-0) Navy, and 102,000 fans turned out to watch the mismatch, including President Truman. It was a surprise when the Midshipmen scored first, but Army went ahead 21-14 after three quarters. In the fourth quarter, Navy pushed the Cadets back to their own goal line, and took the punt at midfield. In six plays, Navy drove down to the four yard line, and Bill Hawkins crashed into the end zone to make it 21-20. Roger Drew added the point after to ruin Army's perfect record, 21-21.

h-armstrong-roberts-crowd-in-stands-watching-army-vs-navy-american-football-game-27-november-1948.jpg

A packed house in Philly for the 11-27-48 Army-Navy game, which ended in a 21-21 tie

#4 North Carolina won at Virginia 34-12, and #5 California had finished its season. The final poll was released on November 29, although some colleges had not completed their schedules. On December 4, #2 Notre Dame‘s perfect record was compromised in Los Angeles with a 14-14 tie against unranked USC.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#5 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#3 North Carolina Tar Heels[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#7 Northwestern Wildcats[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#4 California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#10 SMU Mustangs[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#9 Oregon Ducks[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]41[/TD]
[TD]#8 Georgia Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

All-America Team Controversy
The individuals selected to the most All-American teams were SMU quarterback (and Heisman Trophy winner) Doak Walker, Penn center Chuck Bednarik, North Carolina running back Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice, Cal running back (and future American League baseball MVP) Jackie Jensen, and Michigan end Dick Rifenberg.

Collier's Weekly, which began picking All-American football teams in 1888, had employed Grantland Rice to select its All-American team for 22 years. After Rice wrote a feature story about college football for Look, Collier's replaced Rice in 1948, hiring eight college coaches (paying them $500 each) and billing them as the "Supreme Court of Football."

The eight coaches were Frank Leahy (Notre Dame), Matty Bell (Southern Methodist), Tuss McLaughry (Dartmouth), Bernie Bierman (Minnesota), Wally Butts (Georgia), Jeff Cravath (Southern California), Harvey Harman (Rutgers), and Lou Little (Columbia). One of the innovations touted by Collier's for 1948 was the use of news reels provided by Warner Pathe and university athletic departments to study each player. Collier's circulated an initial round of ballots to members of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), with their votes narrowing the selections to a group of 55 finalists. The panel of eight then studied the "motion pictures of the players in action" and selected the Collier's All-American team.

Collier's new affiliation with the AFCA ended the Saturday Evening Post's association with the group as its All-American selectors. The competition for All-American selectors led Time to write an article in September 1948 about the "scrimmage" between the magazines: "No college football star hoping to make All-America takes it more seriously than the magazines which pick them. To the magazines, All-Americas are a deadly business, an important piece of promotion involving the prestige of the magazines as well as their hired experts."

The Associated Press based its selections on a poll of several hundred staff writers, newspaper sports editors and broadcasters. The AP reported that its voters overwhelming agreed on five of the first-team selections -- Dick Rifenberg of Michigan at end, Buddy Burris of Oklahoma at guard, Charlie Justice of North Carolina at back, Doak Walker at quarterback, and William Fischer of Notre Dame at tackle.

The biggest controversy in the 1948 All-American selection process concerned the widespread use of offensive and defensive specialists, resulting from the adoption of an unlimited substitution rule. The Associated Press considered selecting separate offensive and defensive teams, but opted to continue the tradition of picking a single squad of 11 All-Americans. The AP reported on its decision as follows:

"Sharpest argument this year over bestowing All-America honors centered on the merit of recognizing men who played only offense or defense under the spreading 'two platoon' system. Separate defensive and offensive All-America first teams were proposed. Should the present cleavage widen this could become a possibility."

In the end, the AP named only three platoon players to its All-American teams -- offensive specialists, Rifenberg, Justice and Bobby Stuart.

The Central Press Association noted that its 1948 All-American eleven "is not necessarily a true All-American team because of the present-day system of using two teams, an offensive and a defensive unit."

It was the International News Service (the wire service operated by the Hearst newspapers) that in 1948 became the first to break with tradition by naming separate All-American teams on offense and defense. The INS described its decision in its article announcing the selections:

"The days of selecting 11 men on an All-American first team are over, until such time as the unlimited substitution rules are altered. INS thus picks its All-America as the game is now played with the 22 man squad divided into an offensive team and a defensive team."

INS sports editor, Lawton Carver, wrote that the "era of the iron man in football is rapidly passing," as an increasing number of players were being "tutored and geared to specialize for offense or defense and must be recognized for the part they play."

Doak Walker of Southern Methodist University received more votes than any other athlete in the 1948 All-American voting. He was also the recipient of the 1948 Heisman Trophy, and was later inducted into both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.

The chart below reflects the published vote total from the UP poll, and also reflects the number of polls in which the leading candidates were selected as a first-team All-American, and their point total for the top five players in the 1948 Heisman Trophy voting.

[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #DDDDFF"]Name[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Class[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Position[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]School[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]UPI votes[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]First-team selections[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Heisman points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Doak Walker[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]SMU[/TD]
[TD]2820[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]778[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Chuck Bednarik[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Center[/TD]
[TD]Penn.[/TD]
[TD]2514[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]336[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Leo Nomellini[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Tackle[/TD]
[TD]Minn.[/TD]
[TD]2034[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Running back[/TD]
[TD]N. Car.[/TD]
[TD]2740[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]443[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Jackie Jensen[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Running back[/TD]
[TD]Calif.[/TD]
[TD]2118[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]143[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Dick Rifenberg[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Ends[/TD]
[TD]Mich.[/TD]
[TD]1790[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bill Fischer[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]N.Dame[/TD]
[TD]2335[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Paul "Buddy" Burris[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]Okla.[/TD]
[TD]1512[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Leon Hart[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Ends[/TD]
[TD]N.Dame[/TD]
[TD]1926[/TD]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Al Wistert[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Tackle[/TD]
[TD]Mich.[/TD]
[TD]1689[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Clyde Scott[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Running back[/TD]
[TD]Ark.[/TD]
[TD]na[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Stan Heath[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Running back[/TD]
[TD]Nev.[/TD]
[TD]1224[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]113[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Judge Smails · Jul 13, 2013

47 days to go ...

Oklahoma's win streak: Oklahoma's NCAA-record 47-game win streak spanned 1953-57, including back-to-back national titles in 1955-56. The streak ended with a 7-0 loss to Notre Dame on Nov. 16, 1957. Those two programs will meet this season on Sept. 28 in South Bend.

Notre Dame coach Terry Brennan is carried off the field after the Irish snapped the Sooners' streak

The University of Oklahoma holds the NCAA record for most consecutive wins by a major college program at 47-straight. The streak spanned five seasons from 1953-57. Oklahoma lost to Notre Dame, 28-21, in the 1953 season opener and tied Pittsburgh, 7-7, the next week. The streak began with a 19-14 win against arch-rival Texas in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Oct. 10, 1953.

Oklahoma rolled through the rest of the 1953 season and capped a 9-1-1 campaign with a 7-0 shutout of Maryland in the Orange Bowl in Miami.

The Sooners went 10-0 in 1954 and 11-0 in 1955. The 30th-straight win came against Maryland, again in the Orange Bowl, on January 1, 1956, and the Sooners claimed their second National Championship.

OU won its 35th consecutive game with a 40-0 rout of Notre Dame in South Bend on Oct. 27, 1956. Oklahoma finished the season a perfect 10-0 with the streak at 40 games. The Sooners were again voted National Champions.

On Nov. 9, 1957, in Columbia, Mo., Oklahoma won its 47th-consecutive game with a 39-14 victory against the Missouri Tigers. The streak came to an end on Nov. 16, 1957, when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish claimed a 7-0 victory at Owen Field in Norman. The Sooners won the remainder of their games in 1957 and finished with a 48-21 victory against Duke in the Orange Bowl to post a 10-1 record.

Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak is considered one of the greatest feats in major college football history. Amazingly, head coach Bud Wilkinson also led Oklahoma on a 31-game winning streak from 1948-50. That streak ranks eighth on the NCAA's all-time major college football winning streak list.

Since World War I, there have been only four streaks of more than 30 wins in major college football. OU owns two of the four. Toledo won 35 in a row from 1969-71 and the Miami Hurricanes won 34-straight from 2000-02.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

SIDE-NOTE ON NOTRE DAME: In the history of collegiate sports, there are two major sports records that may never be eclipsed. They are both the longest team winning streaks in the most prominent of American college sports; football and basketball.

The record for consecutive basketball games won at the Division 1-A level is 88 by UCLA from 1971 to 1974. During that time period, the Bruins won the national championship 3 times, from 1971 to 1973.

The UCLA basketball streak started January 30, 1971 with a 74-61 victory over Cal Santa Barbara.
It ended January 19, 1974 with a loss to Notre Dame, 70-71.

The record for consecutive games won by a Division 1 college football program is 47 from 1953 to 1957 by the University of Oklahoma. The Sooners won national championships in 1955 and 1956.

The Oklahoma streak started on October 10, 1953 with a 19-14 defeat of the Texas Longhorns.
It ended on ended November 16, 1957 with a loss to Notre Dame, 0-7.

Notre Dame ended both streaks with 17 years separating the two events. This is common knowledge in the sports world.

But, what fewer people know is that both streaks started following a loss to Notre Dame, as well.

Oklahoma lost to Notre Dame in the Sooners’ season opener of 1953 on September 26, 28-21. The following week, they tied Pitt, 7-7.
UCLA also lost to Notre Dame in basketball on January 23, 1971, seven days before its record streak began.

Notre Dame basketball and football are separated by light years in their historical significance. Notre Dame football has been dominant throughout history. The 1950’s are regarded as a down time for that program. But, it is still Notre Dame and, since Oklahoma and Notre Dame played a seasonal series against each other in the 1950’s, it is perhaps not surprising that the Irish provided the bookends to the streak.

The basketball program at Notre Dame has always taken a backseat to football. So, the fact that the UCLA streak began and ended with the Irish is a little more improbable. But, in the 1970’s, Notre Dame basketball was on the rise. The 1971 squad was led by Austin Carr and the 1974 team was one of the nation’s best, rising in the rankings to #2 that season.

----------------------------------------------------

MORE 47s IN COACHING

Les Miles, LSU. While the Mad Hatter's diction and game management can be bewildering at times, his eight-year tenure in Baton Rouge has been nothing short of extraordinary. The Tigers have won at least 10 games in all but two seasons, going 47-17 in SEC play, and reached two BCS championship games, winning one (2007). Miles' program is a fixture near the top of the annual recruiting rankings and churns out a virtual assembly line of prized NFL prospects.

Kirk Ferentz, Iowa. The 2009 Orange Bowl proved an aberration in Ferentz's otherwise unimpressive recent tenure. Take away that one 11-2 season and the Hawkeyes are 47-41 since 2005 under their $3.6 million-per-year coach.

Kirk+Ferentz+Iowa+v+Arizona+KnArkuHrYonl.jpg

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

1947 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1947 college football season finished with Notre Dame, Michigan and Penn State all unbeaten and untied, but the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were the first place choice for 107 of the 142 voters in the AP writers poll, and repeated as national champions. Michigan went on to meet USC in the Rose Bowl and won 49-0, while Penn State was tied 13-13 by SMU in the Cotton Bowl Classic, and Notre Dame didn’t participate in the postseason.

An unofficial post bowl AP poll was conducted with Michigan and Notre Dame as the only options and Michigan won by a vote of 226 to 119.

On October 4 Notre Dame won at Pittsburgh 40-6. Army shut out visiting Colorado 47-0. Georgia beat Tulane in New Orleans, 20-0. UCLA lost at Northwestern 27-26. Illinois won at Iowa 35-12. When the first poll came out that Monday, Notre Dame was the favorite of a bare majority (52 of 103) of the voters, followed by Michigan, Texas, Georgia Tech and Army. Illinois was ranked 6th, Penn 7th, California 8th and Georgia was ranked 9th.

On October 11 #1 Notre Dame won at Purdue, 22-7. #2 Michigan beat Pittsburgh, 69-0. In Dallas, #3 Texas beat #15 Oklahoma 34-14. #4 Georgia Tech beat VMI, 20-0, for its third shutout in three starts. #5 Army and #6 Illinois met at Yankee Stadium in New York, and played to a 0-0 tie. #8 California, which won at Wisconsin 48-7, rose to fourth.

October 18
#1 Michigan won at Northwestern, 49-21. #2 Notre Dame shut out visiting Nebraska, 31-0. #3 Texas met Arkansas at a neutral location in Memphis, Tennessee, and won 21-6. #4 California beat Washington State, 21-6. #5 Georgia Tech defeated Auburn 27-7 to stay unbeaten, but was voted out of the Top Five. #6 Illinois, which beat #13 Minnesota 40-13, rose to fifth.

October 25
#1 Michigan stayed unbeaten, with a 13-6 win over Minnesota, as did #2 Notre Dame, which defeated Iowa, 21-0. #3 Texas beat Rice, 12-0. #4 California lost to #10 USC, 39-14. #5 Illinois lost at Purdue, 14-7. #8 Penn beat Navy, 21-0. The Irish rose to #1 in the next poll, with a 78-69 lead in votes over Michigan.

November 1
#1 Notre Dame and Navy met in Cleveland, with the Fighting Irish registering their third straight shutout, 27-0. #2 Michigan won at #11 Illinois, 14-7. In Dallas, #3 Texas (6-0-0) faced unbeaten (5-0-0) #8 Southern Methodist University (SMU), and the SMU Mustangs won 14-13. #4 Pennsylvania won at Princeton, 26-7, to stay unbeaten. In Seattle, #5 USC beat Washington 19-0.

[video=youtube_share;8TyZB1kjAbA]http://youtu.be/8TyZB1kjAbA[/video]
Doak Walker highlights from 1947 ... starts about the :55 mark, enjoy

November 8
#1 Notre Dame hosted #9 Army and won 27-7. #2 Michigan beat Indiana 35-0. #3 SMU won at Texas A&M, 13-0. #4 Pennsylvania beat Virginia, 19-7. #5 USC beat Stanford, 14-0.

November 15
#1 Notre Dame had more points scored against it than at any other time in the season, but won at unranked Northwestern, 26-19. Meanwhile, #2 Michigan faced #9 Wisconsin in Madison and won 40-6, raising it to first place in the next poll. #3 Pennsylvania and #13 Army played to a 7-7 tie in Philadelphia. #4 SMU stayed unbeaten with a 14-6 win over Arkansas. #5 USC was idle.

November 22
#1 Michigan closed its season at 9-0-0 with a 21-0 win over Ohio State, and accepted an invitation to meet #4 USC (which beat #18 UCLA 6-0) in the Rose Bowl.

Meanwhile, #3 SMU won 10-0 win at Baylor, and #5 Penn State won at Pitt, 29-0. Both unbeaten, they accepted invitations to the Cotton Bowl Classic.

#2 Notre Dame thrashed Tulane, 59-6 and was restored ot the top spot by the AP voters, with 97 first place votes to Michigan’s 81.

November 29
#1 Notre Dame, #2 Michigan, #4 USC, and #5 Penn State were idle. #3 SMU was tied in a game at TCU, 19-19.

December 6
#1 Notre Dame (8-0-0) and #3 USC (7-0-1) met in Los Angeles, with the Irish cementing their hold on the #1 ranking, 38-7. #2 Michigan, #4 SMU and #5 Penn State had completed their seasons.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#2 Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]49[/TD]
[TD]#8 USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#3 SMU Mustangs[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]#4 Penn State Nittany Lions[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#5 Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]27[/TD]
[TD]#6 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#10 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#12 Kansas Jayhawks[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

The chart below reflects the published point total from the UP poll (2,211 points possible), and also reflects the number of polls in which the leading candidates were selected as a first-team All-American, and their point total in the 1947 Heisman Trophy voting.

[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #DDDDFF"]Name[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Class[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Position[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 14%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]School[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]UPI votes[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]First-team selections[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Heisman points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Johnny Lujack[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]N.Dame[/TD]
[TD]2,086[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]742[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bob Chappuis[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Back[/TD]
[TD]Mich.[/TD]
[TD]1,838[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]555[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Joe Steffy[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]Army[/TD]
[TD]1,465[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Doak Walker[/TD]
[TD]So.[/TD]
[TD]Back[/TD]
[TD]SMU[/TD]
[TD]1,367[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]196[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bill Swiacki[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]End[/TD]
[TD]Columbia[/TD]
[TD]1,041[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]61[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bob Davis[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Tackle[/TD]
[TD]Ga.Tech.[/TD]
[TD]739[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Paul Cleary[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]End[/TD]
[TD]S.Cal.[/TD]
[TD]899[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bill Fischer[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]N.Dame[/TD]
[TD]909[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Chuck Bednarik[/TD]
[TD]Jr.[/TD]
[TD]Center[/TD]
[TD]Penn[/TD]
[TD]899[/TD]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]65[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]George Connor[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Tackle[/TD]
[TD]N.Dame[/TD]
[TD]1,831[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bobby Layne[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Texas[/TD]
[TD]1,200[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]75[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

National championship controversy

Response to Michigan's Rose Bowl win
After the final AP Poll, Michigan went on to beat USC in the 1948 Rose Bowl, a greater margin that by which Notre Dame had beaten USC (38-7). Michigan's 49–0 victory was the largest margin of victory ever against a USC team and the most points scored in Rose Bowl history. Football writer Pete Rozelle reported on the reaction of the assembled writers in the Rose Bowl press box. "From Grantland Rice down through the ranks of the nation's top sports writers assembled in the Rose Bowl press box yesterday there was nothing but glowing expletives for the synchronized Michigan Wolverine wrecking crew that powered over Southern California, 49-0. While for the most part hedging from a comparison of Michigan with Notre Dame, the consensus of the scribes was that the offensive-minded Ann Arbor squad deserved no less than a co-rating with the Irish as America's Number One Collegiate eleven." Grantland Rice, the dean of the nation's sports writers, wrote of Michigan: "It is the best all-around college football team I've seen this year. The backfield's brilliant passing and running skill gives Michigan the most powerful offense in the country." Red Smith of the New York Herald Tribune said, "No other team that I have seen this season did things with so little effort. Crisler has so many that do so much."

Debate over which team was best
Notre Dame supporters argued that the post-season AP poll was final and should not be revisited. They contended that Michigan had run up the score on USC, noted that Notre Dame had not had an opportunity to play in a bowl game, and asserted that Michigan and other Big Nine schools were unwilling to schedule Notre Dame in the regular season. Detroit Free Press sports editor, Lyall Smith, argued the debate should be answered by comparing the two team's performance against common opponents. Smith noted: "They played three common foes. Notre Dame beat Pitt, 40–6, a margin of 34 points: Michigan beat Pitt 59–0. Notre Dame defeated Northwestern, 26 to 19, a margin of seven points: Michigan beat the 'Cats 49 to 21, for a 28-point advantage. Notre Dame dropped USC, 36 to 7, in what Coach Frank Leahy termed his team's 'greatest game of the year,' while Michigan slaughtered the same Trojans, 49 to 0. Against those three common opponents the Irish scored 104 points to 32. Michigan's margin was 167 to 21." Smith also pointed to Michigan's strength of schedule: "The teams Michigan played won 42 games, lost 48 and tied five. Notre Dame's adversaries won only 30, lost 45, and tied 6."

Special post-bowl AP poll
In response to the debate over which team deserved to be recognized as the nation's best, the Associated Press decided to hold a post-bowl poll. The AP reported on the rationale for the special poll this way: "The Associated Press is polling sports editors of its member papers throughout the country to help settle the argument as to which is the better football team – Michigan or Notre Dame. The AP's final poll of the top ten teams, released December 8 at the conclusion of the regulation season, resulted in Notre Dame winning first place with 1,410 points. Michigan was second with 1,289... Returns so far received indicate that voting in this latest poll is likely to be the heaviest ever recorded." Another AP report indicated the special poll was "conducted by popular demand" to answer "the burning sports question of the day" and to do so "at the ballot box."

Michigan was voted No. 1 in the post-bowl poll by a vote of 226 to 119. The AP reported: "The nation's sports writers gave the final answer Tuesday to the raging controversy on the relative strength of the Notre Dame and Michigan football teams, and it was the Wolverines over the Irish by almost two to one—including those who saw both powerhouses perform... In the over-all total, 226 writers in 48 states and the District of Columbia picked Michigan, 119 balloted for Notre Dame, and 12 called it a draw. Opinion of the 54 writers who saw both in action last fall coincided at almost the same ratio, with 33 giving the nod to Michigan, 17 to Notre Dame, and four voting for a tie." The 357 votes cast in the post-bowl poll represented "the largest ever to take part in such an AP voting."

Commenting on the special poll, Michigan coach Fritz Crisler said "the men who voted couldn't have made a mistake if they had picked either team." He described Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy as a "superb coach." Notre Dame President, Father John Cavanagh said, "We at Notre Dame feel grateful for the magnanimous statement of Coach Crisler. I listened to Michigan against Southern California and have only praise for the skill and accomplishment of your fine team."

Despite the magnanimous statements of Coach Crisler and Father Cavanagh, the reversed decision in the post-bowl poll only stoked the debate over which team was best. Said one columnist: "Hottest argument of the moment is the one over which had the better football team, Michigan or Notre Dame." Forty years later, the debate was still ongoing. In 1988, Michigan center Dan Dworsky noted: "Notre Dame still claims that national championship and so do we."

Judge Smails · Jul 14, 2013

46 days to go ...

The Miracle Bowl: A the 1980 Holiday Bowl, BYU rallied from 20 points down in the 4th quarter to defeat SMU, 46-45, in what is certainly one of the top Bowl Games of all time

With less than three minutes remaining, SMU is in complete control, leading 45-25. The Mustangs own the ground, as Craig James is on his way to a 225-yard, 3-TD game and Eric Dickerson's racking up 110 yards and two TDs.

But BYU has the ball, and with 2:35 left, Jim McMahon tosses a 15-yard TD pass to wide receiver Matt Braga, making the score 45-31 after a failed two-point attempt. BYU then recovers an onsides kick at midfield, and McMahon throws two quick completions to move the Cougars to the one, and tailback Scott Phillips runs in from there. 45-37.

Two-point conversion, McMahon to Phillips. 45-39. 1:58 remaining.

Another onsides kick by BYU is recovered by SMU, but the Cougar defense holds, and the Mustangs are forced to punt. The kick is blocked. With 41 seconds left, BYU has the ball 41 yards from paydirt.

McMahon has three plays left. He throws two incomplete passes. On the last play of the game, he drops back 13 yards, all the way to his own 46, then hurls it. Hail Mary. Clay Brown comes up with it amid a harrass of Mustangs.

Tie game, 45-45, no time remaining. Kurt Gunther kicks the PAT, and BYU wins, 46-45, scoring 21 points in the final three minutes. McMahon completes 32 of 49 for 446 yards and four TDs.

[video=youtube_share;b55Tn_YbLK8]http://youtu.be/b55Tn_YbLK8[/video]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1946 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1946 college football season finished with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame crowned as the national champion in the AP Poll, with the United States Military Academy national champion in various other polls and rankings. The two teams had won all of their games, with the exception of their November 9 meeting at New York’s Yankee Stadium, where they had played to a 0-0 tie.

1946 Notre Dame-Army game from Yankee Stadium, a 0-0 tie between the #1 and #2 teams

The Associated Press did not poll the writers until the third week of the season. Among the teams that had been ranked highest at the end of 1946, the two service academies—Army and Navy, as well as Alabama, Indiana and Oklahoma State, several had faltered before the first poll.

Army beat Villanova 35-0 on September 21, and Oklahoma State beat Denver, 40-7, but Indiana lost to the University of Cincinnati, 15-6.

Also on September 21, Houston of the Lone Star Conference played its first ever football game against Louisiana–Lafayette of the Louisiana Intercollegiate Conference, in which Houston was defeated by a score of 13-7.

On October 5, Army beat Cornell 46-21. Navy lost at Columbia and dropped the rest of its games, finishing 1-8-0. Oklahoma State lost 54-6 at Texas and would finish at 3-7-1. Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh 33-0. Michigan beat Iowa 14-7. UCLA won at Washington, 39-13. In the poll that followed, One voter split his first place vote between Texas, Army, and Notre Dame, who received 69⅓, 21⅓ and 15⅓ votes respectively. Michigan and UCLA rounded out the Top Five.

November 9
A crowd of 74,000 turned out at New York's Yankee Stadium to watch #1 Army and #2 Notre Dame in a meeting of the nation's two unbeaten and untied teams. Both teams missed scoring opportunities. In the opening quarter, Army recovered a fumble on the Irish 24, but was stopped on fourth down at the 13 yard line. The Irish drove to the Army three yard line in the second quarter but no further. Army reached the Irish 20 yard line in the third quarter, but Notre Dame's Terry Brennan picked off a pass from Glenn Davis. In the last quarter, a bad punt was returned by Davis to the Irish 39 yard line, but they forced a fumble and stopped any further scoring chances. The game ended in a scoreless tie, 0-0.

In Jacksonville, #3 Georgia beat Florida 33-14. In Portland, #4 UCLA beat Oregon 14-0. #5 Rice lost in Little Rock to Arkansas, 7-0. #9 Penn returned to the Top Five after beating Columbia in New York's "other" football game, 41-6.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#3 Georgia Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#9 North Carolina Tar Heels[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#5 Illinois Illini[/TD]
[TD]45[/TD]
[TD]#4 UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#16 Arkansas Razorbacks[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[TD]#8 LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#10 Rice Owls[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]#7 Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

1947 ROSE BOWL: #5 Illinois crushes #4 UCLA, 45-14

1946 HEISMAN TROPHY
He was the "Mr. Outside" of the famed Davis-Blanchard duo. Glenn scored 59 touchdowns in his career and gained an amazing 4,129 yards from rushing and passing for the Black Knights. He holds the major college record for most yards gained per play in one season, 11.7. He averaged 58 minutes a game against a tough schedule. No major collegian ever approached his remarkable career average of almost one TD every nine plays.

Serving in the Army in Korea until 1950, Davis resigned his commission to join the Los Angeles Rams and played on two championship teams. Injuries cut his career short, however he turned to public relations and promotions for the Los Angeles Times special events department. While at the Times, Davis' primary goal was to raise money for youth activities. He later retired to La Quinta, California and married the late Alan Ameche's widow, Yvonne on July 12th 1996. Glenn Davis passed away in March of 2005.

Glenn was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1961.

The Voting

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Glenn Davis	Army	Senior	HB	792
2	Charlie Trippi	Georgia	Senior	HB	435
3	John Lujack	Notre Dame	Junior	QB	379
4	Felix Blanchard	Army	Senior	FB	267
5	Arnie Tucker	Army	Senior	QB	257
6	Herman Wedermeyer	St. Mary's	Junior	HB	101
7	Burr Baldwin	UCLA	Senior	E	49
8	Bobby Layne	Texas	Junior	QB	45

It was finally the year to win the Heisman for Army halfback Glenn Davis after compiling impressive point totals and finishing second the two previous years. Davis won every section except the South, which went for Georgia star Charlie Trippi. Army had three players in the top five, the best finish ever for one school.

The Birth of 'The Argument'
How can some sportswriters still insist on rating Army over Notre Dame — in view of the November 9th skirmish?"—Notre Dame student magazine, December 1946.

"Incidentally, we were not awarded the national championship in 1946 … It was voted to Notre Dame. This always seemed rather strange to me, particularly in view of the fact that we were still undefeated."—Army coach Earl "Red"Blaik.

"Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity."—Sigmund Freud

In the newsreel footage, there are grainy images of men in shiny helmets scrambling up and down a football field to a stirring horn accompaniment. There are cheerleaders in sweaters bowed down on one knee, bellowing sis-boom-bah chants through elephantine megaphones, and there are fans in overcoats and fedoras crowded up to the edge of the playing field like extras in a George Cukor film. There is Mr. Inside, and there is Mr. Outside, and there are two others in Notre Dame uniforms who would also win John Heisman's namesake trophy, along with several more who would eventually land a place in college football's hall of fame. There is everything in those nine minutes of grainy footage you might imagine would accompany the first great postwar college football game in America, except for one thing:

There are no points.

No field goals, despite both teams being in clear field goal range, despite Notre Dame facing a fourth-and-short inside the Army 5-yard line: They chose to go for it, and failed. No touchdowns, even after Army's Doc Blanchard broke into the open field and had what seemed like a clear path to the end zone: He was taken down on a textbook tackle by Notre Dame's Johnny Lujack. There are no safeties. There are no dropkicks. Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, 74,000 people on hand for what was already being called "The Game of the Century," five-dollar tickets being scalped for 200 dollars and up, the bookies raking it in, a space reserved for the result on the front page of the New York Times, and how does it end?

Notre Dame 0, Army 0.

There is no better example of the power of college football to stake everything and resolve nothing than the dreary and pointless exercise in conservative play
that took place on November 9, 1946.

And there is no better example of college football's capricious sense of valuation that, a month later, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, with a record of eight wins, no losses, and one tie, were chosen by the voters of the Associated Press as the no. 1-ranked team in the country.

And the Army Black Knights, the two-time defending national champions, with a record of nine wins, no losses, and one tie, were ranked second.

There have been other "Games of the Century" since Army and Notre Dame so emphatically defied the hype: at least seven more in the latter half of the 20th century, and two more in the 21st, not to mention the dozens more that morphed into Games of the Century after the fact rather than through the Barnumesque pregame hoopla fueled by newspapers and wire services and television networks and college marketing departments. In fact, no sport has repeatedly co-opted the term "Game of the Century" like college football.

It's not even close. The reason for this is obvious:In other major American sports, there is a championship game (or series, or playoff bracket), and that championship game (or series, or playoff bracket) is already considered, by default, the potential Game of the Century. There is a Super Bowl. There is a World Series. There is an NCAA tournament and an NBA Finals — a word that signifies a clear-cut ending. The hype is built into the postseason system. But this is not true in college football.

This is not true in college football because for nearly all of its existence, it has sought to separate itself from virtually every other major American sport. This is not true in college football because the sport has clung to the incongruous notion of marrying amateurism with big business, and in order to preserve this conception, and satisfy their business interests, the powers that be have shied away from any sort of definitive postseason format.

It makes sense: To admit that there should be an unambiguous no. 1 would be to admit that the concept of who's no. 1 matters in the first place, which would defy the rickety foundation upon which the sport was built. And so there is no weirder and more contentious historical annex than that of college football. There are all sorts of schools who profess to have won all sorts of national championships to which they have only specious claims; on top of that, virtually all of the "Games of the Century" have taken place during the regular season rather than the bowlseason. Two of them ended in ties, at least one of them because a coach deliberately eyed the polling landscape and made a choice to let things rest (we'll visit that next time). For all that hype, for all those tickets
sold above resale value, for all those television eyes … at the end of the season, when it came to determining who the national champion might be, the majority of college football's "greatest games" have actually served to resolve nothing at all.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, now that we're approaching the end of what might someday be termed the "pre-playoff era." This upcoming season will be the last to embrace the system known as the Bowl Championship Series — an invention so flawed and corruptible that even Ari Fleischer could not rescue it from oblivion — and while I realize a leap to a four-team playoff could still generate controversy with its selection process, it should be definitive enough that college football's perpetual argument will come to mean less than it ever has before.

I am, of course, completely happy about this. I am so happy about it that I still cannot believe it is actually going to occur:I still keep thinking the playoff will somehow be vetoed into obsolescence on a Jim Delany procedural driven Hail Mary in the final minute.

And yet, as thrilled as I am, I keep thinking about the past. And I keep wondering what might be lost. I've thought of myself, at age 9, devising my own mathematical ranking system for the sole purpose of finding a way to rank a two-loss Penn State team ahead of undefeated Clemson in 1981. I've thought about myself, at age 22, writing petulant columns for my college newspaper about the hypothetical outcomes of a Penn State–Nebraska national championship that would never be played in 1994. I've thought about all the time I've spent arguing and complaining about who should be no. 1, and how it should be determined, and I've thought about how much I've actually enjoyed the arguing and complaining.

Set aside the absurdities and there is something fascinating about a game so unremittingly cruel, presided over by hard and unforgiving men determined to win at all costs, ceding its central championship question to the public. Before the Internet permitted us to have a public opinion on everything, there was college football to satiate our need for circular argument: All we had to guide us were polls of arbitrary methodology, devised by men who were supposed to provide resolution but instead wound up perpetuating The Argument.

And that, I suppose, is what this series is about:It is about The Argument. It will trace the history of The Argument, and celebrate the growth of The Argument, and dissect the varied contours of The Argument from one season (and one big game) to the next, and speculate on the fate of The Argument in a modern world that demands resolution. Because while I have always believed a playoff is necessary, and while I believe a playoff only strengthens the case for radical reform of the NCAA, every so often I have a pang of nostalgia. And I wonder if, by tracing The Argument from its origins, we might lament its demise, even as we celebrate it.

So we should start in the 1920s, because before then there wasn't really much of anything. And maybe, in retrospect, this was the happiest time for college football, since it trafficked mostly in blissful ignorance. (In 1923, nine teams went undefeated and untied, and at least four could have made a legitimate claim toward a national title, if only they had the means back then.) "Nobody argued about it, preoccupied as most people were with striking for an eight-hour workday," Dan Jenkins wrote in his book Saturday's America. "Nobody even cared. You told a friend that your school was no. 1 in those days and all he said was, 'Listen, that's great. But excuse me, I've got to go invent the airplane.'"

The question wasn't even a question until we made it one: Up until then, this was a regional pastime, invented on a muddy New Jersey pitch, imported southward and westward, delineated into conferences whose members clawed over trophies shaped like water jugs and cutting implements and bronzed swine. And, with the exception of a few rogue magazine writers declaring "mythical national champions," this was enough.

norte_dame_v_army_football_game_photo-r9d3911eb730e472dbfd165e85ff375c2_9vvw_8byvr_512.jpg

This was enough because no one conceived of anything more, because professional sports and television had not shaped us into creatures in need of concrete resolution. This was enough because America seemingly had more important concerns, like jazz and women's suffrage and large-scale bribery. Which brings us to a classroom at the University of Illinois, and to an economics instructor named Frank G. Dickinson, who had, as a hobby, developed a mathematical system to rate all of the college football teams in America.

Dickinson's system was crude and unrefined:It afforded a team more points for a win over a "first-division" squad — which, if I may get technical for a second, referred to a team that won more games than it lost — and it split points for ties, and it sometimes produced results that seem retrospectively stupid. But Dickinson spoke about his system on campus one day, and the Daily Illini reported on this speech, and this caught the eye of a Chicago clothier named Jack Rissman, who wished to sponsor a trophy delivered to the champion of what was then the Big Nine conference, in those bygone days when the Big Ten actually lacked a surfeit of member institutions.

And hereupon we stumble across the first deliberate corruption of The Argument: Hearing about Dickinson's system, Knute Rockne invites the professor and the clothier to South Bend and asks if perhaps they might consider making their trophy a national trophy, so that Notre Dame could be eligible to win it. And while you're at it, Rockne says, how about you predate the system by four years or so, and make the 1924 Irish with the "Four Horsemen" the first official national champions?

Frank Dickinson obliged.

The Four Horsemen were retroactively elevated into myth. His ratings — which, like most, did not consider postseason games — became the first of the gospels, and he was joined by a host of imitators and pretenders to the throne. There was Deke Houlgate — whose system, Jenkins wrote, "so far as anyone could tell, was his personal opinion" — and there was a man named William F. Boand, who sought to combine the best aspects of the Dickinson system with those of a couple other university professors into something called the AzziRatem system. There was Dick Dunkel and his power index, and Paul Williamson and his power ratings, and Frank Litkenhous and his "difference-by-score" system. There was Parke H. Davis, the football historian, who, in the mid-1930s, chose the national champion for every season to date based largely on his own whims. And then, finally, along came the Associated Press, led by sports editor Alan Gould.

In 1936, the first year of the Associated Press poll, there were at least 16 different national championship surveys: Seven (including the AP) chose Minnesota (even though the Gophers lost to Northwestern), five chose Pittsburgh (even though the Panthers lost to Duquesne and tied Fordham), one chose Duke (which lost to Tennessee), one picked LSU (which tied Texas and lost to Santa Clara), and one picked Alabama (which tied Tennessee). (The 16th pollster, Grantland Rice, chose Yale, which lost to Dartmouth but had a coach named Ducky Pond, and we all know we all know the eponym of this website couldn't resist a good nickname.)

"It was a case of thinking up ideas to develop interest and controversy," Gould said years later, explaining the origin of the AP poll. "Papers wanted material to fill space between games. That's all I had in mind, something to keep the pot boiling. Sports then was living off controversy, opinion, whatever. This was just another exercise in hoopla."

Dickinson ceased his polling in 1940. Soon enough, the Associated Press poll, born out of hype and based on nothing more than intuition and whimsy, became the standings of record.

This was the case in 1946, when Army and Notre Dame slogged to that 0-0 tie. The Black Knights had been ranked at the top of the AP poll nearly the entire season; the Black Knights had defeated Notre Dame by a combined score of 107-0 the previous two years, when many of Notre Dame's best players were at war
overseas and Army's best players were in officer training school at West Point. The Black Knights were the twotime defending national champions; the Black Knights had perhaps the best backfield tandem of all time, but a single stumble, in a single game, in the final week of the season, against an archrival, would cost them everything.

This, of course, is the problem with public opinion polls: They tend to be swayed by the sentiment of the moment rather than take in the whole picture. And so Army goes and plays a 1-7 Navy team, and it squeaks out a 21-18 victory with Navy stopped at the 5-yard line at the end of the game; and Notre Dame beats a three-loss USC team, 26-6, and this is enough to give it the national championship.

"I mean, you're trying to perceive what was in the mind of a voter 70 years ago," says college football pollster and historian Richard Billingsley. "Notre Dame was the underdog [against Army], so I guess that's why the AP voters ranked them no. 1."

Billingsley, using his own calculations, has given Army a slight edge, based on strength of schedule: The week between the Notre Dame game and the Navy game, Army thrashed no. 5 Penn, 34-7. It also beat no. 4 Michigan, and no. 11 Columbia, and no. 13 Duke, while Notre Dame's two best wins were over no. 17 Iowa and no. 16 Southern Cal.

Should Army's two previous national championships have counted for anything?

Should Notre Dame be credited merely for stalemating a team that had won the last 26 games it played?

How do you weigh all of this data fairly and effectively?

There is no answer here. There is only The Argument. It is hard to think of a great game that solved nothing quite like Army and Notre Dame in 1946: "Anyone looking for a fight can rank Army ahead of Notre Dame this morning," wrote Allison Danzig of the New York Times, two days after the game, "or vice versa." The only way to settle it would have been a rematch, but if there even had been a rematch, the AP wouldn't have counted it, because the AP didn't take postseason games into account until the mid-'60s.

"The greater the ambiguity," wrote author Milan Kundera, "the greater the pleasure." I don't think Kundera is a college football fan — though he'd probably appreciate Bobby Petrino — but I hear that quote and I wonder if the reason I was so drawn to college football in the first place was because of these conundrums: because it has, for so long, trafficked in an almost literary sense of ambiguity. It will be virtually impossible for the fifth-ranked team left out of a four-team playoff to somehow lay claim to no. 1, but in the pre-playoff era, anything was possible, if you willed it to be so: According to a note in Army's own football media guide, they did win the national championship in 1946.

Judge Smails · Jul 15, 2013

45 days to go ...

Oregon's two-minute touchdowns: The Ducks scored 45 offensive touchdowns in two minutes or less last season, most in college football.

The 2012 edition of the University of Oregon football team, which capped its season with a 35-17 victory over Kansas State in the 2013 Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 3, equaled the best season ranking in school history by being named No. 2 in both the Associated Press and USA Today (coaches) final top 25 polls behind BCS national champion Alabama.

The 12-1 Ducks matched the 2001 squad, which also ended the year with a Fiesta Bowl win en route to an 11-1 mark.

The No. 2 ranking marks the fourth top 5 finish in UO history and the sixth time the Ducks have ended the season in the top 10. Since 2008, the only time Oregon finished outside of the top 10 was 2009, when Chip Kelly's first team was pegged 11th after falling in the 2010 Rose Bowl Game to Ohio State.

UO has outperformed preseason AP rankings in five of the past six seasons with the exception being 2011, when the Ducks started the year No. 3 and ended it ranked fourth.

Oregon has been ranked in 60 straight AP Top 25 polls, including the last 28 in the top 10. During Kelly's four-year tenure, the Ducks have been ranked among the top 10 schools 49 times by the AP.

UO returns nine starters on offense and seven on defense for the 2013 season.

[video=youtube_share;SY2Hb3GGDtU]http://youtu.be/SY2Hb3GGDtU[/video]

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1945 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1945 college football season finished with the United States Military Academy, more popularly known as “Army”, being the unanimous choice for the nation’s number one team by the 116 voters in the Associated Press writers’ poll. The runner up was the United States Naval Academy, more popularly known as “Navy”.

The Associated Press did not poll the writers until the third week of the season. Among the teams that had been ranked highest at the end of 1944, the two service academies—Army and Navy, as well as Ohio State, USC and Michigan. Among the service teams that had ranked high in 1944, Randolph Field, Bainbridge Naval, and Iowa Pre-flight no longer played against college teams. Some service teams still remained in place, even after the end of World War II.

On September 15, Michigan beat Great Lakes Navy, 27-2.

On September 22, Michigan lost to Indiana, 13-7. Minnesota beat Missouri, 34-0. In a Friday night game in Los Angeles, USC beat UCLA 13-6.

September 29
Notre Dame beat Illinois 7-0, Army beat Louisville Field, 32-0, and Navy beat Villanova 49-0. USC won at California, 13-2, and Ohio State won at Missouri 47-6.

November 3
#1 Army beat Villanova, 54-0. #2 Notre Dame and #3 Navy, both 5-0-0, met in Cleveland, and played to a 6-6 tie. In Louisville, #4 Alabama defeated Kentucky, 60-19. #5 Indiana beat Cornell College of Iowa, 46-6, but dropped to sixth in the next poll. In Los Angeles, #8 St. Mary's beat USC, 26-0.

November 10
#1 Army (6-0-0) and #2 Notre Dame (5-0-1) met for a contest at Yankee Stadium, and it was no contest, with the Cadets winning 48-0. #3 Alabama was idle. In Baltimore, #4 Navy beat #7 Michigan 33-7. #5 St. Mary's beat Fresno State, 32-6. #6 Indiana won at Minnesota, 49-0.

December 1
In the second #1 and #2 match-up of the year, #1 Army (8-0-0) and #2 Navy (7-0-1) met at the Army–Navy Game in Philadelphia, with Army winning 32-13 to close a perfect season. #3 Alabama defeated Mississippi State, 55-13. #4 Indiana had finished its season. #5 Notre Dame lost to the Great Lakes Navy team, 39-7. #6 Oklahoma State, which had finished the season 9-0-0 and accepted an invitation to the Sugar Bowl, rose to fifth in the final poll.

In 1945, #1-ranked Army beat #2-ranked Navy in the original 'Game of the Century'. Army would win their second-straight National Championship (Army 32, Navy 13)

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico Lobos[/TD]
[TD]34[/TD]
[TD]Denver Pioneers[/TD]
[TD]24[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#5 Oklahoma State Cowboys[/TD]
[TD]33[/TD]
[TD]#7 St. Mary's Gaels[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#3 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]34[/TD]
[TD]#11 USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#10 Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]40[/TD]
[TD]Missouri Tigers[/TD]
[TD]27[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Miami Hurricanes[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]#16 Holy Cross Crusaders[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Gator Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#19 Wake Forest Demon Deacons[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[TD]South Carolina Gamecocks[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

DOC BLANCHARD, FB, Army --- An All-American for three years, the 6-foot, 205 pound "Mr. Inside" scored 38 touchdowns and gained 1,908 yards on three powerhouse West Point teams that were unbeatable during the World War II years. The pulverizing fullback ran the 100 yards in ten flat. In his very first game against North Carolina, he averaged 58 yards on kickoffs, punted once for 40 yards, and carried the ball four times for a 4.5 yard average, although he only played 17 minutes. He was the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy. Blanchard, after graduation from USMA, spent his entire working career with the Army Air Force retiring with the rank of Colonel. Doc Blanchard passed away on April 19, 2009.

Doc was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1959.

The Voting

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Felix "Doc" Blanchard	Army	Junior	FB	860
2	Glenn Davis	Army	Junior	HB	638
3	Bob Fenimore	Oklahoma A&M	Senior	B	187
4	Herman Wedermeyer	St. Mary's	Sophomore	HB	152
5	Harry Gilmer	Alabama	Sophomore	HB	132
6	Frank Dancewicz	Notre Dame	Senior	QB	56
7	Warren Amling	Ohio State	Senior	G	42
8	Pete Pihos	Indiana	Junior	FB	38

Doc Blanchard won in the East, the South and the Midwest, to outpoint his teammate, Glenn Davis, who finished first in the West. Fenimore won in the Southwest for the second year in a row. Wedermeyer later went on to fame portraying a police sergeant on the long-running television series,"Hawaii 5-0"

Wedermeyer played "Duke" on the hit TV show

texsn95 · Jul 15, 2013

@TheHorzy said:
VK will you be running your website again? I'm a little out of the loop, I haven't been on the forum much since 2011 ish.

Which website is this again? :confused2:

Judge Smails · Jul 16, 2013

44 days to go ...

Ernie Davis' jersey number (44): Syracuse's Ernie Davis won the 1961 Heisman Trophy, becoming the first African-American to win the award. Davis died from leukemia in 1963 and never played in the NFL. Others at the 'Cuse to wear 44 include Jim Brown and Floyd Little.

Syracuse University officially retired one of the most storied numbers ever associated with a college football program — #44 — on Saturday, November 12, 2005. Since 1954, 11 players have worn the number and three earned All-America honors. The three most famous #44s — Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little — certainly rank among the finest running backs to ever play the game.

Brown and Little, along with Ernie Davis’ mother, Marie Fleming, joined other former #44s, including Rob Konard, Michael Owens, Bill Schoonover and Tom Stephens, at the retirement ceremony.

“If there was ever a number that needed to be retired it is 44,” said SU Director of Athletics Dr. Daryl Gross in announcing the decision to honor those who have worn it. “If you can’t take 44 off the table, then you’re just never going to retire a jersey."

Brown, who played at SU from 1954-56 and led the team to a Cotton Bowl berth, went on to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher and a member of the Pro and College Football Halls of Fame. He led the league in rushing eight times in his nine years. Many still point to him as the greatest running back of all time. Among Brown’s accomplishments at Syracuse was setting an NCAA single-game record of 43 points against Colgate in a 61-6 SU win.

“I think it probably should be (retired),” said former #44 and SU great Jim Brown. “I think it’s very difficult to try to pick an individual prematurely that’s going to be able to fulfill the shoes of 44.”

Davis played for the Orange from 1959-61. He won the 1961 Heisman Trophy, becoming the first African-American to do so, and was a starter on SU’s 1959 national championship team. Davis also signed to play with the Cleveland Browns, but the devastating combination of Davis and Brown in the same backfield never came to pass. Davis died of leukemia in 1963. He was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Little was a three-time All-America selection for the Orange. Little played for SU from 1964-66 and led the team to the Sugar Bowl in 1964 and the Gator Bowl in 1966 (teaming in the backfield with Larry Csonka in the latter). Little was the greatest kick returner in Orange history.

!BU70Wwg!Wk~$(KGrHgoH-CYEjlLl9odTBKP-8Le7H!~~_35.JPG

In addition to breaking the records of Brown and Davis, he led the nation in all-purpose yardage in 1965, averaging 199 yards per game. Little went on to have a tremendous career with the Denver Broncos, winning back-to-back rushing titles in 1970-71. He, too, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

How much does number 44 mean to Syracuse University and the surrounding community? For starters, the university zip code was changed a few years ago from 13210 to 13244. And in 1988, when the university changed phone systems, the exchange was changed from 423 to 443. One of the student hangouts in the Marshall Street area was named simply “44s”. Number 44 not only has come to represent greatness on the football field, it has become a part of the university’s and the community’s identity.

Others have worn the legendary 44 with varying degrees of success. Tom Stephens wore it between Brown and Davis and was a member of SU’s 1958 Orange Bowl team. Bill Schoonover had an injury-plagued career bridging the gap between Davis and Little. Quarterback Rich Panczyszyn followed Little, but he too suffered a series of injuries.

After that, the number 44 remained on the shelf until 1976, when a highly touted local recruit from North Syracuse named Mandel Robinson was issued the jersey. Robinson spent just one season with the Orange before transferring to Wyoming. In 1980, Glenn Moore became the next in line. Moore had his moments of glory, including a 192-yard effort against West Virginia, but he spent most of his career backing up the likes of Joe Morris and Jaime Covington.

One of the most recent number 44s was also amongst the most successful as a collegian. Michael Owens had to wait until his senior year to get a shot as a full-time back. Owens, who split time with Robert Drummond as a sophomore and junior, gained 1,018 yards in 1989 to become just the fourth Orange back to top the 1,000-yard mark. The groundwork for Owens’ sensational final season had been set as a sophomore. He set an all-time Orange record for all-purpose yards per attempt and, in perhaps the most dramatic moment in SU football history, scored the two-point conversion to beat West Virginia and clinch the Orange’s unbeaten 1987 season.

The coaching staff awarded Rob Konrad the honor of wearing 44 in 1995 and the Massachusetts native did not disappoint. The first-ever fullback, and last Syracuse football student-athlete to don the special jersey, Konrad had many outstanding performances in his four seasons at Syracuse and was selected in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the Miami Dolphins.

---------------------------------------------------------------

1944 COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON

Army rolled through the 1944 season like Patton through France. Over the course of their 9–game schedule, the Cadets beat the opposition by an average score of 56–4. Defending national champion Notre Dame fared even worse, losing 59–0 in the most lopsided Irish defeat ever.

No college coach had ever experienced the depth that Army's Red Blaik enjoyed during the war. No other coach ever had the likes of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis in the same backfield either. Only sophomores, the celebrated “Mr. Inside” (fullback Blanchard) and “Mr. Outside” (halfback Davis) double-teamed the Heisman voting for three years. They finished second and third in 1944 then each won the prize in '45 and '46.

109-docblanchard.standalone.prod_affiliate.74.300x300.jpg

The Army-Navy game was played in Baltimore where the Middies gave the Cadets their closest game of the year. Army came in 8–0 and No.1. Navy was 6–2 and No. 2. Army won 23–7.

As in 1943, the AP poll included service teams, drawn from flight schools and training centers which were preparing men for fighting in World War II, and the teams played against the colleges as part of their schedules. Half of the final Top 20 teams were composed of service teams, in addition to the two service academies at West Point and Annapolis. Most colleges that had suspended their programs in 1943 were back in 1944, including the entire Southeastern Conference.

October 7
Notre Dame beat Tulane 26-0 and Army defeated Brown 59-7. In games between service teams and colleges, the servicemen triumphed, as N.C. Pre-Flight won at Duke, 13-6, Great Lakes won at Northwestern 25-0, and Randolph Field won at Texas 42-6. In the poll that followed, Notre Dame was first, and Army third, with the service teams occupying the other spots.

October 28
#1 Notre Dame won at Illinois, 13-7. At a war bonds fundraiser at the Polo Grounds in New York, #2 Army beat Duke 27-7. #3 Randolph Field defeated Morris Field 19-0. #4 Ohio State beat Minnesota 34-14. #5 Georgia Tech reached 5-0-0 after a 13-7 over the flight training school located on the U.Ga. campus, Georgia Pre-Flight.

November 4
#1 Army rolled over Villanova, 83-0. In six games, the Cadets had outscored their opponents by an average of 60 to 3. In Baltimore, #2 Notre Dame lost to #6 Navy, 32-13. #3 Ohio State beat Indiana 21-7. #4 Randolph Field beat North Texas Agricultural (later called the University of Texas-Arlington) 68-0. #5 Georgia Tech lost at Duke, 19-13, and fell out of the top five, as Navy moved up.

November 11
At Yankee Stadium in New York, #1 Army crushed #5 Notre Dame, 59-0. #2 Ohio State beat Pittsburgh 54-19. #3 Navy beat Cornell, 48-0. #4 Randolph Field defeated Maxwell Field, 25-0. #8 Michigan, which beat Illinois, 14-0, took Notre Dame's place in the Top Five.

November 18
In Philadelphia, #1 Army beat Pennsylvania, 62-7. In Georgetown, Texas, #2 Randolph Field beat Southwestern University, 54-0. #3 Navy defeated Purdue in Baltimore, 32-0. In Cleveland, before a crowd of 83,627 fans, #4 Ohio State beat Illinois 26-12. #5 Michigan defeated Wisconsin, 14-0. In a Sunday game between service teams, #6 Bainbridge NTC of Maryland defeated Camp Lejeune, 33-6.

December 2
#1 Army and #2 Navy met in Baltimore. Army's offense was held to its lowest score of the season, but won 23-7 to cap a perfect season. Army had scored 59 points or more in seven of its nine games, with a 504 to 35 aggregate over its opponents. #3 Ohio State had finished its season, while #4 Randolph Field and #5 Bainbridge Naval were idle.

[video=youtube_share;QYXekCK3KHM]http://youtu.be/QYXekCK3KHM[/video]

After the release of the final poll, Randolph Filed participated in two more games for the sale of bonds. In Los Angeles, the "Ramblers" beat the Fourth Air Force team (March Field), 20-7, on December 10. Six days later, Randolph Field met the Second Air Force Superbombers at the Polo Grounds in New York for the “Treasury Bond Bowl”, and won 13-6 to complete their season at 11-0-0.

Elsewhere, new Ohio State coach Carroll Widdoes did something Paul Brown couldn't do in his three years in Columbus: he guided the Buckeyes to an undefeated season and was named Coach of the Year. It didn't hurt that he had Heisman winner Les Horvath in his backfield as tailback in the single wing and quarterback for the T-formation.

No.7 Southern Cal was the only team in the Top 10 to play in a bowl game. The unbeaten Trojans played unbeaten Tennessee in the Rose Bowl and blanked the Vols, 25–0.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Southwestern[/TD]
[TD]35[/TD]
[TD]UNAM[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#12 Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[TD]#7 USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]25[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#11 Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]29[/TD]
[TD]Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Oklahoma State Cowboys[/TD]
[TD]34[/TD]
[TD]TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Tulsa Golden Hurricane[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[TD]#13 Georgia Tech[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Les Horvath: 1944 Heisman Trophy Winner, QB/HB, Ohio State University

Les Horvath's football debut was hardly the most auspicious possible. Not by several yards. Back in 8th grade, the future Ohio State star tried out for his school football team. "This was a small school," says Horvath, "and they didn't have enough uniforms for everybody so I played in street clothes until a couple of guys quit and I finally got a uniform."

But by the time he had hung up his number twenty-two Ohio State jersey, the rail-thin future dentist had edged out such competitors as Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard and captured the 1944 Heisman trophy.

And while Horvath may not have always had a uniform, he always had determination. After all, it isn't without cause that he's history's only graduate student Heisman winner.

Horvath was born September 12, 1921 in South Bend, Indiana, but soon moved to the Cleveland area where he starred at football, basketball and track at Parma High School. But during a time out in an eleventh grade varsity basketball game, he heard his teammates talking about a party they would be attending after the game. That was enough. Concentrating on anything but winning violated all Horvath's competitive instincts. He enrolled at rival Rhodes High even though it meant a physical relocation of the entire Horvath household. "We moved into the city overnight . . .," says Horvath, "We had a home in Parma and we rented that and we moved into one in Cleveland and I think we paid $15 a month or something."

Horvath attended Ohio State on a work scholarship, gaining large amounts of playing time as a sophomore on an injury-plagued 1940 squad. In the season's last contest, a 40-0 pasting by Michigan, most valuable sophomore Horvath provided Ohio State's lone highlight when he tackled Michigan's immortal Tom Harmon: "Quite a thrill for me. He was one of my football heroes."

In 1941 Paul Brown replaced George Schmidt as Ohio State head coach and the following year led the school to number one ranking. Horvath averaged eight yards per carry against Pittsburgh and scored two touchdowns and threw another against Illinois.The 1942 team's captain George Lynn later remarked: "Les Horvath in my estimation was overlooked that year for All-American."

Speed was his forte. Some said Horvath "had the most intense speed ever seen in the Conference," and it certainly wasn't bulk that carried him to greatness. The six foot Horvath weighed a mere 140 pounds when he graduated from high school and reached a pro playing weight of just 165 pounds.

Upon graduation Horvath entered the Army Specialized Training Program but returned to graduate school at Ohio State in the late summer of 1944. He could have turned pro. "The [Cleveland] Rams had already drafted me after the '42 season," Horvath recalls, "so they asked me to play and they said if I got in condition and learned the plays I could stay in school and fly to the games on Sunday and go back to school, so I wouldn't miss school. Naturally, if I missed school I was going to be off in the service. I decided not to take my professional contract and I played another year at Ohio State because Carroll Widdoes, who took over as coach ”I always wanted to play left halfback and Paul Brown had made me play right halfback ”said, 'I'll put you under the T. You'll be tailback left to right on a single wing and you know we don't have any real veteran backs so you can sort of run the whole offense. You'll call the signals and things.' So I took the challenge decided to stay and play my collegiate career rather than play professional football."

Horvath was tireless. He was on the field for nearly the entirety of each contest, performed for 401 1/2 minutes of OSU's 540 minute season. He was nominated to the All-American and Big-Ten teams and garnered the Chicago Tribune, Nile Kinnick and Christy Walsh Awards. He ranked second nationally in rushing, third in total offense and eleventh in scoring, carrying the ball 163 times for a total of 924 yards, an average of 5.7 yards per carry. In the air, he completed 14 of 32 pass attempts for six touchdown and an additional 344 yards.

Yet 1944 was no easy season for Horvath. "All my life I always trained a lot, and I used to do a lot of roadwork," he notes, "Except, when of course while I was in the service in school we barely had time for anything except going to school. Doing some marching here and there. But I didn't do any competitive activity of any kind. I didn't have any time. So I was probably not in very good condition and, well, they kind of beat up on me a little bit once in a while. I was always having Charlie Horses and leg problems and stuff. Our trainer was remarkable he'd get me ready for every ball game. The final game of the season I had a big problem getting ready for that one. We had played in Cleveland; it was cold, and I got Charlie Horses in both legs and I was really having trouble going up stairs for about three or four days and it wasn't until Thursday that I could practice. So they built up my thigh pads and stuff from the inside with rubberized support on the inside of the thigh pads and that seemed to take care of things. At least I forgot about it when I played."

That 1944 Ohio State team has been described as a squad "composed exclusively of seventeen-year olds, 4-F's and medical dischargees--31 freshman and 12 upperclassmen. Carroll Widdoes later wrote: "Our first team was made up of six veterans and five freshman. . . We had very fine leadership for this team in the person of Les Horvath . . . We had fair reserve strength and only a fair passing attack. We mixed our passing into the running attack and our run passing was most effective for us. We had fine morale on this team, combined with good speed in the line and clever, hard running backs."

$(KGrHqRHJDQE9!DYWGNFBPTP2((jnw~~60_35.JPG

Still the team finished its season undefeated and untied (it's first such campaign in 28 years) and ranked second nationally only to undefeated Army but ahead of Navy, Southern California, Michigan and Notre Dame. Widdoes was named "Coach of the Year in a New York World-Telegraph poll.

"I've been on a bandwagon for Carroll Widdoes because I think Carroll Widdoes was a very unusual person," says Horvath from his Southern California home, "I didn't know at the time we were playing in '44 but his parents were prisoners of war of the Japanese and he never ever mentioned it and he coached that team. He was not like Paul Brown; he was not a demanding person. He was pretty strict about a lot of things and he was a fundamentalist but he was sort of a shy individual. He expected you to do things, but he never embarrassed you by correcting you in front of them of people. I think he did one fantastic job coaching that team to an undefeated season."

Winning the 1944 Heisman came as a complete shock to Horvath. "Well, it was rather a stunning thing," he remembers, "I was in dental class and the dean called for me to come down to the office that I had a phone call from New York. They told me that I had won the Heisman. I was sort of stunned because it was totally unexpected."

Horvath ran first among Midwestern Heisman electors, second among Eastern, Southern, and Far Western voters and ran third in the Southwest.

The voting:

Les Horvath, Ohio State 412
Glenn Davis, Army 287
Doc Blanchard, Army 237
Don Whitmire, Navy 115
Buddy Young, Illinois 105
Bob Kelly, Notre Dame 76
Bob Jenkins, Navy 60
Doug Kenna, Army 56
Bob Fennimore, Ok. A&M 54
S. McMillan, Miss State 37

After gaining the Heisman, Horvath found himself not in the pro ranks but in the service. Graduating from dental school in June 1945 he spent the next two years as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy, stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Training Base and in Hawaii. Although primarily a dentist in those two years, football was hardly far from his thoughts. He served as assistant football coach at Great Lakes, under Paul Brown and later coached the Marine team in the Hawaiian Service League, compiling a respectable 8-1 record.

In July 1947 Horvath returned to civilian life. In need of money to start up a dental practice he returned to the gridiron ranks as a halfback, with the Rams, now relocated to Los Angeles. He played two seasons for the Rams, then returned to Cleveland with the AAFC's Browns, but his tenure was short as he retired in 1949 after suffering a rib injury. In his abbreviated pro career Horvath rushed 58 times for 221 yards (3.8 yards per carry) and scored one touchdown. He caught nine passes for 142 yards (15.8 yards each) and scored another touchdown.

Horvath practiced dentistry in Glendale, California until his retirement and remains deeply appreciative of his Heisman honors. "It's carried through for my entire life," he contends, "Wherever I go people seem to known about it and the Downtown Athletic Club never forgets you. You're always a part of their organization. Every year for the last 20 or 25 years I've gone back to the dinner and it's almost like re-winning the Heisman the way they treat you. They focus on the other players but they certainly take care of us in every possible way. So it's almost like winning the award every year."

B.A.R. · Jul 16, 2013

Really have enjoyed reading about the 40's and 50's seasons...

Judge Smails · Jul 16, 2013

It's been pretty cool, BAR ... a great distraction from the war for many and the passion was just like it is today. I mean they got 83,000+ to come to Cleveland to watch Ohio St-Illinois and 102,000 for Army-Navy. Loved the writing about the games and players, and that was how most got their news (thru the papers). Wish that I could find the time to gather old radio broadcasts of the biggest games in the 40s.

Seems like the service academies, Notre Dame, Ohio State, a few Ivy League programs and Michigan were the cream of the crop every year back then. Funny how the cycles go with SEC stuff in the late 50s and 60s, Pac-10 v. Big 10 in the 70s along with the old Southwest Conference and the Big 8, then you get the Miami, FL run in the 80s ... just cool to see it move through history (one of my two majors in college).

Judge Smails · Jul 17, 2013

43 days to go ...

The roll is over: Consecutive games that Notre Dame beat Navy from 1964-2006 was 43. The Midshipmen finally broke through with a win in South Bend in 2007. The teams have split the past six meetings and meet this season on Nov. 2 at Notre Dame.

It has been played annually since 1927, making it the longest uninterrupted intersectional rivalry in college football. Notre Dame leads the series 73–12–1. Before Navy won a 46–44 triple-overtime contest in 2007, Notre Dame had a 43-game winning streak that was the longest series win streak between two annual opponents in the history of Division I FBS football. Navy's previous win came in 1963, 35–14 with future Heisman Trophy winner and NFL QB Roger Staubach at the helm. Navy had come close to winning on numerous occasions before 2007. The Midshipmen subsequently won again in 2009 and 2010.

Though the game is often played at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, it has never been played at Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, due to its relatively small size. Instead, Navy usually hosts the game at larger facilities such as Baltimore's old Memorial Stadium or current M&T Bank Stadium, FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, Veterans Stadium and later Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, or at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. During the 1960s, the Midshipmen hosted the game at John F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Philadelphia. The game has been played twice in Dublin, Ireland—in 1996 at Croke Park and 2012 at Aviva Stadium. The game was also occasionally played at old Cleveland Stadium.

Despite the one-sided result the last few decades, most Notre Dame and Navy fans consider the series a sacred tradition for historical reasons. Both schools have strong football traditions going back to the beginnings of the sport. Notre Dame, like many colleges, faced severe financial difficulties during World War II. The US Navy made Notre Dame a training center and paid enough for usage of the facilities to keep the University afloat. Notre Dame has since extended an open invitation for Navy to play the Fighting Irish in football and considers the game annual repayment on a debt of honor. The series is marked by mutual respect, as evidenced by each team standing at attention during the playing of the other's alma mater after the game, a tradition that started in 2005. Navy's athletic director, on renewing the series through 2016, remarked "...it is of great interest to our collective national audience of Fighting Irish fans, Naval Academy alumni, and the Navy family at large." The series is scheduled to continue indefinitely; renewals are a mere formality.

The Streak
Notre Dame's NCAA-record 43-game win streak against Navy began in 1964 and continued through 2006, with the streak ending in 2007.

First game of streak, 1964 - Notre Dame 40, Navy 0: Notre Dame came in at 5–0 under first year coach Ara Parseghian and shut out the injury-riddled Mids in a game that pitted 1963 Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach against 1964 winner John Huarte.
Last game of streak, 2006 - Notre Dame 38, Navy 14
Streak broken, 2007 - Navy 46, Notre Dame 44 (3OT) - After 43 years, Navy beats Notre Dame in triple overtime.

----------------------------------------------------------

RANDOM NOTES

Texas Tech's B.J. Symons holds the single-season passing mark at 5,833 yards in 2003. He rushed for just 143

TCU's LaDainian Tomlinson rushed for a single-game record 406 yards vs. UTEP on Nov. 20, 1999 on 43 carries

Nate Kmic of Mount Union holds the record for single-season rushing TDs with 43 in 2008 (15 games)

Eric Crouch, the Heisman Trophy winning QB from Nebraska, shares the record for career rushing TDs by a QB with 59. Crouch got his number in just 43 games

QB Steve Hendry from Wisconsin-Superior had a horrible season in 1982, throwing 43 interceptions. He would finish his career with 117 ... both Div. III records

Cal Lutheran punter Jeff Shea is the D3 record-holder in punting average at 43.4, kicking from 1994 to 1997

BYU's Golden Richards, who went on to fame as a Dallas Cowboy, still holds the single-game return average record at 43.8, set at North Texas on Sept. 10, 1971

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notre Dame's Angelo Bertelli, 1943 Heisman Trophy winner

Angelo Bertelli played in only six of Notre Dame’s 10 games during the 1943 season, yet he captured the Heisman Trophy as he completed 69 percent of his passes and threw for 10 touchdowns. He led an impressive Irish offense that averaged 43 points in its first six games. Prior to game seven, Bertelli was called into service with the U.S. Marine Corp, serving as a captain in Iwo Jima and Guam and earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Notre Dame finished the 1943 season with a 9-1 record, and a national title in addition to Bertelli’s Heisman Trophy.

Bertelli began his distinguished career as a single-wing tailback in 1941, leading Notre Dame to a 9-0-1 record. He amassed 1,027 yards passing and a .569 completion percentage, tops in the nation. In 1942 coach Frank Leahy switched to the T-formation and Bertelli took over as quarterback, finishing his junior year with 1,039 yards passing and 10 touchdown tosses, which helped him to win the first of his two All-American awards. Against Stanford, he completed 10 consecutive passes and threw for four touchdowns. That summer, preparing for his new role, Bertelli said he took ”a thousand snaps, maybe a million.”

Grantland Rice, the celebrated sportswriter who had named the 1924 Notre Dame backfield the Four Horsemen, called Bertelli ”the T-formation magician.”

Following military service, Bertelli played with the Los Angeles Dons and Chicago Rockets in the All-American Football Conference from 1946-1948. A knee injury ended his playing career. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972.

Bertelli served as assistant coach with Herman Hickman at Yale in 1951-1952. He moved to Clifton, New Jersey, operated a successful beverage distributing chain, sponsored and coached junior football teams, and for 12 years (1956-1967), he served on the radio broadcast team for Princeton football. Bertelli was born June 18, 1921, in West Springfield, Massachusetts. At Cathedral High School in Springfield, he won all-state honors in football, baseball and hockey and was senior class president. He died June 26, 1999, in Clifton, NJ, from brain cancer.

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Angelo Bertelli	Notre Dame	Senior	QB	648
2	Bob Odell	Pennsylvania	Senior	B	177
3	Otto Graham	Northwestern	Senior	QB	140
4	Creighton Miller	Notre Dame	Senior	HB	134
5	Eddie Prokop	Georgia Tech	Senior	RB	85
6	Hal Hamburg	Navy	Junior	HB	73
7	Bill Daley	Michigan	Senior	FB	71
8	Tony Butkovich	Purdue	Sophomore	FB	65
9	Jim White	Notre Dame	Senior	T	52

Bertelli swept the field, being named first in all five sections. Notre Dames' 1943 team was one of the best in college history, with three of its players placing in the top nine in the Heisman balloting.

The Missouri Tigers play in front of the home crowd during their 3-5 campaign of 1943

The 1943 college football season concluded with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame crowned as the nation’s #1 team by a majority of the voters in the AP poll, followed by the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks as the runner-up. For the third time in the history of the AP Poll, a team that had lost a game was the mythical national champion; Minnesota had been the first AP champion in 1936, and Ohio State was champion in 1942. Notre Dame lost its final game of the season, a Chicago contest against the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Along the way, however, the Fighting Irish had played one of the toughest college schedules ever, beating two #2 ranked teams (Michigan and Iowa Pre-Flight) and another two #3 ranked teams (Navy and Army).

October 9
#1 Notre Dame beat #2 Michigan, 35-21. #3 Army registered another shutout, defeating Temple 51-0. In Baltimore, #4 Navy edged #5 Duke, 14-13. #6 Penn edged Dartmouth 7-6. #7 Purdue went to 4-0-0 with a 19-0 win over Camp Grant.

Irish RB Creighton Miller scampers 65 yards for a touchdown against Michigan

October 16
#1 Notre Dame won at Wisconsin 50-0. #2 Army won at Columbia, 52-0. In four games, the Cadets had outscored their opponents 172-0. #3 Navy beat Penn State 14-6. #4 Penn beat the Lakehurst Naval Air Station 74-6. #5 Purdue beat Ohio State 30-7 at a game in Cleveland.

November 6
At Yankee Stadium in New York, #1 Notre Dame beat #3 Army, 26-0. #2 Purdue won at Minnesota, 14-7. #4 USC lost at San Diego to the San Diego Navy team. #5 Penn lost to #7 Navy, 24-7. #6 Michigan beat Indiana 23-6. #8 Iowa Pre-Flight continued its unbeaten streak with a 46-19 win at Marquette on November 7, and became the first “service team” to ever reach the AP’s Top Five.

November 20
#1 Notre Dame edged #2 Iowa Pre-Flight, 14-13. #3 Purdue closed its season undefeated (9-0-0) with a 7-0 win at Indiana. #4 Michigan closed its season at 8-1-0 with a 45-7 win over Ohio State. #5 Navy was idle. The following week, it closed its season with a 13-0 win over Army in the Army–Navy Game, which took place at West Point. Duke closed its season at 8-1-0 with a 27-6 win over North Carolina.

November 27
#1 Notre Dame closed its season with a 19-14 loss to Great Lakes NTC, 19-14, but still finished #1 in the final rankings. #2 Iowa Pre-Flight beat Minnesota, 32-0, to finish at 9-1-0. #3 Michigan, #4 Purdue, and #5 Duke had finished their seasons, as had #6 Navy, which rose to fourth place in the final poll.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Southwestern[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]29[/TD]
[TD]#12 Washington Huskies[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#13 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#15 Tulsa Golden Hurricane[/TD]
[TD]18[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#14 Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Randolph Field[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]Texas A&M[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Loose ball in the 1944 Rose Bowl between #12 Washington and Southern Cal

In 1943, as many as 131 sportswriters participated in the AP poll, which included, for the first time, “service teams“. Drawn from flight schools and training centers for participants in World War II, the service teams played against the colleges.

At the same time, a number of universities suspended their football programs. Most of the members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) -- Alabama and Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi and Mississippi State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt -- did not field teams in 1943.

Steve van Buren leads LSU past Texas A&M in the Orange Bowl of 1944

In addition, Pacific Conference teams Oregon and Oregon State, Washington State, and Stanford, did not play, nor did Boston College, the Citadel, Duquesne, Fordham, Harvard, Michigan State, Syracuse, and William & Mary.

Leslie "Tex" Aulds runs around University of Texas defenders, the Randolph Field RB was a star in the 1944 Cotton Bowl

The world of college football was turned upside down in the mid-1940’s because of World War II. Collegiate players throughout the nation became soldiers in the war effort. The balance of college football power shifted because of the assignment of many star players to small colleges which served as training sites for the military and to many military bases. Military installation teams sprang up and challenged such powers as Notre Dame, Michigan and Texas. In fact, in 1943, five military installations were ranked in the final top 20 and this doubled in 1944 to ten teams. The most successful service teams of the era were Midwestern powerhouses, Great Lakes Naval Training Station and Iowa Pre-Flight. The Southwest's two strongest outfits were Southwestern Louisiana Institute (loaded with service trainees) and the Ramblers of Randolph Field. In 1943, Randolph posted a 9-1 record (losing only to SLI) and were selected to play in the Cotton Bowl. Although they had fallen out of the top 20 following the Southwestern loss in the last game of the season, they were still the only service team to participate in a bowl following the ’43 season. Because of their unique status on January 1, 1944, there was increased pressure to win for the morale of servicemen throughout the world.

Randolph’s opponent in the Cotton Bowl would be Dana X. Bible’s Texas Longhorns. The contest was expected to be a thrilling and probably a high scoring affair with the Ramblers relying mainly on the stellar play of All-American Glenn Dobbs. Dobbs had been an All-American at Tulsa in 1942 and ranked with the finest performers of his era. He was playing in his third consecutive bowl game and his feat of throwing seven TD passes in one game received national attention. Behind Dobbs, Randolph Field led the nation in passing in ‘43. The Longhorns had won the Southwest Conference behind the strength of their defense, the nation’s No.1 ranked unit. Texas entered the game at 7-1 and ranked 14th nationally. The Steers were banking their on their fine running at tack that carried them through the campaign to the Southwest Conference championship. The Longhorns boasted All-American Joe Parker, an extremely talented end. The truth is, Texas’ team was comprised of mostly Navy trainees. So, the game became a tribute and celebration to all members of the armed services.

There was a great debate nationally in advance of the game as to which was the superior weapon, a great passing attack or a solid defense. This was supposed to be the game that would produce the answer. The stage was set for the showdown between the respective collegiate and service team football champions of the Southwest.

On New Year’s Day, the gridiron was slippery and soggy, largely because officials of the State Fair of Texas refused to put the protective tarpaulin over the field when requested at midweek. They gave the excuse that they had to give the winter rye grass a chance to grow, and it wasn't until the ground had already soaked up several hours of rainfall that the athletic director of the Dallas high schools, was able to get his own crew on the job to unroll the canvas. The game was attended by many servicemen and women who attended free due to donations of patriotic fans. But, the the cold and rainy weather limited the attendance to 15,000 of the approximately 32,000 who had purchased tickets.

All the scoring was crammed into about seven minutes, almost midway in the first half. Dobbs punted Texas deep into their own territory. Longhorn J.R. Calahan fumbled a wet ball which Walter Parker pounced on at the Texas 26. From there, Dobbs ran for 11 yards and then hit Leslie “Tex” Aulds for the last fifteen yards and the score. Aulds, a former professional baseball player who had no college grid experience, cut to the right behind the Texas line, caught the pass and scored standing up. Aulds had sprained his ankle in a practice session the week before the game and his status was uncertain at game time. Walter West, a hefty former University of Pittsburgh backfield mainstay, converted the extra point for the Ramblers. Six minutes into the second period, Texas responded. Dobbs fumbled while trying to squirm for extra yardage and it was recovered by Texas’ Phil Bolin at the Randolph 42 yard line. Three plays later, halfback Ralph Ells worth hit end George McCall with a thirty-five yard touchdown pass. Calahan, formerly of Texas Tech, booted the extra point for the Longhorns and the game was tied at 7.

From that point on, the collegians never made a serious scoring threat while the soldiers became grimly determined with the knowledge they were battling for the armed forces overseas listening to the short-wave broadcast. But, Randolph suffered severely from the very few rules infractions called in a clean, well-played con test remarkably free of penalties. There were only twenty yards in penalties in the entire contest and all were walked off against the servicemen. Three times Dobbs completed long passes only to see them nullified by penalties. Shortly before the half, he whipped a bullet shot to end Leon Leinweber to the Texas 11 yard line but the play was called back because a Randolph lineman was offside. It would have been good for a first down but instead, the assessment bogged a Rambler drive and the Longhorns finally managed to take over on their own 20 when Leiland Killian missed a 26 yard field goal from a bad angle. Texas maintained possession for the rest of the period.

Early in the third period, Dobbs completed another long pass to Grover Keeton, a former SMU Mustang receiver, from the Texas 37 and the receiver was apparently loose but the Ramblers again were offside. And, near the end of the period, a Dobbs pass to Keeton looked good for twenty-four yards and a first down to the Longhorns' 10, when the officials ruled the Randolph backfield was illegally in motion.

Late in the third quarter, Dobbs returned a Calahan kick nine yards to the Texas 28 and Walter West picked up twenty more yards on two identical running plays through the middle. But, after penetrating the Steers' 10-yard marker, the Rambler attack hit a snag and Tex as took over on downs on its own 9. Shortly afterward, Ralph Park quashed another menace by intercepting a heave intended for Keeton.

At the start of the fourth period, a nineteen-yard gallop through the middle by Dobbs after a fake pass gave Randolph another first down on the Texas 21, but an interception by Ellsworth halted this march. Neither team made another serious threat and Dobbs’ kicking kept Texas battling to get off its own goal line for two series of downs.

Aside from his fine passing, which the statistics fail to reflect because of the nullifying penalties, and some thrilling ball carrying he contributed, Dobbs earned generous accolades for one of the greatest exhibitions of punting ever witnessed on the gridiron, wet or dry. On nine punts he had an amazing average of 44½ yards. His masterpieces included punts of 58, 59, and 68 yards.

Fans who braved the weather to attend the bowl never regretted taking the risk, but it was evident to all that the Ramblers and Longhorns would have been good for one of the most thrilling and most wide-open, whirlwind shows in the history of this bowl had they been brought together in more favorable weather. The Ramblers who were 2-1 underdogs, would have polled a lot more votes to win a fair weather encounter following their fine performance. They proved that a top-flight service football team was equal the highest grade of the college ranks at the time

Dana Bible was happy to have met Glenn Dobbs, but he was glad when the game was over. "That boy's a great player, one of the finest I have ever watched," the Longhorn mentor declared as he slushed through two inches of mud in the Cotton Bowl after shaking hands and talking briefly with Lieutinent Frank Tritico, coach of Randolph Field

But, the most impressive thing about the Cotton Bowl, Bible said, was not Dobbs, not the crowd, not the fact it ended in a tie (first in the annals of the Southwest classic). As Bible saw it, the most important thing was the weather.

"In my thirty years of coaching, I have never seen anything like it.” Bible declared. "The rain wasn't so bad, but the cold added to it and made it most disagreeable. But, my real sympathies go to the fans. I'm sorry that so many people who bought tickets didn't get to come to the game and see it because it was a close game all the way.” Bible declared.

Following the Cotton Bowl, Bible insisted that Randolph Field be awarded the Arthur A. Everts team trophy as Cotton Bowl champs. The Cotton Bowl consented to awarding the Longhorns a smaller trophy to show that they had participated and not lost.

ORANGE BOWL VIDEO THAT I FOUND ... cool stuff
[video=youtube_share;H5_CHVNCgVU]http://youtu.be/H5_CHVNCgVU[/video]

Judge Smails · Jul 18, 2013

42 days to go ...

Heisman Trophies awarded to RBs: Forty-two running backs have won the Heisman, the most of any position. The most recent running back to win the award was Alabama's Mark Ingram in 2009.

Bleacher Report did something back in April about the top 10 running backs in the BCS era using some criteria from various sources. Here's the article:

Truly great running backs don't come along that often. During the BCS era (1998-present), the Heisman Trophy has been awarded to a running back on only four occasions. While a Heisman-winning running back is clearly a great player, it's not the only measure of his ability. Consistency is always a key factor in the greatness equation.

Besides consistency,three other major factors need to be considered when making a list of the best running backs:
1. Strength of the opposition. (This determines how difficult it was to perform at a high level.)
2. Versatility. (Did the running back simply run the ball, or was he a decent target for the quarterback?)
3. Efficiency. (How many times did he have to touch the ball before he turned it into points?)

Using these four factors, here are the 10 best running backs of the BCS era.

CHRIS PERRY, Michigan

Awards: 2003 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 4 in 2003
Strength of schedule: 3.94 (34th of 117)
Touches per touchdown: 19.1
Consistency bonus? No

In 2003, Chris Perry rushed for 1,674 yards and 18 touchdowns on 338 carries and had 44 catches for 367 yards and two more scores. Perry was a record-breaking running back at Michigan, which is no small feat. He was also Michigan's first (and so far its only) Doak Walker Award winner.

TOBY GERHART, Stanford

Awards: 2009 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 2 in 2009
Strength of schedule: 3.42 (27th of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 12.6
Consistency bonus? No

Toby Gerhart had the misfortune of being up against Mark Ingram in the closest Heisman race in the award's history, but that doesn't preclude Gerhart from making this list. Gerhart carried the ball 343 times for 1,871 yards and 28 touchdowns in 2009, which resulted in a host of awards for the Stanford tailback. He could have won the Heisman in many of the other BCS seasons, but the powers that be still awarded him the Doak Walker Award for his efforts. Stanford finished the 2009 season with eight wins, and Gerhart was the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year.

LARRY JOHNSON, Penn State

Awards: 2002 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 3 in 2002
Strength of schedule: 3.98 (23rd of 117)
Touches per touchdown: 13.6
Consistency bonus? No

Larry Johnson ran for 2,087 yards and 20 touchdowns on 271 carries in 2002, and he caught 41 passes for for 349 yards and three TDs. Johnson won the Doak Walker Award, and he was a Heisman finalist that season. He was the first player in Big Ten history to rush for more than 2,000 yards and just the ninth player to do so in NCAA Division I history. Johnson averaged an incredible 7.7 yards per carry, which is second to only one player on this list. (That name will be revealed later in the show.)

TRENT RICHARDSON, Alabama

Awards: 2011 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 3 in 2011
Strength of schedule: 4.21 (17th of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 13.0
Consistency bonus? No

Trent Richardson followed the legendary Mark Ingram as the go-to running back at Alabama. He had 283 carries for 1,679 yards and 21 touchdowns in 2011 on the way to a third-place finish in Heisman voting. (That mark broke Ingram's record for rushing yards in a season at Alabama.) He also had 29 receptions for 338 yards and three touchdowns. Richardson, on average, scored once every 13th time he touched the ball, whether it was a running or passing play.

MARK INGRAM, Alabama

Awards: 2009 Heisman Trophy
Heisman voting placement: No. 1 in 2009
Strength of schedule: 6.62 (Second of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 15.2
Consistency bonus? No

In 2009, Mark Ingram led the ground attack for an Alabama team that went 14-0 and beat Texas for the national title. He set the single-season rushing record (which Trent Richardson would break two seasons later) with 1,658 yards and scored 17 touchdowns in the process. He also had 32 catches for 334 yards and three touchdowns. Ingram, like most tailbacks on this list, wasn't just a threat on the ground. He was a threat to score whenever he got the ball. He also proved that the quarterback was an optional piece of the offensive puzzle for Alabama by leading a Wildcat-based scoring drive against the South Carolina Gamecocks—after Greg McElroy had thrown a couple of interceptions. That drive propelled Ingram to the Heisman podium. He was a contender before that, but that drive undoubtedly helped him get the support he needed to edge out Stanford's Toby Gerhart by 28 votes for the award.

REGGIE BUSH, Southern Cal

Awards: 2005 Heisman Trophy (vacated) and 2005 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 1 in 2005 and No. 5 in 2004
Strength of schedule: 6.80 in 2005 (Ninth of 119) and 8.22 in 2004 (Fifth of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 13.8
Consistency bonus? Yes
Major deduction for cheating? Yes

Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy (vacated) and the Doak Walker Award in 2005. He had 200 carries for 1,740 yards and 16 touchdowns, and 37 catches for 478 yards and two more touchdowns that season. Bush is the only player to have a higher yards-per-carry average than the Penn State great Larry Johnson. Bush averaged 8.7 yard per attempt. But because of the NCAA infractions involving Bush that resulted in a loss scholarships, the vacating of victories in which he participated and a two-year bowl ban for USC, Bush comes in last among the running backs who won multiple major awards.

MONTEE BALL, Wisconsin

Awards: 2012 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 4 in 2011
Strength of schedule: 2.91 in 2012 (39th of 124) and 0.68 in 2011 (53rd of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 16.6 in 2012 and 8.5 in 2011
Consistency bonus? Yes

Montee Ball broke Big Ten, NCAA and Wisconsin records during his 2011 run, but he didn't win the Doak Walker Award until 2012. His numbers at first glance actually looked a bit worse in 2012 than in 2011, but the strengths of schedule were also much different. Ball had 356 attempts for 1,830 yards and 22 touchdowns during his 2012 run, and he helped Wisconsin to its third-straight Rose Bowl appearance. In 2011 (the year he didn't win), he had 307 carries for 1,923 yards and 33 touchdowns, along with 24 receptions for 306 yards and six more scores. His 39 touchdowns in 2011 tied Barry Sanders' single-season NCAA record, and his 83 career touchdowns are the most in FBS history.

DARREN McFADDEN, Arkansas

Awards: 2006 and 2007 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 2 in 2006 and 2007
Strength of schedule: 5.05 in 2006 (11th of 119) and 3.37 in 2007 (33rd of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 19.7 in 2006 and 20.4 in 2007
Consistency bonus? Yes

In 2007, Darren McFadden became the second player to win the Doak Walker Award twice. (The first player is further up this list.) He wasn't the most efficient running back on this list as far as scoring touchdowns was concerned, but he's the only one of the BCS era to finish back-to-back as a Heisman runner-up. Here are his stat lines from both his seasons at the top of his game:
2006: 284 carries for 1,647 yards and 14 touchdowns, and 11 catches for 149 yards and one score.
2007: 325 carries for 1,830 yards and 16 touchdowns, and 21 catches for 164 yards and one score.
McFadden helped Arkansas make it to the SEC Championship Game (and the Capital One Bowl) in 2006 and to the Cotton Bowl in 2007. McFadden is the best tailback in Arkansas history.

LaMICHAEL JAMES, Oregon

Awards: 2010 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 3 in 2010 and No. 10 in 2011
Strength of schedule: 3.92 in 2010 (24th of 120) and 3.23 in 2011 (27th of 120)
Touches per touchdown: 13.0 in 2010 and 13.9 in 2011
Consistency bonus? Yes

LaMichael James is one of the best running backs not to win the Heisman Trophy (Maybe someone can start a petition to give him Cam Newton's 2010 hardware if this Auburn situation takes a turn for the worse?). James had great stats in his final two seasons at Oregon:
2010: 294 carries for 1,731 yards and 21 touchdowns, and 17 catches for 208 yards and three scores.
2011: 325 attempts for 1,805 yards and 18 touchdowns, and 17 catches for 210 yards and one score.
James was a speedy tailback who led Oregon's fourth-ranked rushing attack in 2010, and he carried the Ducks to fifth place in 2011.

RICKY WILLIAMS, Texas

Awards: 1998 Heisman Trophy, 1997 and 1998 Doak Walker winner
Heisman voting placement: No. 1 in 1998 and No. 5 in 1997
Strength of schedule: 6.07 in 1998 (10th of 112) and 0.10 in 1997 (55th of 112)
Touches per touchdown: 13.8
Consistency bonus? Yes

Ricky Williams was the first player to win two Doak Walker Awards. He started his career just outside the scope of this piece, but his stupendous 1998 run came in the inaugural BCS season. Williams was a beast for the Texas Longhorns, compiling more than 2,000 offensive yards in both his award-winning seasons.
1997: 279 carries for 1,893 yards and 25 touchdowns, and 20 receptions for 150 yards.
1998: 361 carries for 2,124 yards and 27 touchdowns, and 24 receptions for 262 yards and one score.
Williams is easily the best running back in BCS history, and with only one season left in the era, he can't be dethroned. (All his potential competition will officially be in the NFL as of 2013's draft.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NCAA RECORD BOOK

Dominic Randolph, Holy Cross (pictured below) ... 42 consecutive games throwing a TD pass, an FCS record (FBS record is 38 by Russell Wilson)

Most points scored by a non-kicker in 1 game:42 – Omar Cuff, Delaware vs. William & Mary, Aug. 30, 2007; Jessie Burton, McNeese State vs. Southern Utah, Sep. 19, 1998; Archie Amerson, Northern Arizona vs. Weber State, Oct. 5, 1996

Most sacks in a career: 42 – Chris Gocong, Cal Poly, 2001, 2003–05

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1942 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

In 1942, The University of Georgia Bulldogs were the consensus national champions, defeating UCLA in the Rose Bowl on January 1st, 1943. Ohio State finished #1 in the final AP poll at the end of November, but choose to stay home during bowl season. At the time, the AP poll did not put out a post-bowl poll.

On September 19, in Louisville, Georgia defeated Kentucky, 7-6. The following Friday, Georgia defeated the Jacksonville Naval Air Station, 14-0, in Macon. The soldiers at the Flight School at the University of Iowa, organized as the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks, overwhelmed Kansas, 61-0. Most schools got their seasons underway on September 26 Defending champion Minnesota beat Pittsburgh, 50-7. Duke beat Davidson 21-0. Notre Dame and Wisconsin played to a 7-7 tie in Madison. Illinois beat South Dakota 46-0. In Montgomery, Alabama beat South Louisiana Institute (later University of Louisiana at Lafayette), 54-0. Texas beat the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, 18-7. Michigan beat the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, 9-0. Before its smallest crowd since 1933 (22,555) Ohio State defeated a service team, the Fort Knox Armoraiders, 59-0. Iowa Pre-Flight won again, at Northwestern, 20-12.

October 3 Minnesota’s winning streak ended when the defending national champs lost their first game in almost four years, to the Seahawks of Iowa Pre-Flight (who just happened to be coached that season by "former" Minnesota head coach Bernie Bierman who had taken leave from Minnesota to serve as an officer in the military during World War II), 7-6. Ohio State beat Indiana 32-21. Michigan beat Michigan State 20-0. Illinois defeated Butler 67-0. Texas beat LSU 27-14. Notre Dame lost to Georgia Tech 13-6. Georgia defeated Furman 40-7. Alabama beat Mississippi State 21-6. Duke lost at Wake Forest, 20-7.

October 31 #1 Ohio State lost at #6 Wisconsin, 17-7. In Atlanta, #2 Georgia beat #3 Alabama, 21-10. #4 Notre Dame beat Navy in Cleveland, 9-0. #5 Georgia Tech won at Duke, 26-7. #7 Boston College beat Georgetown, 47-0. The Georgia Bulldogs took over first place in the poll that followed, and Wisconsin and Boston College moved in while Ohio State and Alabama fell out: 1.Georgia 2.Wisconsin 3.Georgia Tech 4.Notre Dame 5.Boston College.

November 21 In Columbus, GA, #1 Georgia lost to unranked Auburn, 27-13. #2 Georgia Tech beat Florida 20-7. #3 Boston College defeated Boston University, 37-0. #4 Michigan and #5 Ohio State met in Columbus, with OSU winning 21-7, capturing the Big Nine championship, and finishing its season at 9-1-0. #7 Wisconsin beat #10 Minnesota 21-6 to finish its season at 8-1-1. In the next poll, the Boston College Eagles were number one: 1.Boston College 2.Georgia Tech 3.Ohio State 4.Wisconsin 5.Georgia

November 28 #1 Boston College lost to unranked Holy Cross, 55-12. #2 Georgia Tech visited #5 Georgia, and lost 34-0. #3 Ohio State defeated the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks, 41-12, finishing 9-1-0 and capturing the #1 ranking in the final AP poll.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Second Air Force[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]Hardin-Simmons[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#2 Georgia Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]#13 UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#7 Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#4 Tulsa Golden Hurricane[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#11 Texas Longhorns[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#5 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#10 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]37[/TD]
[TD]#8 Boston College Eagles[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

The chart below reflects the published point total from the United Press poll (1,045 points possible), and also reflects the number of polls in which the leading candidates were selected as a first-team All-American, and their point total in the 1942 Heisman Trophy voting.
[TABLE="class: wikitable sortable jquery-tablesorter"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="class: headerSort, bgcolor: #DDDDFF"]Name[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Class[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]Position[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, align: center"]School[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]UPI votes[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]First-team selections[/TH]
[TH="class: headerSort, width: 10%, bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Heisman points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Frank Sinkwich[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]Georgia[/TD]
[TD]1,004[/TD]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]1,059[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Dave Schreiner[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]End[/TD]
[TD]Wisconsin[/TD]
[TD]752[/TD]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Dick Wildung[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Tackle[/TD]
[TD]Minnesota[/TD]
[TD]748[/TD]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Joe Domnanovich[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Center[/TD]
[TD]Alabama[/TD]
[TD]308[/TD]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Billy Hillenbrand[/TD]
[TD].[/TD]
[TD]Halfback[/TD]
[TD]Indiana[/TD]
[TD]486[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]86[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Mike Holovak[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Fullback[/TD]
[TD]B.C.[/TD]
[TD]594[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]95[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Paul Governali[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Quarterback[/TD]
[TD]Columbia[/TD]
[TD]406[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]218[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Al Wistert[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Tackle[/TD]
[TD]Michigan[/TD]
[TD]532[/TD]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Harvey Hardy[/TD]
[TD]Sr.[/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]Georgia Tech[/TD]
[TD]516[/TD]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Chuck Taylor[/TD]
[TD].[/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]Stanford[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bob Dove[/TD]
[TD].[/TD]
[TD]End[/TD]
[TD]N.Dame[/TD]
[TD]507[/TD]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Julius Franks[/TD]
[TD].[/TD]
[TD]Guard[/TD]
[TD]Michigan[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Frank "Flatfoot" Sinkwich earned the first Heisman Trophy awarded to a southern college player. He brought national recognition to the University of Georgia's football program and contributed to his alma mater for the remainder of his life.

Sinkwich was born October 10, 1920, in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. His parents, Croatian immigrants from Russian Georgia, raised him in Youngstown, Ohio.
There he was a running back for the Chaney High School football team during the Great Depression. In 1939 he was recruited by University of Georgia (UGA) backfield coach Bill Hartman; Sinkwich accepted Hartman's offer on the condition that his friend George Poschner be granted a scholarship as well. That fall both Sinkwich and Poschner made headlines playing for the "Point-a-Minute Bullpups," the university's freshman football squad. (Freshmen were not eligible for varsity play.)

In 1941 Sinkwich earned All-American honors as the team's leading halfback. After having his jaw broken early in the season, he played the remaining regular season games with his jaw wired shut and a large jaw protector attached to his helmet (an innovation preceding the first face masks). He wore the protector when he led Georgia to a 40-26 victory over Texas Christian University at the 1942 Orange Bowl, Georgia's first postseason appearance. His performance, called one of the best individual performances in Orange Bowl history, included receiving nine of thirteen passes for 243 yards and three touchdowns, and 139 yards rushing, capped by a 43-yard touchdown run.

The following year Sinkwich shared the backfield with newcomer Charley Trippi (Sinkwich was switched to the fullback position, with Trippi playing halfback).
The duo led Georgia to an 11-1 record, culminating with a 9-0 Rose Bowl victory over the University of California at Los Angeles. Sinkwich, known for his toughness if not his size (he stood an unremarkable 5 feet 10 inches and weighed 185 pounds), played the game with sprained ankles. For his stellar play in 1942, which included a still-unbeaten school record of twenty-seven touchdowns, Sinkwich was awarded the Heisman Trophy by a unanimous vote. For the second year in a row he won All-American honors, and UGA celebrated him by retiring his jersey, number 21.

After the Marine Corps rejected Sinkwich for physical reasons in 1943, the Detroit Lions, a professional football team, drafted him in the first round. In his two years as a running back with the Lions, Sinkwich was named All-Pro twice and league MVP in 1944. The following year he was accepted into the Air Force. Soon after, he suffered a serious knee injury playing for the Air Force football team. The injury ended Sinkwich's career at the age of twenty-five. After the setback he coached at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and the University of Tampa, Florida, before settling in Athens as a businessman. In 1954 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

In later years Sinkwich's success as a wholesale beer distributor allowed him to be a major supporter of UGA athletics. Along with his former coach Bill Hartman, he chaired the committee to raise funds for construction of the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, completed in 1987. Frank Sinkwich died of cancer on October 22, 1990. His Heisman Trophy is on display at the Butts-Mehre Hall.

UGA's Willard Boyd blocks a punt in the 1943 Rose Bowl, leading to a safety in the Bulldogs' 9-0 win over UCLA

20c448918c3b28655d548021a513d9774fd92e39_display_image.jpg

Tennessee knocked off unbeaten Tulsa in the Sugar Bowl ... the Vols only bowl win under coach John Barnhill

1943-01-01-Georgia-Tech-vs.-Texas-Cotton-Bowl.jpg

Texas ended Georgia Tech's dream season, 14-7, in the Cotton Bowl

Alabama regrouped to score 22 second-quarter points en route to a 37-21 victory in its first Orange Bowl

Second Air Force back eludes a Hardin-Simmons tackle in the 1943 Sun Bowl

The Second Air Force was home to many former collegiate and professional football players who were serving their World War II tour of duty. They fielded a football team during the war years and competed for West Coast supremacy with March Field of Riverside, CA and nationally with Randolph Field, Texas. In 1942, the Superbombers were a formidable force in college football. They marched to an undefeated season with only a tie against Washington State separating them from perfection. The won the Pacific Army title with a win over March Field. They were regarded as the third most powerful service team in the nation. The were invited to play in the 8th annual Sun Bowl, the only service team to appear in a bowl that season.

Hardin-Simmons was on a quest in the early 1940’s to compete on the playing field with much larger colleges. The 1942 season promised to derail this momentum as the Cowboys were depleted by personnel losses due to wartime enlistment. But the Cowboys shocked the nation by posting an undefeated record and dismantling the Southwestern Conference. They won over Baylor, SMU and tied Texas Tech and finished 24th in the AP poll. In the process, they led the nation in rushing offense and boasted the #1 rusher in single season history in Doc Mobley. They were chosen for the Sun Bowl as Border Conference champions, but lost their head coach in the process. Coach Warren B. Woodson was called as an officer to active duty before the contest and the Cowboys would be coached by his assistant, Clark Jarnagin. At 28, Jarnagin became the youngest man ever to coach in a postseason bowl game. The 1943 Sun Bowl was dubbed as the “Win for Woodson” Bowl.

The Sun Bowl lived up to its namesake. The weather was extremely sunny and very hot. The attendance was at capacity. The game was the only bowl of 1943 that featured two undefeated teams. The Cowboys and Bombers were the only unbeaten teams in the nation in 1942.

Harold Van Every scored the winning touchdown in the 1943 Sun Bowl. The Green Bay Packers had selected Van Every with the ninth overall pick in the 1940 draft, making him just the fifth first-round draft choice in Green Bay history. Van Every was drafted into the service following the 1941 season and began flying with the Air Force in 1942. In 1945, his plane was shot down by the Germans and he was forced to eject from 22,000 feet.

Van Every was captured and spent a year in a prison camp in Poland. Once a month, he'd receive a package from the Red Cross that measured 15 inches wide and six inches high that contained canned meat, chocolate and some other staples.

But that was barely enough to stay alive, and Van Every lost 50 pounds during his year in the prison camp.

"You want to really punish a man, you starve him," said Van Every, who went from 200 pounds to 150 during his time in the prison camp. "That's how you can get a man to crack."

Van Every got out of the service in 1946 after the war ended and wanted to resume his football career. But during his plane crash, he had suffered back injuries and the pain from football would have been too great.

Video highlights of the 1943 JANUARY 1 BOWL GAMES
[video=youtube_share;yi3nddYyNOE]http://youtu.be/yi3nddYyNOE[/video]

cudder · Jul 18, 2013

6 weeks! I can do this ughh

Judge Smails · Jul 19, 2013

41 days to go ...

A legendary career is born: Eddie Robinson began his coaching career at Grambling in 1941. He would coach a total of 55 seasons (all at Grambling) and earn 408 wins. He and St. John's (MN) coach John Gagliardi are the only coaches in college football history to earn 400-plus wins.

Mostly because he spent his entire coaching career at Division I-AA Grambling State, the late great Eddie Robinson's name is not often mentioned alongside such coaching titans as Fielding Yost, Knute Rockne, Woody Hayes, Bear Bryant or Joe Paterno.

Robinson never won a Division I national championship, never saw his Grambling State teams secure a big television contract and never became a household name to quite the same extent that his big-school colleagues did. That being said, there is no denying this: Robinson was one of the most fantastically successful coaches in college football history, one of the finest leaders the game ever saw, and one of the most important men in the evolution of college football as a whole.

He was, in short, a legend.

Robinson spent 56 years as head coach at Grambling State, a historically black college located in Lincoln Parish, Louisiana. His tenure began in 1941 and lasted through 1997, and in the intervening years, he did nothing short of revolutionize the college football experience for young African-American players, providing opportunities for players that may not have been given a chance to shine elsewhere.

More than that, however, Robinson won. He won a lot, actually.

By the time Robinson retired, he had wracked up an amazing 408 wins (his overall record was 408-165-15), making him the winningest coach in Division I-AA history (that division is now known as the Football Championship Subdivision) and the second-winningest coach in all of college football history. Only John Gagliardi of Division III St. John's University and Paterno, of Penn State, won more games than Robinson, who also led his teams to 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference championships and nine black college national championships. His teams posted winning records in 46 of his 56 seasons.

The success is all the more remarkable given Robinson's humble roots. According to the Eddie G. Robinson Museum, neither of Robinson's parents graduated high school. And yet, Robinson would push himself to earn a college degree, doing so at Leland College, where he played quarterback for his mentor, coach Reuben Turner. After graduation, Robinson found himself working in a feed mill in Baton Rouge, but eventually learned of a coaching opportunity the college then known as the Louisiana ***** Normal and Industrial Institute. He got an interview, impressed the powers that be, and eventually named the school's sixth football coach by Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones. The college would eventually become known as Grambling, and Robinson would eventually become the most dominant coach in black college football.

Robinson coached three eventual National Football League Hall of Famers-Buck Buchanan of the Kansas City Chiefs, Willie Brown of the Oakland Raiders and Charlie Joiner of the Houston Oilers-and more than 200 NFL players in total. One of those players was Doug Williams, who quarterbacked the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XXII, earning MVP honors in the process.

With his health failing him and his teams struggling on the field, Robinson finally retired in 1997. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame that same year. It was later revealed that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. He died on April 3, 2007.

His passing was an occasion for mourning across the country. Then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco called Robinson "a great Louisianan and a true American hero." NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that his league would be "forever grateful for the more than 200 young men he developed at Grambling who starred in the NFL and those who later coached the next generation of NFL players." And when Paterno broke Robinson's wins record more than a decade later, he was effusive in his praise for the Grambling legend.

Said Paterno: "I've told people many, many times two of the greatest people we've ever had in college football are Jake Gaither and Eddie Robinson. Jake was a head coach at Florida A&M. At 24 years of age, Eddie became the head coach at Grambling. Those two men opened up the doors for the African-American kid. They had no place to go. The Southeastern Conference didn't take any black kids. There were very few playing up North. Jake Gaither and Eddie Robinson went out and showed people what kind of athlete these kids could be. So for me; a kid from Brooklyn, whose Grandfather was an immigrant, to be something like this really means a lot to me."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Highest average gain per return, season
Div II: 41.7 – Richard Medlin, Fayetteville State, 2008

Most kickoff returns, career
FBS: 141 – Tyron Carrier, Houston, 2008–11 ... man, those must have been some bad defenses

Tyron+Carrier+Houston+v+Tulane+6DtFBAYUH9Dl.jpg

Most yards receiving, game
Div III: 418 – Lewis Howes, Principia vs. Martin Luther, Oct. 12, 2002 (insert the 500-year-old German secondary comment here)

Lowest percentage of passes intercepted, career
FCS: 1.41% – Josh Johnson, San Diego, 2004–07 (min. 750 attempts)

Most rushing yards by a quarterback, season
Div III: 1,941 – Chris Sharpe, Springfield, 2006, 261 rushes

Most yards rushing, game
Div III: 441 – Dante Brown, Marietta vs. Baldwin–Wallace, Oct. 5, 1996
Div II: 418 – Jarom Freeman, Southern Connecticut State vs. Bryant, Nov. 2, 2007, 34 rushes

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 1941 college football regular season ended with the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota repeating as the AP Poll national champion. This was Minnesota's fifth national championship in eight years.

The Big Ten Conference did not allow their teams to participate in the post-season bowl games, therefore the undefeated, untied Duke Blue Devils, faced the #12-ranked Oregon State University Beavers in the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl game had been temporarily moved from Pasadena, California to Durham, North Carolina following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Oregon State beat Duke, 20-16, but postseason results did not affect the AP Poll standings.

Each writer listed his choice for the top ten teams, and points were tallied based on 10 for first place, 9 for second, etc. The AP then ranked the twenty teams with the highest number of points. Mississippi State, who won the SEC championship, was unable to participate in the post-season due to the wartime airport and train station closings. Therefore, the Georgia Bulldogs and the Alabama Crimson Tide were selected to play in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl, respectively. Georgia defeated TCU 40-26 and Alabama defeated the Texas A&M Aggies 29-21.

October 11
Minnesota beat Illinois 34-6, Northwestern beat Wisconsin 41-14, and Michigan beat Pittsburgh 40-0. In Baltimore, Duke beat Maryland 50-0, while in Dallas, Texas beat Oklahoma 40-7. Fordham won at North Carolina 27-14. Stanford lost at Oregon State 10-0. In the poll that followed, Minnesota was ranked #1, followed by Texas, Duke, Fordham, Northwestern and Michigan.

October 16
The penalty flag is used for the first time in the 1941 Oklahoma City vs. Youngstown State football game in Youngstown, Ohio.

In the game of football, a penalty flag is thrown when a rules infraction occurs during a game. The creation of that penalty flag was in Youngstown, Ohio nearly than 60 years ago.

It was created by former Youngstown State University coach, Dwight Dike Beede on Oct. 17, 1941. The flag was first used in a game against Oklahoma City University at the Youngstown's Rayen Stadium. Today the penalty flag is used in every competitive football game throughout the world.

Before the introduction of the penalty flag, the officials used horns and whistles to signal a penalty. This made it difficult for fans and the media to know that there was an infraction on the field because they could not hear the signal.

Beede said, "I always disliked the fish horn signal, figured it was a nuisance, irritating to the ears."

Jack McPhee, who was an official during the first game the penalty flag was used said, "Through the use of the signal flag, everyone in the stadium knows that something is wrong. It's been a big help."

Beede came up with idea of the flag and had his wife sew it together. His wife, Irma Beede, later became known as the 'Betsy Ross of Football' because she sewed the first flags together. He asked her to make a flag that had a bright color (red) with white stripes. The flags were put together using pieces of the Beede's daughter's old Halloween costume for the red part of the flag and an old sheet for the white part. She used some lead sinkers from Beede's fishing tackle box to weigh it down. It was 16 inches square with the weight all at one end of the flag. The flag has been modified over the years and today it is yellow cloth that has sand in it to weigh it down.

Beede came to an agreement with Oklahoma City Coach Os Doenges to use the flags as an experiment. Beede proceeded to ask the game officials to use the flag.

"Do me a favor boys, instead of using the horns, try dropping these flags on violations. The fans never hear the horns. Besides its just an experiment."
The four game officials Hugh McPhee, Jack McPhee, Bill Renner, and Carl Rebele all agreed to use the flag.

Jack McPhee later used the flag at the Ohio State-Iowa game which happened to have the league's commissioner, Major John Griffith, as a spectator at the game. He became very curious why the officials were throwing "rags" in the air when a penalty was called. Griffith was impressed with the idea after McPhee explained what was going on after the game.

October 25
The biggest game of the year took place in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as #1 Minnesota defeated #3 Michigan, 7-0. #2 Texas beat Rice 40-0. #4 Duke won at Pittsburgh 27-7. #5 Navy and Harvard played to a 0-0 tie. #6 Fordham beat TCU 28-14, while #9 Texas A&M won at Baylor 48-0, to reach 5-0-0. In the vote that followed, Minnesota received 60 first place votes, and Texas received 53. When the points were tallied, they both had 1,161 points and were tied for #1.

November 1
In Dallas, #1 Texas beat SMU 34-0, while in Minneapolis, the other #1, Minnesota, edged #9 Northwestern 8-7. In New York, #3 Fordham defeated Purdue 17-0, and in Atlanta, #4 Duke won at Georgia Tech 14-0. In Little Rock, #5 Texas A&M beat Arkansas 7-0. Texas was the new #1 the following week, followed by Minnesota, Fordham, Duke and Texas A&M, all unbeaten and untied.

November 8
#1 Texas and Baylor played to a 7-7 tie. #2 Minnesota beat Nebraska 9-0. #3 Fordham lost at Pittsburgh 13-0. #4 Duke won at Davidson 56-0. #5 Texas A&M beat SMU 21-10. #7 Notre Dame beat Navy 20-13 in Baltimore and moved into the Top Five as Fordham dropped out.

November 15
#1 Minnesota won at Iowa 34-13. #2 Texas lost to Texas Christian (TCU) 14-7. #3 Duke beat North Carolina 20-0. In Houston, #4 Texas A&M beat Rice 19-6. #5 Notre Dame won at #8 Northwestern 7-6. #7 Michigan, which beat Columbia, 28-0, moved up as Texas dropped out.

November 22
#1 Minnesota closed its season with a 41-6 win over Wisconsin in Minneapolis. #2 Texas A&M was idle as it prepared for its Thanksgiving game.

#3 Duke won its season closer at N.C. State 55-6 to get a bid to Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. Fifteen days later, the bombing of Pearl Harbor called into question whether Southern California would be safe from a Japanese attack on New Year's Day. On December 15, bowl officials and U.S. Army officers met in San Francisco and decided to hold the game at Duke's stadium in Durham, North Carolina.

#4 Notre Dame beat USC 20-18. #5 Michigan closed its season with a 20-20 tie #14 against Ohio State. The Top four remained the same, but #6 Duquesne (which had finished its season at 8-0-0) replaced Michigan at #5.

On Thanksgiving Day #2 Texas A&M lost to Texas 23-0.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Tulsa Golden Hurricane[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Texas Tech Red Raiders[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#12 Oregon State Beavers[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#2 Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#6 Fordham Rams[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]#7 Missouri Tigers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#20 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]29[/TD]
[TD]#9 Texas A&M Aggies[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#14 Georgia Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD]40[/TD]
[TD]TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

[video=youtube_share;py1SrXNvu1E]http://youtu.be/py1SrXNvu1E[/video]

1941 HEISMAN TROPHY

bruce%20smith%20heisman%20trophy%20winner.jpg

BRUCE SMITH, HB, Minnesota
The handsome Minnesota halfback, who received his Heisman Trophy two days after Pearl Harbor, was voted the best college player in the All-Star game that year at Chicago. The spearhead of two of Bernie Bierman's greatest teams, he captained the Gophers to undefeated National Championships in 1940 and '41. Although well over 200 pounds, he was one of the Big 10 Conference's fastest men. Bruce passed away on 28 August 1967 after a long illness.
Bruce was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1972.

The Voting

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Bruce Smith	Minnesota	Senior	HB	554
2	Angelo Bertelli	Notre Dame	Sophomore	QB	345
3	Frankie Albert	Stanford	Senior	QB	336
4	Frank Sinkwich	Georgia	Junior	HB	249
5	Bill Dudley	Virginia	Senior	HB	237
6	Endicott Peabody	Harvard	Senior	G	153
7	Edgar Jones	Pittsburgh	Senior	RB	151
8	Bob Westfall	Michigan	Senior	FB	147
9	Steve Lach	Duke	Senior	HB	126
10	Jack Crain	Texas	Senior	RB	102

Smith won only two sections, the East and the Midwest. Dudley won in the South. Moser of Texas A&M in the Southwest and Albert in the Far West. Peabody, who played end, received tremendous support for a lineman. He later received enough support in the state of Massachusetts to be elected governor. Smith's acceptance of the Heisman Trophy had some anxious moments on 9 December 1941, when a squadron of American Army planes was mistaken for German bombers and an air raid alert was signaled along the East Coast as Bruce stepped forward to accept his Heisman two days after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aerial photo of Missouri's 28-0 win over Oklahoma in 1941

Texas Tech met up with Tulsa in the Sun Bowl

Fullback Bill Green scores an Iowa touchdown in the Hawkeyes' 25-8 victory over Drake.

1942 Rose Bowl: Oregon State vs. Duke, a game that was played in Durham, NC

Judge Smails · Jul 20, 2013

40 days to go ...

Elroy Hirsch, RB, Wisconsin: Played just one season for the Badgers but certainly left his mark. A brilliant triple-threat halfback, Hirsch led the 1942 Badgers to an 8-1-1 record, second place in the Big Ten and third in the final Associated Press poll.

Hirsch, whose number 40 is retired at UW, left Wisconsin to become a marine trainee in Michigan, playing two intercollegiate seasons at Michigan. He is the only Wolverine athlete to letter in four sports (football, basketball, track and baseball).

Hirsch was a halfback and receiver for the NFL's Los Angeles Rams from 1949 to 1957. Before that, he played for the Chicago Rockets of the All-America Football Conference. It was as a running back for the University of Wisconsin, however, that Mr. Hirsch earned his nickname. After running 62 yards for a touchdown one afternoon at Soldier Field, he was described by a sportswriter as running like a "demented duck," whose "crazy legs were gyrating in six different directions all at the same time."

From that day on, Mr. Hirsch was known as "Crazy Legs."

"It was better than being called Elroy," Hirsch said many times.

He became one of the NFL's most exciting players, a key part of the Rams's revolutionary "three-end" offense in 1949.

His best season was 1951, when he led the NFL with 66 catches, 1,495 yards receiving, and 17 touchdowns. Catching passes from Hall of Fame quarterbacks Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin, Hirsch had an average touchdown reception of 47.8 yards.

He was named Pro Player of the Year as the Rams defeated the Cleveland Browns, 24-17, to win the NFL championship.

"Elroy Hirsch was a big star in a town of stars," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in a statement. "He was an electrifying player who brought a lot of glamour to the NFL."

Hirsch's nickname remains one of the most recognizable in football. The Wausau native was inducted into four other halls -- college football's Hall of Fame in 1974, two in his home state, and the University of Michigan's Hall of Honor.

Hirsch started his college career in Wisconsin, where he played for one season in 1942. He was assigned to Michigan in 1943 while serving in the Marine Corps. He became the school's only athlete to win letters in four major sports in the same year -- football, basketball, baseball, and track. He once competed in the Big Ten outdoor track championship in Champaign, Ill., in the morning before making the 170-mile trip to Bloomington, Ind., to pitch the second game of a doubleheader. Hirsch was third in the broad jump, and his win over Indiana clinched the conference title for the baseball team.

"He was an outgoing, fun-loving, popular guy," said Don Lund, who played football, basketball, and baseball with Hirsch at Michigan. "Everything about him as a man and an athlete was outstanding."

In 1969, Hirsch became athletic director at Wisconsin, where the football team had gone winless in 20 previous games. But he helped raise home attendance from 43,000 in 1968 -- the year he went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame -- to more than 70,000 per game in just four years. Before he retired in 1987, the department doubled the number of sports it offered and the Badgers won national titles in hockey, men's, and women's crew, and men's and women's cross country.

Hirsch also had a brief career in the movies. In 1953, he played himself in the film biography "Crazylegs, All American." He starred in the movie "Unchained" in 1955 and "Zero Hour" in 1957.

$T2eC16dHJHIE9nysfCP5BQM!-HSZrg~~60_35.JPG

One of the all-time great wide receivers, Hirsch is a member of the National Football League Hall of Fame. He was a charter member of the UW Athletic Hall of Fame and is also a member of the Wisconsin State Athletic Hall of Fame.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1940 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

Tom Harmon, RB, Michigan won the 1940 Heisman Trophy

"Old 98" literally blazed across the football skies in 1939 and 1940 after a fast start in 1938. He was one of the country's greatest backs of his era. He became Michigan's first Heisman Trophy winner following the 1940 season and also received the Chicago Tribune's Silver Football as the Big Ten's MVP. During the three seasons he rushed for 2,134 yards, scored 33 touchdowns and kicked the same number of point-after-touchdowns, and booted two field goals for 237 career points. He also threw sixteen touchdown passes. After a thrilling career as a pilot in WW II, he married film star Elyse Knox and became one of the nations top sports broadcasters and directors.

From the very beginning Harmon held as a career goal a position in sports broadcasting. Therefore, he majored in English. Later on, his wish became a reality after some serious adversity.

One reason Harmon’s statistics do not stand out is that Michigan only played eight games a year in that era. 1938 showed some success as Harmon rushed only 77 times, but averaged over five yards a carry. Harmon had two outstanding years as a halfback in the single wing attack, 1939 and 1940. Both seasons were productive and in 1939 Tom Harmon was pitted against a senior from Iowa, Nile Kinnick, for the Heisman Trophy. Harmon had a great game as Michigan defeated Iowa, intercepting a Kinnick pass and scoring several times. However, later in the season, Michigan lost back-to-back games to Illinois and Minnesota, both ranked in the top ten. Some maintained the Minnesota loss doomed Harmon’s Heisman chances.

In some regard, maybe all regards, Nile Kinnick winning the Heisman in 1939 and Harmon winning the award in 1940 may have been pure justice. Kinnick was the Jack Armstrong, All-American mirror image of Tom Harmon. Tragically, Kinnick was killed in a World War II training flight as a navy aviator in 1943. The stadium in Iowa City bears his name. 1939 was far from a disappointment regarding individual awards for Tom Harmon. He led the nation in scoring, a feat he would repeat in 1940; was named All-American and All-Conference, and averaged well over 6 yards per carry. 1940 was the magical year for Tom Harmon of Michigan. He carried more of the load for the Wolverines and therefore his rushing yardage slipped somewhat. He did however show the versatility tailbacks in that era were expected to demonstrate. Harmon ran for touchdowns, threw for touchdowns, intercepted passes, punted and placekicked. Many times in his career Harmon played every snap of the game.

The 1940 Michigan team was far from a one-man show. Several All-Americans and future professional players dotted the Michigan roster. Michigan lost a tough 7-6 game to Minnesota, allowing the Gophers to win the national title. Michigan finished third in the final polls. After the tough loss, Tom Harmon provided one of the penultimate highlights in Michigan football history.

On November 23, 1940, in Columbus, Ohio, Harmon had a game for the ages. Ohio State had a run of the mill year, finishing at 4-4. Some try to still denigrate Harmon’s game performance because of the Ohio State record. In short, Tom Harmon ran for three touchdowns, passed for two other touchdowns, kicked four extra points, averaged fifty yards a punt, and intercepted three passes in a 40-0 Michigan win. A tired, beat up Harmon started walking off the field with his usual torn game jersey and the Ohio State crowd afforded the Michigan legend a standing ovation, said to be the one and only such occurrence in western civilization. This was during a more civil time and before Woody Hayes envenomated and degraded anything associated with Michigan.

Harmon was awarded the Heisman trophy after again leading the nation in scoring and doing everything he could to bring Michigan a national title, falling one point short. The Maxwell Award and other honors were also awarded to Harmon.

Western Michigan plays a home game in 1940, notice the fans sitting up against the back wall with thick blankets

The 1940 college football season ended with the Gophers of the University of Minnesota being named the nation’s #1 team and national champion, and the Stanford University Indians (later to be renamed the Cardinal) in second, with the two teams receiving 65 and 44 first place votes respectively.

October 19
#1 Cornell beat Syracuse 33-6. #2 Texas A&M beat TCU 21-7. #3 Michigan beat Illinois 28-0. #4 Northwestern won at Wisconsin 27-7. In Birmingham, #5 Tennessee beat Alabama, 27-12. In Columbus, #7 Minnesota beat #15 Ohio State 13-7. #6 Notre Dame beat Carnegie Tech 61-0.

November 9
#1 Cornell beat Yale 21-0, but dropped to second in the next poll. #2 Minnesota and #3 Michigan both unbeaten (5-0-0) met in Minneapolis, with the Gophers winning by one point, 7-6. #4 Texas A&M won at SMU 19-7. #5 Tennessee won at Rhodes College 41-0. #6 Stanford beat Washington 20-10 to advance its record to 7-0-0.

November 16
#1 Minnesota beat Purdue 33-6. #2 Cornell lost at Dartmouth 3-0. #3 Texas A&M beat Rice 25-0. #4 Stanford beat Oregon State 28-14. #5 Tennessee beat Virginia 41-14. #8 Boston College beat Georgetown 19-18 to extend its record to 8-0-0

November 23
#1 Minnesota closed its season with a 22-13 win at Wisconsin. #2 Texas A&M and #3 Stanford were idle. #4 Boston College beat Auburn 33-7. #5 Cornell. #7 Michigan won at Ohio State to close its season at 7-1-0.

On Thanksgiving Day #2 Texas A&M lost at Texas 7-0.

November 30
#3 Stanford closed its season with a 13-7 win at California. #4 Boston College defeated Holy Cross 7-0.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Western Reserve Spartans[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[TD]Arizona State Bulldogs [SUP][3][/SUP][/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#2 Stanford Indians[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#7 Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#5 Boston College Eagles[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]#4 Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#6 Texas A&M Aggies[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#12 Fordham Rams[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#9 Mississippi State Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]#13 Georgetown Hoyas[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

[video=youtube_share;ympDeweST7g]http://youtu.be/ympDeweST7g[/video]

The oldest stadium in college football, Franklin Field, hosted the nation's first commercially broadcast game in 1940. The stadium was built in 1896 and is still home to Penn Quaker football.

Orange Bowl Silk pennants ... wonder if John Thompson I was a part of the university back then

Rose Bowl program

Ticket stub from 1941 Cotton Bowl ... thank you for putting the score by the team names, too

Boston College's Charlie O'Rourke scampers 24 yards for the winning touchdown in the 1941 Sugar Bowl

FROM THE GAME STORY: With BC starting from its 20, O'Rourke moved the Eagles to the Vols' 24. Neyland called timeout and changed his defense to send three men deep. For BC, it was time for the Tennessee Special. O'Rourke faded, raising his skinny arm as if to throw. Instead he cut sharply between Tennessee's tackle and end. Like a shadow he glided through a maze of flailing Volunteers and into the end zone (O'Rourke on winning play, pictured to right). There were two minutes remaining. "I had a clear shot at him and missed,'' Graves said. "He kept going parallel to the line of scrimmage, but kept coming back toward the sidelines. I had another shot at him - and missed. When he got to the sidelines he turned downfield and scored just inside the boundary line. It really killed the General. We not only had a punt blocked, but the play O'Rourke scored on was a Tennessee play.''

Judge Smails · Jul 21, 2013

39 days to go ...

USC fullback Sam Cunningham: He was named an All-American in 1972 as a member of USC’s 1972 national championship team. In the 1973 Rose Bowl, he scored four touchdowns, which still stands as a modern-day Rose Bowl record.

Cunningham was a letterman for University of Southern California's football team from 1970 through 1972 where he played fullback. He was named an All-American in 1972. He was a member of USC’s 1972 national championship team. In the 1973 Rose Bowl, he scored four touchdowns, which still stands as a modern-day Rose Bowl record. He was named Rose Bowl Player of the Game. He was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 1970 he was part of USC's "all-black" backfield (the first one of its kind in Division I history), that included quarterback Jimmy Jones and running back Clarence Davis. He had a notable performance (135 yards, 2 touchdowns) against an all-white University of Alabama football team, as USC beat Alabama 42-21 in Birmingham on September 12, 1970. His performance in the game was reportedly a factor in convincing the University of Alabama and its fans to let Coach Bear Bryant integrate Southern football. Jerry Claiborne, a former Bryant assistant, said, "Sam Cunningham did more to integrate Alabama in 60 minutes than Martin Luther King did in 20 years."

Despite the legend surrounding the story, Bryant had already taken a step toward integrating his team. Wilbur Jackson, the first African-American offered a scholarship by the University of Alabama, watched the game from the stands, ineligible to play as a freshman due to NCAA rules at the time.

Professional career
In only his second year 1974, he gained 811 yards and 9 touchdowns as he led the New England Patriots to a surprising 4-0 start before faltering to a 7-7 finish. In 1977 he gained a career high 1,015 yards and scored 4 touchdowns, and also caught 42 receptions for 370 yards and a touchdown. He played his entire career (1973 through 1982) with the Patriots and was a 1978 Pro Bowl selection.

Cunningham finished his career with 5,453 rushing yards, 210 receptions for 1,905 yards, and 49 touchdowns. He is the older brother of former UNLV and NFL quarterback (and All-America punter) Randall Cunningham.

Cunningham is the 2010 Inductee to the Patriots Hall of Fame.

THE GAME THAT CHANGED ALABAMA
It was a hot and humid September evening in 1970 at Birmingham's Legion Field. The Alabama Crimson Tide, coached by the great Paul "Bear" Bryant, were in for a long night.

Mr. Bryant had already led the Tide to three national titles. But he was coming off a 6-5 season, his worst yet. Southern California, Alabama's opponent, had lost just two games in three years.

If past is prologue in sport, it is particularly so in college football, where there is continuity and depth of tradition. What happened that day nearly 40 years ago is arguably the seminal moment in Crimson Tide football—the one that's most responsible for what the program is today: an immensely talented team preparing to play No. 1 Florida Saturday in a Southeastern Conference title-game showdown. The second-ranked Tide is a team that has attracted the best talent available and embraced it—a coach from West Virginia, a black kid from Michigan who may win the school's first Heisman Trophy.

When he suited up that night, USC's Sam Cunningham didn't think he'd touch the ball at all against the Tide. As a fullback in coach John McKay's tailback-focused offense—and a sophomore backup at that—carrying the ball was neither his job nor his station. And he sure wasn't thinking about the historical significance of the day: This was the first time a fully integrated team had come to play Alabama in the South.

"It wasn't the first time I'd played an all-white football team, so that didn't bother me at all," says Mr. Cunningham, who is black. "It was my first road trip, first varsity game. I was more concerned about getting a chance to play and not making any mistakes."

The game, a 42-21 Trojans rout, couldn't have left a stronger impression on the Alabama faithful. The Trojans gained 559 yards, nearly 300 more than the Tide. Mr. Cunningham rumbled for 135 yards and two touchdowns, and needed just 12 carries to do it. "They were good players," Mr. Cunningham says of the Tide. "By no means am I implying that they weren't. But we were bigger, stronger and faster."

Alabama's football program first established itself more than 80 years ago, becoming the South's flagship team when it went west and won the 1926 Rose Bowl. The Tide excelled in the Depression years and won three national titles in the 1960s under Mr. Bryant. But the slowness of the South to accept integration started to hurt the Tide, culminating in that 1970 season opener against USC.

The legend of that night, which has become known as the Cunningham game, has been exaggerated, misremembered, misunderstood and mythologized. Books overstate Mr. Cunningham's yards and touchdowns. Mr. Cunningham is famously said to have done more to integrate Alabama in 60 minutes than Martin Luther King Jr. did in 20 years. Aside from whether he did or not, the quote is alternately attributed to Mr. Bryant and two former assistants. "I've been here 20 years," says Taylor Watson, curator of the Paul W. Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa, "and I've never been able to figure it out."

According to myth, Mr. Bryant took Mr. Cunningham to the Tide locker room after the game to show his team what a football player looks like. Mr. Cunningham says Mr. Bryant did make the unusual gesture of speaking with him after the game but just to congratulate him. "It wasn't anything earth-shattering," he says.

But the game did have dramatic effects. Historians say Mr. Bryant—who already had a black player on Alabama's freshman team—would have added more black players sooner if it had been socially acceptable; after that game, fans recognized the need. Great black players soon started coming to Alabama, including future pro Hall of Fame tight end Ozzie Newsome. The Tide rebounded to win three more national championships under Mr. Bryant, who died in 1983.

And today, two black Alabama players are among the most adored Crimson Tide stars in recent memory. Sophomore running back Mark Ingram is in the running for the Heisman, and sophomore receiver Julio Jones was elected to a student-government seat after last season despite not even campaigning. (He initially planned to serve but later declined because of his full schedule.)

"I'm just amazed how much the landscape has changed since the late '60s and early '70s," Mr. Cunningham says. "At the time, I didn't dwell upon how big a deal it was. If I'd thought any further out, I might not have played as well as I did. But seeing the results over the past 40 years, we left an impression on college football and Alabama."

For this year's Tide (12-0), Saturday's SEC title game in Atlanta represents another potential turning point. Florida (12-0) has won 22 straight games, two of the past three national championships and eight of the past 18 SEC titles, including last year, when the Gators beat the Tide in the championship. Florida has become the team to beat in the SEC.

"For older, lifelong Alabama fans, there's been this sense for the past 20 years that there's something slightly wrong about the cosmic order," says Alabama native Warren St. John, author of "Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer," a book about college fandom. "There's definitely been a tilting of the power center of the SEC from Alabama in the '60s and '70s to Florida in the '90s and 2000s. Given all of Florida's advantages in recruiting, it's somewhat remarkable they don't dominate more."

Vegas favors Florida by nearly a touchdown, but Alabama has reason for optimism. Mr. Ingram, the driving force behind the Alabama offense, says he expects to be fully healed from the hip injury he suffered last week against Auburn. Florida will play a key man down, having lost defensive end Carlos Dunlap to suspension because of a DUI arrest this week.
And there's the fact that the Gators are less explosive offensively this season. "They aren't as deep at wide receiver this year as they were last year," says Alabama linebacker Rolando McClain.

Should Alabama win and reach the national-title game in Pasadena, Calif.—site of that landmark Rose Bowl game nearly 84 years ago—it would mark one more momentous turn in Tide history. "When everything is right with Alabama, it's about winning championships," says Mr. Watson, of the Bryant Museum. "We won in the '30s and '40s, then took a nap in the '50s, then came the Bear. Now Alabama fans feel we're back to that."

[video=youtube_share;CnOpZvEulvY]http://youtu.be/CnOpZvEulvY[/video]

cudder · Jul 21, 2013

Antonio Morrison was arrested again. he barked at a police dog. Will miss at least Toledo and @ Miami.

Judge Smails · Jul 22, 2013

38 days to go ...

George Rogers' jersey number: South Carolina RB George Rogers wore No. 38 while amassing 1,894 yards and 14 scores en route to winning the 1980 Heisman Trophy.

In 1980, South Carolina running back George Rogers ran his way to the Heisman Trophy and a place in college football history.

With Rogers stampeding all over the field, the Gamecocks put together a good season with a final record of 8-4.

At the start of the year, South Carolina returned a lot of talent, although no one carried as much hype and pressure as Rogers. He became a standout player during his junior year when he ran for 1,681 yards, which vaulted him onto the national scene. The senior running back entered the 1980 season with high expectations as a Heisman hopeful.

South Carolina not only thought it had a potential Heisman winner but also a national championship-caliber team. Unfortunately, the Gamecocks did not contend for a title, although Rogers did make history.

Rogers was the focal point of the South Carolina offense, as he led the nation in rushing attempts with a staggering 297 rushes. More impressive than the volume of his carries were the amount of yards he racked up as well as his yards per carry. Rogers amassed 1,781 yards on the ground, which gave him 6.0 yards per attempt, good for second in the nation. Rogers did not just do his damage with racking up yardage; he also scored 14 touchdowns on the ground that season, which ranked him second in college football.

He hit the ground running in 1980 when South Carolina entered a match-up with the highly ranked University of Southern California. While the Gamecocks lost that game, Rogers ran for 141 yards. Rogers and the Gamecocks then traveled to Ann Arbor to take on the Michigan Wolverines at the Big House in a hostile environment. South Carolina stole a victory, as Rogers ran for 142 yards and continued to grab some of the national spotlight.

The Gamecocks cruised to a few more victories, setting up a big-time battle with the Georgia Bulldogs on national television. It was the perfect opportunity for Rogers to set himself apart from the other Heisman contenders. Rogers ran for 168 yards but had a crucial fumble in the fourth quarter. He was outperformed by fellow Heisman candidate Herschel Walker, who ran for 219 yards and had a key 76-yard touchdown run.

The fumble became a major red flag for Rogers' Heisman campaign and had the chance to overshadow his performance in 1980, according to Sports Illustrated's MikeDelNagro in the December 1980 issue:

What might damage Rogers more was his fourth-quarter fumble on the Georgia 16. But remember, two years ago Oklahoma's Billy Sims made a similar fumble that cost the Sooners a possible national title and gave Nebraska a tie for the Big Eight championship. And he still won the Heisman. Rogers should do so, too.

Despite the fumble, Rogers went on to close out the 1980 season with three more games of 100 or more rushing yards, which brought his 100-plus-yard rushing streak to 21 games. Rogers then extended the streak in the bowl game, making it 22 games. With 100 or more yards rushing in every game and his nation-leading statistics, Rogers was invited to the 1980 Heisman Trophy Presentation.

He told Jody Barr of WISTV 30 years after his Heisman campaign:

They got me out of Duluth Georgia. Flew me up. At the end of the day, it was just me. But I was in the room, walking around just thinking what I'm going to do, what I'm going to say if I won the Heisman. And surely the next morning, they woke me up and they told me, "you won the Heisman Trophy."

Rogers took home the Heisman Trophy in dramatic fashion, since it was the first and only Heisman Trophy awarded to a Gamecock in school history. Rogers started the year as a top running back but as a long shot to win the Heisman, since South Carolina was not in the national spotlight. Then, he put together a memorable senior season, captured the Heisman Trophy and claimed a place in college football history.

Looking back on the Heisman, Rogers told Barr of WISTV, "I'd give the Heisman Trophy back to get a National Championship, to be honest with you, because that's how much my team means to me."

[video=youtube_share;xnLUJJ73TNY]http://youtu.be/xnLUJJ73TNY[/video]

He was the ultimate team player who understood how important the concept of "team" was in college football. In 1980, Rogers became a South Carolina football legend by winning the school's only Heisman Trophy to this day. Rogers had his No. 38 jersey retired before the season's end and went on to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft.

While Rogers' attitude, team mindset and exceptional rushing skills lifted him to win the Heisman in 1980, his character to this day shows how much South Carolina means to him. Rogers will always be a South Carolina Gamecocks' legend after he marched his way to the 1980 Heisman Trophy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1938 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1938 college football season ended with the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University (TCU) being named the nation’s #1 team by 55 of the 77 electors in the Associated Press writers' poll. The AP poll was in its second year, and seven votes were taken during the final weeks of the 1937 season, starting with October 17.

DAVEY O'BRIEN, TCU won the 1938 Heisman Trophy. This 5'7" 150-pounder sparked Texas Christian to an undefeated season his senior year. In his last season, he threw 194 passes, completed 110 for 1,733 yards and 19 touchdowns. One of the gridiron greats, he holds the all-time college record for most rushing and passing plays in one season - 400. A good runner and punter, he was an outstanding selector of plays.

He was the first Heisman winner to emerge from the Southwest Conference. After a brilliant 15-7 Sugar Bowl victory in 1939 over Carnegie Tech in which O'Brien kicked a field goal and threw a touchdown pass, the Philadelphia Eagles beckoned with a $12,000 bonus and a two-year contract. In his first season he passed for 1,324 yards, breaking Sammy Baugh's record; in his second, he completed 33 of 60 passes against the Redskins-still a record. Davey retired to become an FBI agent. In the early '50s he became a business executive. He died on November 18th, 1977.

Davey was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1955.
The Voting

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Davey O'Brien	Texas Christian	Senior	QB	519
2	Marshall Goldberg	Pittsburg	Senior	RB	294
3	Sid Luckman	Columbia	Senior	QB	154
4	Bob MacLeod	Dartmouth	Senior	HB	78
5	Vic Bottari	California	Senior	RB	67
6	Howard Weiss	Wisconsin	Senior	FB	60
7	George Cafego	Tennessee	Junior	TB	55
8	Ki Aldrich	Texas Christian	Senior	C	48
9	Whitey Beinor	Notre Dame	Senior	T	47
10	Dean Hill	Duke	Senior	C	38

The tiny O'Brien, who is the smallest player ever to win the Heisman, won in the East, South, Midwest and Southwest, losing in the Far West to California's Bottari. By 1938, the total vote was 584 as more members of the media were asked to participate. Overall, O'Brien received 90 percent of the vote on a 3-2-1 basis.

October 8
Minnesota defeated Purdue 7-0. Alabama beat North Carolina State 14-0. Dartmouth stayed unscored upon, winning at Princeton 22-0. Pittsburgh beat cross-town rival Duquesne 27-0. Fordham beat Waynesburg College 53-0. California played a double-header for the fans, with the reserves beating the California Agricultural school (lager UC-Davis) 48-0, and the varsity and reserves beating College of the Pacific 39-0. In Atlanta, Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech 14-6

October 15
Pittsburgh won at Wisconsin 26-6. California defeated UCLA 20-7. Dartmouth beat Brown 34-13, and Notre Dame beat Illinois 14-6. Minnesota edged Michigan, 7-6. Fordham was tied by Purdue 6-6, and in Birmingham, Alabama was shut out by Tennessee, 13-0. When the first round of balloting was finished, the defending champion Panthers were again #1, followed by Minnesota, California, Dartmouth and Notre Dame.

November 5
In Pittsburgh, the #1 Panthers lost to #19 Carnegie Tech, 20-10. #2 TCU won at Tulsa 21-0. #3 California lost at #13, USC 13-7. In Baltimore, #4 Notre Dame beat Navy 15-0. #5 Dartmouth beat Dickinson College, 44-6. #6 Tennessee beat Chattanooga 45-0 to extend its record to 7-0-0. The Horned Frogs of TCU leaped into the top spot: 1.TCU 2.Notre Dame 3.Pittsburgh 4.Tennessee 5.Dartmouth

November 12
#1 TCU beat Texas 28-6. #2 Notre Dame beat #12 Minnesota 19-0. #3 Pittsburgh beat Nebraska 19-0. #4 Tennessee won at Vanderbilt 14-0. #5 Dartmouth lost at #20 Cornell 14-7. #7 Duke remained unbeaten (7-0-0), untied, and unscored upon with a 21-0 win at Syracuse. In the next poll, the Irish moved up to the top rung: 1.Notre Dame 2.TCU 3.Tennessee 4.Duke 5.Pittsburgh

November 19
#1 Notre Dame won at #16 Northwestern 9-7. #2 TCU won at Rice 29-7. #3 Tennessee was idle as it prepared for a holiday game. #4 Duke beat N.C. State, 7-0. #5 Pittsburgh beat Penn State 26-0. The rankings shuffled to 1.Notre Dame 2.TCU 3.Duke 4.Pittsburgh 5.Tennessee.

On Thanksgiving Day #5 Tennessee beat Kentucky 46-0, while #6 Oklahoma beat OK State.

Two days later, November 26, #1 Notre Dame remained idle. #2 TCU beat SMU in Dallas, 20-7. #3 Duke and #4 Pittsburgh met at Durham, with the hosts winning 7-0. With a record of 9-0-0, Duke had outscored its opponents 114-0, but stayed in third in the final rankings: 1.Notre Dame 2.TCU 3.Duke 4.Pittsburgh 5.Tennessee.

On December 3, #1 Notre Dame lost in Los Angeles to #7 USC, 13-0, and fell from grace to fifth place. #2 TCU received 55 first place votes and, as national champion, accepted a bid to the Sugar Bowl. #4 Tennessee beat Ole Miss 47-0 in Memphis, and moved up to second place.

Though the SEC champion would be Sugar Bowl bound in later years, a #1 vs. #2 match was not to be had, as Tennessee instead took a bid for the Orange Bowl. #3 Duke stayed in third place, despite having never been scored upon in 1938, and accepted an invitation to the Rose Bowl. #5 Oklahoma, which beat Washington State 28-0, and moved up to fourth place. Both unbeaten and untied at 10-0-0, Tennessee and Oklahoma would meet in Miami, but the title had been awarded to 10-0-0 TCU.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#7 USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]#3 Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#2 Tennessee[/TD]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]#4 Oklahoma Sooners[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#1 TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]#6 Carnegie Tech Tartans[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Utah Utes[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico Lobos[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]St. Mary’s Gaels[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]#11 Texas Tech Red Raiders[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Duke met up with USC in the 1939 Rose Bowl ... the Trojans were the only team to score on the Blue Devils all season in a 7-3 Southern Cal win

A match-up of undefeated Tennessee and Oklahoma propelled the Orange Bowl into the "major bowl" arena in 1939. It took some marketing and public relations moves by the OBC's Earnie Seiler to bring the Sooners to South Florida. Seiler went to Norman and covered the campus with posters of palm trees, beaches and Miami's young women. After a stirring pep talk to the OU squad, the Sooners voted to accept the Orange Bowl offer over more lucrative ones from the Cotton, Rose and Sugar Bowls.

O'Brien carried TCU past Carnegie Tech in the 1939 Sugar Bowl, and to an undefeated 11-0-0 season

Utah throttled the Lobos 26-0 in the 1939 Sun Bowl ... "But the 1939 Sun Bowl stands out for something that no one knew would happen. Within three years, players on both sides would be embroiled in World War II. Nine Lobos who played that afternoon in El Paso would die in the war. Nine. The university - every university - would give some of the best kids of its generation to the fight against Japan and Germany. Seven years later, again at the Sun Bowl, people would remember the New Mexico Nine. Before the game, a minister said a prayer to the Lobos who'd lost their lives - a reminder, perhaps, that college football is still, and only, a game."

St. Mary's (CA) was too much for Texas Tech, 20-13, in the Cotton Bowl ending the Raiders' unbeaten season

Judge Smails · Jul 23, 2013

37 days to go ...

Most TD passes by a returning QB: Both Rakeem Cato (Marshall) and Derek Carr(Fresno State) threw for 37 TDs in the 2012 season.

Derek+Carr+Fresno+State+v+Nebraska+aulmkSAoekVl.jpg

All-time NCAA Total offense records

Season yards per game
<dl><dd>FBS: 474.6 – David Klingler, Houston, 1990, 11 games</dd><dd>FCS: 527.2 – Steve McNair, Alcorn State, 1994, 11 games</dd></dl>
Career yards
<dl><dd>FBS: 20,114 – Case Keenum, Houston, 2007–11, 19,217 passing, 897 rushing</dd><dd>FCS: 16,823 – Steve McNair, Alcorn State, 1991–94, 14,496 passing, 2,327 rushing</dd></dl>
Season yards
<dl><dd>FBS: 5,976 – B. J. Symons, Texas Tech, 2003, 5,833 passing, 143 rushing</dd><dd>FCS: 5,799 – Steve McNair, Alcorn State, 1994, 4,863 passing, 936 rushing

</dd></dl>Single game yards
<dl><dd>FBS: 732 – David Klingler, Houston vs. Arizona State, Dec. 2, 1990, 716 passing, 16 rushing

</dd></dl>Yards in a half
<dl><dd>FBS: 510 – Andre Ware, Houston vs. SMU, Oct. 21, 1989 (1st)

</dd></dl>Most games gaining 400 yards or more, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 11 – B. J. Symons, Texas Tech, 2003</dd><dd>FCS: 9 – Steve McNair, Alcorn State, 1994

</dd></dl>Most games gaining 400 yards or more, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 20 – Graham Harrell, Texas Tech, 2005–08; Colt Brennan, Hawaii, 2005–07</dd><dd>FCS: 15 – Steve McNair, Alcorn State, 1991–94

All-time NCAA Passing records

Highest passing efficiency rating, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 175.6 – Sam Bradford, Oklahoma, 2007–09 (min. 325 completions)

</dd></dl>Highest passing efficiency rating, season (min. 15 attempts per game)
<dl><dd>FBS: 191.8 – Russell Wilson, Wisconsin, 2011

</dd></dl>Highest passing efficiency rating, game
<dl><dd>FBS (min. 12 attempts): 403.4 – Tim Clifford, Indiana vs Colorado, 1980</dd><dd>FBS (min. 20 attempts): 319.2 - Matt Barkley, USC vs Colorado, 2012</dd><dd>FBS (min. 25 attempts): 317.4 – Bruce Gradkowski, Toledo vs Buffalo, 2003</dd><dd>FBS (min. 50 attempts): 248.0 - Geno Smith, West Virginia vs Baylor, 2012

</dd></dl>Highest percentage of passes completed, game (min. 20 completions)
<dl><dd>FBS: 95.8% – Tee Martin, Tennessee vs. South Carolina, Oct. 31, 1998

</dd></dl>Highest percentage of passes completed, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 70.4% – Colt Brennan, Hawaiʻi, 2005–07 (minimum 875 attempts)

</dd></dl>Highest percentage of passes completed, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 76.7% – Colt McCoy, Texas, 2008 (minimum 150 attempts)

</dd></dl>Highest percentage of passes completed, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 90.6% – Seth Doege, Texas Tech vs. New Mexico, Sep. 17, 2011 (min. 40 completions)

</dd></dl>Most yards passing, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 19,217 – Case Keenum, Houston, 2007–11

</dd></dl>Most yards passing, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 5,833 – B. J. Symons, Texas Tech, 2003

</dd></dl>Most yards passing, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 716 – David Klingler, Houston vs. Arizona State, Dec. 2, 1990

</dd></dl>Most yards passing, half
<dl><dd>FBS: 517 – Andre Ware, Houston vs. SMU, Oct. 21, 1989

</dd></dl>Most yards passing per game, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 467.3 – David Klingler, Houston, 1990

</dd></dl>Most passes attempted, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 2,436 – Timmy Chang, Hawaii, 2000–04

</dd></dl>Most passes attempted, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 719 – B. J. Symons, Texas Tech, 2003

</dd></dl>Most passes attempted, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 83 – Drew Brees, Purdue vs. Wisconsin, Oct. 10, 1998

</dd></dl>Most passes completed, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 1,546 – Case Keenum, Houston, 2007–11

</dd></dl>Most passes completed, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 512 – Graham Harrell, Texas Tech, 2007

</dd></dl>Most passes completed, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 58 – Andy Schmitt, Eastern Michigan vs. Central Michigan, Nov. 28, 2008

</dd></dl>Most passes completed per game, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 31.2 – Graham Harrell, Texas Tech, 2005–08

</dd></dl>Most passes completed per game, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 39.4 – Graham Harrell, Texas Tech, 2007

</dd></dl>Most touchdown passes, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 155 – Case Keenum, Houston, 2007–11

</dd></dl>Most touchdown passes, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 58 – Colt Brennan, Hawaii, 2006

</dd></dl>Most touchdown passes, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 11 – David Klingler, Houston vs. Eastern Washington, Nov. 7, 1990

</dd></dl>Most touchdown passes, half
<dl><dd>FBS: 7 – Bryant Moniz, Hawaii vs. UC Davis, Sep. 24, 2011;[32] Doug Johnson, Florida vs. Central Michigan, Sep. 6, 1997; Terry Dean, Florida vs. New Mexico State, Sep. 3, 1994; Dennis Shaw, San Diego State vs. New Mexico State, Nov. 15, 1969

</dd></dl>Most touchdown passes, quarter
<dl><dd>FBS: 6 – David Klingler, Houston vs. Louisiana Tech, Aug. 31, 1991

</dd></dl>Most consecutive games throwing touchdown pass
<dl><dd>FBS: 38 – Russell Wilson, North Carolina State 2009–11

</dd></dl>Most passes intercepted, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 80 – Timmy Chang, Hawaii, 2000–04

</dd></dl>Most passes intercepted, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 34 – John Eckman, Wichita State, 1966

</dd></dl>Most passes intercepted, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 9 – John Reaves, Florida vs. Auburn, Nov. 1, 1969

</dd></dl>Most pass attempts without an interception, game
<dl><dd>FBS: 77 – David Piland, Houston vs. Louisiana Tech, Sep. 8, 2012

</dd></dl>Most consecutive pass attempts without an interception
<dl><dd>FBS: 445 – Colby Cameron, Louisiana Tech, 2011–12

</dd></dl>Lowest percentage of passes intercepted, career
<dl><dd>FBS: 1.28% – Billy Volek, Fresno State, 1997–99 (600–1,049 attempts);[21] 1.692% – Graham Harrell, Texas Tech, 2005–08 (min. 1,050 attempts)

</dd></dl>Lowest percentage of passes intercepted, season
<dl><dd>FBS: 0.0% – Matt Blundin, Virginia, 1991 (150–349 attempts);[21] 0.70% – Kellen Moore, Boise State, 2009 (min. 350 attempts)

</dd></dl>Most consecutive completions in a single game
<dl><dd>FBS: 26 – Dominique Davis, East Carolina vs. Navy, Oct. 22, 2011

</dd></dl>Most consecutive completions in one or more games
<dl><dd>FBS: 36 – Dominique Davis, East Carolina, last 10 attempts vs. Memphis, Oct. 15, 2011 and first 26 vs. Navy, Oct. 22, 2011
</dd><dd>

</dd><dd>
</dd></dl></dd></dl>

The 1937 college football season ended with the Panthers of the University of Pittsburgh being named the nation’s #1 team (and mythical national champion) by 30 of the 33 electors in the Associated Press writers' poll. The AP poll was in its second year, and seven votes were taken during the final weeks of the 1937 season, starting with October 18.

Each writer listed his choice for the top ten teams, and points were tallied based on 10 for first place, 9 for second, etc., and the AP then ranked the twenty teams with the highest number of points. With 33 writers polled, Pitt received 30 first place votes and 3 second-place, for a total of 327 points.

Major conferences that existed in 1937 were the Western Conference (today's Big Ten), the Pacific Coast Conference (now the Pac-10), the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the old Southern Conference (whose members later played in the ACC), the Big Six (later the Big 8) and the Southwest Conference.

The NCAA began keeping official game statistics in 1937.

[video=youtube_share;7_wHM3D5K9c]http://youtu.be/7_wHM3D5K9c[/video]
In front of 23,837 in Evanston, Northwestern tallies the game's only score in a 7-0 win over Michigan in the season's 2nd game for both teams (Oct. 9, 1937)

October 16
LSU registered its fourth shutout in four starts, a 13-0 win over Ole Miss. Pittsburgh and Fordham played to a 0-0 tie in New York. Alabama yielded its first points, but won at Tennessee, 14-7. California beat (later UC-Davis) 14-0 and Pacific, 20-0, in a doubleheader. Yale defeated Army, 15-7. Minnesota won at Michigan, 39-6. In the first poll taken, California was #1, followed by Alabama, Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Yale. LSU, despite a 54-0 scoring edge over its opposition, was sixth.

October 30
In Los Angeles, #1 California defeated UCLA 27-14, while in Pittsburgh, the #2 Pitt Panthers beat Carnegie Tech, 25-14. #3 Alabama beat Kentucky, 41-0. #4 Minnesota lost to Notre Dame, 7-6, and #5 Yale and #9 Dartmouth played to a 9-9 tie. #6 Baylor, which reached 6-0-0 with a 6-0 win over TCU, and #10 Fordham, which won at #15 North Carolina, 14-0, reached the next Top Five. The next top five was 1.California 2.Alabama 3.Pittsburgh 4.Baylor 5.Fordham

November 6
#1 California and Washington played to a 0-0 tie. In New Orleans, #2 Alabama beat #19 Tulane, 9-6. #3 Pittsburgh won at #12 Notre Dame, 21-6 to take the top spot in the next poll. #4 Baylor lost to unranked Texas, 9-6. #5 Fordham beat Purdue, 21-3. #9 Dartmouth, which beat Princeton 33-9, reached the next Top Five: 1.Pittsburgh 2.California 3.Alabama 4.Fordham 5.Dartmouth

November 25
On Thanksgiving Day, #4 Alabama beat #12 Vanderbilt 9-7 in Nashville.

Then, on November 27 #1 Pittsburgh closed its season unbeaten (8-0-1) with a 10-0 win at #18 Duke. #3 Fordham closed its season unbeaten (7-0-1) with a 20-7 win over NYU at Yankee Stadium. #2 California and #5 Minnesota had completed their seasons.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#2 California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]#4 Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#9 Santa Clara Broncos[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]#8 LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#18 Rice Owls[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[TD]#17 Colorado Buffaloes[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Auburn Tigers[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Michigan State Spartans[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]West Virginia Mountaineers[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Texas Tech Red Raiders[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Clinton Frank, Yale, 1937 Heisman Trophy winner

Clinton Frank and 1936 Heisman Memorial Trophy winner Larry Kelley were Bulldog heroes for three years. "The best back Yale ever had," according to veteran coach Earl "Greasy" Neale. Frank, twice all-America and Yale's captain, gained a mile and a quarter on the gridiron for Yale in rushing and passing. Yale's greatest ball carrier, was gifted with power and 10-second hundred-yard dash speed. This combined to make him a constant threat. His durability was awesome.

Armed with his degree in economics Clint tackled the expanding field of advertising, joining Blackett -Sample-Hummert in Chicago. Then came five years in the Air Force serving under General Doolittle in bomber groups in Italy, Africa and England. In 1949, he formed his own advertising agency which in 1976 was sold to Interpublic. He was Chairman of Bridlewood Corporation, a private holding corporation, and was Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Brain Research Foundation of Chicago and Trustee of the Schepens Eye Research Institute of Boston.

He was elected to the National Football Hall of Fame in 1988. Clint passed away in July of 1992. Clint was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1955.

The Voting

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Clinton Frank	Yale	Senior	QB	524
2	Byron White	Colorado	Senior	HB	264
3	Marshall Goldberg	Pittsburgh	Junior	RB	211
4	Alex Wojciechowicz	Fordham	Senior	C-LB	85

Frank's voting again blanketed the nation and he won on all fronts, capturing the decision over Whizzer White, who later had a part in many more important decisions as a member of the United States Supreme Court. Goldberg, who many old-timers feel was the greatest of all Pitt players, ran a close third. Fordhams' Wojciechowicz again placed fourth in the voting.

1938 ROSE BOWL

Parking for the 1938 Rose Bowl was as much a challenge as it is for the modern game. A record crowd of 90,000 was on hand that New Year's Day to watch Alabama take on California.

1938 SUGAR BOWL

1938 COTTON BOWL

Rice takes on Colorado in the Dallas Cotton Bowl

1938 ORANGE BOWL

In the fourth Orange Bowl in contest history, a 6-0 Auburn victory, it was the first game to be played at the Miami Orange Bowl Stadium. This game still holds the record for the fewest points scored in the Orange Bowl's history. Michigan State is one of only seven teams to have ever been shut out in the Orange Bowl.

1938 SUN BOWL

On Jan. 1, 1938, Texas Tech fell to West Virginia 7-6. It was the first season being called Red Raiders (changed from Matadors) and the first time a team from outside the region was invited to El Paso.

Judge Smails · Jul 24, 2013

36 days to go ...

Years since Kent State had consecutive winning seasons: The Golden Flashes went 11-3 last season and won the MAC East Division title. They'll try to have consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1976-77.

Kent State won its 3rd-straight Wagon Wheel Trophy, defeating Akron 35-24 en route to an unbeaten MAC season

The team was founded in 1920 and played their first game against Ashland College, a 6-0 loss under coach Paul Chandler. Kent State would record their first win that year, but it would be in the form of a forfeit. The team would not record their first true victory until November 14, 1925, a 7-6 win over West Liberty State College.

Outside the forfeited win in 1920, Kent State would fail to score in their first 14 games, posting a record of 0-13-1 before finally putting points on the board in a 7-6 loss to West Liberty in 1923. During that streak, Kent State would suffer the worst loss in school history, a 118-0 loss to Baldwin-Wallace College, also in 1923.

Following the 7-6 loss to West Liberty, a new shutout streak began which lasted 8 games, in which the Flashes, then known as the "Silver Foxes" went 0-6-2. The streak began with the second most lopsided loss in school history, an 82-0 loss to Slippery Rock. The streak finally ended with a 6-6 tie with the Indiana (PA) Normal School in 1925, the game which preceded Kent State's first true victory. Kent State posted their first winning season in 1928, going 4-2-2.

In 1971, Don James took over as head coach. Under James, and with notable players such as Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and former Pittsburgh Steelers middle linebacker Jack Lambert, current Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban, and current Missouri Tigers football coach Gary Pinkel, Kent State was finally able to celebrate its first—and so far only—Mid-American Conference title in 1972 followed by a trip to the 1972 Tangerine Bowl. James would coach at Kent State four seasons (1971-1974), posting an overall record of 25-19-1 (.567) which included a 9-2 record in 1973.

The 2012 season began with a 41–21 win over Towson at Dix Stadium, followed by a 47–17 loss at Kentucky. Following the loss, the Flashes defeated Buffalo at University at Buffalo Stadium and followed that with a come-from-behind 45–43 win over Ball State in Kent. A 31–17 win over Army at Michie Stadium was the first victory for Kent State over a non-conference team on the road since 2007.

The winning streak reached six, the longest for Kent State since 1940, after a 35–23 win over undefeated and 18th-ranked Rutgers at High Point Solutions Stadium. The win was the Flashes' first over a ranked opponent after entering the game 0–22 against ranked teams. The win earned Kent State votes in the October 28, 2012 AP Poll, Coaches' Poll, and the Harris Interactive College Football Poll. The team continued winning, beating Akron in the Battle for the Wagon Wheel game at Dix Stadium, followed by a 48–32 win over the Miami RedHawks at Yager Stadium. The win over Miami set a new team record for consecutive victories in a season at eight and tied the 1973 team for most wins in a season at nine.

On November 11, the Flashes were ranked 25th in the weekly AP poll, their first time being ranked since November 5, 1973, when they were ranked 19th for one week.

Kent State clinched their first-ever MAC East Division title and spot in the 2012 MAC Championship Game with a 31–24 win over Bowling Green at Doyt Perry Stadium on November 17 and completed their first-ever undefeated season in MAC play and first undefeated season at home since 1956 by beating Ohio 28–6 at Dix Stadium on November 23. Following the win over Bowling Green, the Flashes rose to #23 in the AP poll and entered the Coaches' and Harris polls at #25. Kent State was also ranked for the first time in the Bowl Championship Series standings at #23.

The team climbed as high as 17th in the BCS standings following their regular season-ending win over Ohio at Dix Stadium, which clinched their first-ever undefeated season in MAC play and set a record for most wins in a season with 11. They were also mentioned as a potential BCS Buster. Kent State, however, fell in overtime to Northern Illinois in the MAC Championship Game.

Following the loss to NIU, Kent State accepted the invitation to play in the 2013 GoDaddy.com Bowl. Darrell Hazell accepted the head coaching position at Purdue on December 5, but Purdue granted Hazell permission to coach Kent State in the bowl game, the first bowl appearance by the Flashes since the 1972 Tangerine Bowl. Kent State fell to Arkansas State 17–13 to finish 11–3 overall.

Paul Haynes, a Kent State alum who had previously been an assistant at Arkansas, was hired December 18.

The 1936 college football season was the first in which the Associated Press writers' poll selected a national champion. The first AP poll, taken of 35 writers, was released on October 20, 1936. Each writer listed his choice for the top ten teams, and points were tallied based on 10 for first place, 9 for second, etc., and the AP then ranked the twenty teams with the highest number of points.

In the first poll, Minnesota received 32 first place votes, and 3 votes for an additional 25 points, for a total of 345 altogether.

The year 1936 also saw the addition of another major New Year's Day game, as Dallas hosted the first Cotton Bowl Classic.

Major conferences that existed in 1936 were the Western Conference (today's Big Ten), the Pacific Coast Conference (now the Pac-12), the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the old Southern Conference (whose members later played in the ACC), the Big Six (later the Big 12) and the Southwest Conference.

October 17
Minnesota defeated Michigan 26-0. Santa Clara won at San Jose State 20-0 In Birmingham, Alabama and Tennessee played to a 0-0 tie. Northwestern edged Ohio State 14-13. In a meeting between Pittsburgh's two unbeaten (3-0-0) and untied schools, Pittsburgh was beaten by Duquesne, 7-0. Washington beat Oregon State 19-7.

The first AP Poll was released on October 20, with Minnesota being the majority favorite, with 32 of 35 first place votes, and 345 out of 350 points. The Gophers were followed by 2.Duke 3.Army 4.Northwestern and 5.Purdue. USC, ranked #6, received one first place vote.

October 31
In a Friday night game, #1 Minnesota and #3 Northwestern, both unbeaten (4-0-0), met in a Big Ten conference game at Evanston. The Gophers had not lost a game in more than three years, and the game was scoreless after three quarters, until Northwestern's line "ripped a gaping hole in the Gophers' forward wall" and Steve Toth drove across the goal line. With five minutes left, Minnesota's Rudy Gmitro was in the clear for a touchdown before being brought down by Fred Vanzon, and Northwestern held on for the 6-0 win.

At the Polo Grounds in New York, #2 Pittsburgh and #5 Fordham played to a 0-0 tie. In Portland, #4 Washington beat Oregon 7-0, but dropped to 6th. #10 Marquette beat visiting #20 St. Mary's 20-6 and rose to 4th place (the Warriors would give up football after 1960). The next top five was 1.Northwestern 2.Minnesota 3.Fordham 4.Marquette 5.Pitt.

November 21
#1 Northwestern lost at #11 Notre Dame, 26-6, while #2 Minnesota won at Wisconsin 24-0 #3 Fordham and visiting Georgia played to a 7-7 tie. #4 Pittsburgh was idle. #5 LSU beat Lafayette College of Louisiana 93-0. #9 Santa Clara won in San Francisco at St. Mary's, 19-0. In the poll that followed, Northwestern—which had been one game away from a perfect season—fell to seventh place and Minnesota regained the top spot: 1.Minnesota 2.LSU 3.Alabama 4.Pitt 5.Santa Clara.

FINAL AP POLL of 1936

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Ranking[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Team[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Record[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Minnesota Golden Gophers[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]9-0-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Pittsburgh Panthers[/TD]
[TD]7-1-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]8-0-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Washington[/TD]
[TD]7-1-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Santa Clara Broncos[/TD]
[TD]7-0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Northwestern Wildcats[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame Fighting Irish[/TD]
[TD]6-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]7-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]Pennsylvania Quakers[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]Duke Blue Devils[/TD]
[TD]9-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]Yale Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]Dartmouth Big Green[/TD]
[TD]7-1-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]Duquesne Dukes[/TD]
[TD]7-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]Fordham Rams[/TD]
[TD]5-1-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]7-2-2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]Tennessee Volunteers[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18 (t)[/TD]
[TD]Arkansas Razorbacks[/TD]
[TD]6-3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18 (t)[/TD]
[TD]Navy Midshipmen[/TD]
[TD]6-3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]Marquette Golden Avalanche[/TD]
[TD]7-1[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

"There is no longer any blot left on Pittsburgh's Rose Bowl escutcheon," wrote Grantland Rice. "Here was a Panther who belonged to the jungle and not to the zoo-- a fast, hard driving slashing Panther who put both fang and claw to work in beating Washington's Huskies 21 to 0 before 87,200 chilly witnesses."

Pitt had been ranked #3 by the AP, behind #2 LSU, which met Santa Clara in the Sugar Bowl. #1 ranked Minnesota, like other Big Ten teams, was not allowed to play postseason. LSU had lost the previous Sugar Bowl to TCU, by a 3-2 score. A crowd of 41,000 turned out in New Orleans, only to see the Tigers lose again. The Santa Clara Broncos took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and won 21-14.

A crowd of 17,000 turned out in Dallas to watch the first Cotton Bowl Classic. Sammy Baugh of Texas Christian completed only 5 of 13 pass attempts, but had 110 yards, a touchdown, and the win, as TCU beat Marquette 16-6.

In the first annual Orange Bowl, 12,000 filled the stands in Miami to see the Duquesne Dukes beat the Mississippi State Bulldogs 13-12. Boyd Brumbaugh scored Duquesne's first touchdown and made the only extra point by either side.

Villanova tied Auburn, 7-7, in the Bacardi Bowl, played before 6,000 spectators in sunny Havana, Cuba.

Tuskegee Institute beat Prairie View A&M 6-0 in Houston before 3,000, and Hardin-Simmons beat Texas School of Mines 34-6 at the Sun Bowl in El Paso.

JANUARY 1st BOWL GAMES

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#3 Pittsburgh[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#5 Washington[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#6 Santa Clara[/TD]
[TD]21[/TD]
[TD]#2 LSU[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#14 Duquesne[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]Mississippi State[/TD]
[TD]12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Hardin-Simmons Cowboys[/TD]
[TD]34[/TD]
[TD]Texas School of Mines[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cotton Bowl[/TD]
[TD]#16 TCU[/TD]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]#20 Marquette[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bacardi Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Auburn[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Villanova[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

In 1936, John Heisman died and the trophy that is awarded to the best college football player in the nation was renamed in his honor. Larry Kelley, the second winner of the award was the first man to win it officially named as the "Heisman Trophy."

Larry Kelley scored at least once in every game against the Bulldogs' traditional rivals, Harvard and Princeton. His sensational pass catching ability accounted for 15 Yale touchdowns, and he was a defensive giant in the years he played at Yale. In his sophomore season, the rangy 6' 1 end brought Princeton's long string of victories to an end when he caught a pass on the tips of his fingers and defeated the Tigers 7-0.

After Yale, Larry went into the educational field, teaching and coaching. World War II ended that year, and after the war he tried his hand at the "cold, tough, business world," doing well, as it turned out. Then the field of secondary education beckoned again and he joined the faculty of the Peddie School in New Jersey as teacher, coach, and administrator. Larry passed away on June 27, 2000.

Larry was elected to the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1969.
The Voting

Place	Name	School	Class	Position	Points
1	Larry Kelley	Yale	Senior	END	213
2	Sam Francis	Nebraska	Senior		47
3	Ray Buivid	Marquette	Senior	HB	46
4	Sammy Baugh	Texas Christian	Senior	QB	40
5	Clint Frank	Yale	Junior	QB	33
6	Ace Parker	Duke	Senior	HB	28
7	Ed Widseth	Minnesota	Senior	T	25

Larry Kelley was a clear winner in the East, South, Midwest and Far West. Others in the vote in 1936 with less the 25 points were Fred Vanzo of Northwestern, Gaynell Tinsley of Louisiana State, and Alex Wojciechowicz of Fordham (a member of the fabled Seven Block of Granite, a line that once included Vince Lombardi).

Judge Smails · Jul 24, 2013

[video=youtube_share;YgaMCqX57S0]http://youtu.be/YgaMCqX57S0[/video]

Judge Smails · Jul 25, 2013

35 days to go ...

University of Chicago's Jay Berwanger was named the first winner of the Heisman Trophy in 1935

The first winner to receive what was then called the Downtown Athletic Club's Trophy to the Outstanding College Football Player East of the Mississippi River, Berwanger was informed by telegraph that he'd won. Unsure what to do with the award, he gave it to an aunt, who famously used it as a doorstop for years.

To football aficionados, Jay Berwanger is well-known as the winner of the first Heisman Trophy and the first player chosen during the National Football League’s first draft. Less well-known is that he achieved his athletic successes at the University of Chicago, a school now more closely associated with Nobel prizes than big-time football. Berwanger, a halfback, played for the University of Chicago Maroons at a time when Chicago was a member of the Big Ten Conference–before Robert Hutchins, the University’s president, famously abolished varsity football in 1939. (Division III football was reinstated in 1969.)

Even in an era before football teams were divided up into offensive and defensive squads, Berwanger was renowned for his versatility. He called plays, ran, passed, punted, blocked, tackled, kicked off, kicked extra points, and returned punts and kickoffs. Berwanger’s list of nicknames was just as long: "Genius of the Gridiron," "the One-man Team," "the Flying Dutchman" (though his ancestry was actually German) and "the Man in the Iron Mask" (because he wore a special face guard to protect his twice-broken nose).

In 1935, the Chicago Tribune awarded Berwanger the Silver Football for Most Valuable Player in the Big Ten. His coach, Clark Shaughnessy, called him "every football coach’s dream player. You can say anything superlative about him, and I’ll double it." Of the 107 opposing team players he faced during his senior year, 104 said the six-foot, 195-pound Berwanger was the best halfback they had ever seen.

In November of 1935, Berwanger received a telegram from Manhattan’s Downtown Athletic Club, informing him that he had won a trophy for being the "most valuable football player east of the Mississippi," as well as a trip for two to New York. "It wasn’t really a big deal when I got it," Berwanger recalled in 1985. "No one at school said anything to me about winning it other than a few congratulations. I was more excited about the trip than the trophy because it was my first flight." The prize was renamed the John W. Heisman Memorial Trophy, after the club’s athletic director, the following year.

He was born John Jay Berwanger in 1914 in Dubuque, Iowa. In high school, he excelled at wrestling and track as well as football, winning renown as an all-state halfback. After graduation, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Purdue all tried to recruit him, but he opted for Chicago, which had offered only a basic tuition scholarship of $300 a year. To meet his expenses, Berwanger waited tables, cleaned the gymnasium, ran elevators and fixed leaky toilets. "Times were tough then," he said in 1986. "I wanted to attend a school that would give me a first-rate education in business, without special treatment, so that I would be prepared when opportunities were certain to return."

During his freshman year, Berwanger was coached by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg, who helped define the game of football as we know it today. Berwanger’s first year at Chicago was Stagg’s last. As well as captain of the football team, Berwanger was captain of the track team, senior class president, and head of his fraternity, Psi Upsilon.

Berwanger was the only Heisman recipient who was ever tackled by a future president of the United States–Gerald Ford, during a 1934 game between Chicago and Michigan. "When I tackled Jay in the second quarter, I ended up with a bloody cut and I still have the scar to prove it," Ford recalled. "Jay was most deserving of his Heisman Trophy. He could do it all. He was an outstanding runner as well a passer, he could kick, punt, and make field goals–and in those days the ball was round so it was much harder to throw. He and I had met several times in the years since that game and I remember him fondly as one of the greatest athletes I’ve known."

Berwanger was also the first player chosen for the National Football League during its first-ever draft in 1936. After the Philadelphia Eagles signed him, Coach George Halas of the Chicago Bears acquired the signing rights. But when Berwanger asked for $25,000 over two years, Halas decided that was too much money, so Berwanger took a job as a foam-rubber salesman.

In his spare time, Berwanger wrote a sports column for the Chicago Daily News, refereed college football games, and, from 1936 to 1939, coached football at Chicago. Berwanger had a bit part, playing himself, in the 1936 football movie The Big Game.

During World War II, Berwanger enrolled in the Navy’s flight-training program and became a naval officer. After the war, Berwanger set up Jay Berwanger, Inc., a manufacturer of plastic and sponge-rubber strips for car doors, trunks and farm machinery, in Downers Grove, Ill.

In 1954, Berwanger was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. In 1989, he was included on Sports Illustrated’s 25-year anniversary All-America team, which honored players whose accomplishments extended beyond the football field.

Berwanger was never sure what to do with his Heisman Trophy, which was too wide for a mantelpiece and too large for a coffee table. For years, his aunt Gussie used it as a doorstop. Berwanger eventually gave the trophy to the University of Chicago. Once on display in Bartlett Gymnasium, the trophy is in storage until a new athletic center is completed.

Berwanger, a member of the Alumni Association Board of the University of Chicago, was awarded an Alumni Service Medal in 1984. He served as a member of the College Visiting Committee, chair of the President's Fund in 1993, and chair of his 55th and 60th alumni reunion committees.

"Jay Berwanger’s extraordinary athletic prowess was left on the playing fields of the University of Chicago more than half a century ago," said Don Michael Randel, President of the University. "But in the sixty-plus years since then, he has meant much more than athletic achievement to thousands of students and fellow alumni. He was an old-fashioned gentleman, whose modesty was never corrupted by his fame. He was extraordinarily generous toward generations of students. He returned every year to Homecoming and the grace he showed to the many who idolized him was a sure sign of his genuine humanity. His connections to so many young people over the years have been a gift to them, and an inspiration to the rest of us."

"Jay was in the spotlight for many years, but he was always gracious, always ready to help out the University, the Athletics Department and our students," said Tom Weingartner, Chair of Physical Education and Athletics. "He was one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And he was also one of the greatest college football players ever."

Berwanger married Philomela Baker, also a University of Chicago graduate, in 1940; the Berwangers had two sons and a daughter. After her death in 1975, he married Jane Temple, who died in 1998. Berwanger is survived by his three children: John Jay, a retired lawyer who graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1967; Cuyler, a high school guidance counselor; and Helen Berwanger Tierney, a restaurant owner in Onaway, Mi. He is also survived by three stepchildren: Barbara Fewkes, Joseph "Marsh" Temple, and Mari Anne Gerwing, as well as 20 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

1935 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

The 1935 college football season was the last one before the Associated Press writers' poll was used in selecting the national champion. The Dickinson System, consisting of the calculations of University of Illinois Professor Frank Dickinson, crowned Southern Methodist University(SMU) as the best in the nation. A poll of newspaper writers, taken at year's end—by United Press rather than the AP—concluded that the University of Minnesota's eleven was the best in the nation.

Major conferences that existed in 1934 were the Western Conference, the Pacific Coast Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the old Southern Conference, the Big Six and the Southwest Conference.

Pitt and Fordham played to a scoreless tie in the POLO GROUNDS in 1935

September 28
SMU beat Austin College 60-0 and TCU beat North Texas 28-11. Stanford beat San Jose State 35-0 and UCLA beat Utah State 39-0., Fordham University, whose 1936 team would include the legendary Seven Blocks of Granite was a favorite New York City college football teams, after New York University and Columbia University. The Rams played all of their games at home at the Polo Grounds, which also hosted the NFL's New York Giants. In a game against visiting Franklin & Marshall, the Rams were losing until they scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter for a 14-7 win. California played a doubleheader, beating UC-Davis 47-0 and Whittier 6-0. Notre Dame defeated visiting Kansas, 28-7. Pittsburgh had an unexpectedly difficult time in a 14-0 win over visiting Waynesburg College.

November 2
Notre Dame (5-0-0) and Ohio State (4-0-0) met at Columbus before a crowd of 80,000. Grantland Rice described what happened: "Completely outplayed in the first two quarters, trailing 13 to 0 as the final quarter started with every killing break against it-- breaks that would crack the heart of an iron ox-- this Notre Dame team came surging back in the final quarter...". Notre Dame scored early in the fourth, but the extra point attempt bounced off the crossbar, and it was 13-6. After an interception, the Irish drove to within six inches of the goal line when Milner fumbled the ball away. With 90 seconds left, Andy Pilney passed to Mike Layden for a touchdown, but the extra point failed and the Irish trailed 13-12. Andy Pilney forced a Buckeye fumble at midfield, giving the Irish the ball at the 49 yard line, and on the next play, Pilney, taking back over as quarterback, scrambled to the 19 yard line, but was injured. With only one play left in the game, reserve quarterback Bill Shakespeare passed to Wayne Milner for the 18-13 win.

[video=youtube_share;UvttF6YbVIs]http://youtu.be/UvttF6YbVIs[/video]
Ohio State and Notre Dame in the GAME OF THE CENTURY ... the 2 schools would play in 1936 and then take a 60-year break

November 9
Unbeaten Notre Dame hosted the Northwestern Wildcats, who had a losing record (2-3-0). With William Shakespeare at left halfback for the Irish, and Henry Wardsworth Longfellow playing right end for the Wildcats, the game looked like no more than a meeting of literary namesakes. Shakespeare's running game was shut down, while Longfellow caught one touchdown pass, and then recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter to set up a second touchdown for a major upset, as Northwestern won 14-7. Minnesota won at Iowa 13-6. In Los Angeles, SMU handed UCLA (4-1-0) its second straight loss, 21-0. Stanford won at USC, 3-0. California beat Washington 14-0.

November 23
California (9-0) and Stanford (6-1-0) met at Palo Alto, as Stanford handed the Golden Bears their first loss, 13-0. On the strength of the win, Stanford got the bid to the Rose Bowl. In a matchup of two great Ivy teams, Princeton (7-0-0) hosted Dartmouth (8-0-0), with Princeton winning 26-6. SMU defeated visiting Baylor 10-0 and TCU beat visiting Rice, 27-6, as both teams raised their records to 10-0-0.

UCLA beat Loyola Marymount 14-6 Notre Dame closed its season with a 20-13 win over USC. Minnesota beat visiting Wisconsin, 33-7 to close its season at 8-0-0.

For the first time, Ohio State closed with its regular season with Michigan, a tradition that continued with only one interruption, in 1942. OSU won at Ann Arbor, 38-0.

November 28
On Thanksgiving Day, a crowd of 78,000 turned out at Yankee Stadium to watch Fordham (5-1-2) face New York University (7-1-0). Fordham shut out NYU 21-0, but not before a fight broke out with the spectators crowding the field, Pittsburgh (6-1-0) and Carnegie Tech (2-5-0) played to a 0-0 tie.

November 30
The most eagerly watched game of the season matched two unbeaten (10-0-0) teams, with Texas Christian (10-0-0) hosting Southern Methodist. SMU won 20-14 and was invited to the Rose Bowl, while TCU went to the Sugar Bowl.

It was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 contest that ended when, late in the game with Sammy Baugh (above) and TCU up 14-13, the Mustangs on a 4th-and-4 from the Horned Frog 37 ran a pass play out of a punt formation. Bob Finley hurled the ball almost 40 yards to Mustang receiver Bobby Wilson, sealing a thrilling 20-14 SMU victory.

Princeton closed its season with a 38-7 win at Yale, to finish 9-0-0.

The AP sportswriters' poll would not begin continuously until 1936 (although, the first time was a one instance publishing in 1934). Frank G. Dickinson, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, had invented the Dickinson System to rank colleges based upon their records and the strength of their opposition. The Rissman Trophy, and later the Rockne Memorial Trophy, was awarded to the winning university.

In an AP story with the caption "Figure This Out!", the system was explained: "For each victory of a first division team over another first division team, the winner gets 30 points and the loser 15 points. For each tie between two first division teams, each team gets 12.5 points. For each victory of a first division team over a second division team, the first division winner gets 20 points and the second division loser 10 points. For each tie between two second division teams, each gets 15 points. For each tie between a non-division team and a second division team, the first division team gets 15 points and the second division team gets 20 points. Then, after each team has been given its quota of points its final "score" is tabulated by taking an average on the number of games played."

Final Dickinson rankings

SMU, Minnesota and Princeton were all unbeaten and untied at season's end. Based on the strength of its schedule (which included twelve games), SMU was ranked first. Professor Dickinson also had additional variables, based on the strength of the conferences, reported as follows: Big Ten (+3.78), SWC (+3.31), East (0.00), Pacific Coast (-0.11), SEC (-0.12), Big Six (-1.95) and Southern (-6.15)

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rank[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Team[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Record[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rating[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]SMU Mustangs[/TD]
[TD]12-0-0[/TD]
[TD]28.01[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Minnesota Gophers[/TD]
[TD]8-0-0[/TD]
[TD]27.35[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Princeton Tigers[/TD]
[TD]9-0-0[/TD]
[TD]26.00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]9-1-0[/TD]
[TD]24.03[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5 (t)[/TD]
[TD]Stanford Indians[/TD]
[TD]7-1-0[/TD]
[TD]23.11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5 (t)[/TD]
[TD]California Golden Bears[/TD]
[TD]9-1-0[/TD]
[TD]23.11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]7-1-0[/TD]
[TD]22.21[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]11-1-0[/TD]
[TD]22.01[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]Notre Dame Fighting Irish[/TD]
[TD]7-1-1[/TD]
[TD]21.56[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]UCLA Bruins[/TD]
[TD]8-2-0[/TD]
[TD]21.25[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]Fordham Rams[/TD]
[TD]6-1-2[/TD]
[TD]20.89[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

The 1935–36 NCAA College Football Bowl Games were the first to feature the Sun Bowl, which would complement the Orange, Rose, and Sugar Bowlas the fourth post-season game. What may be striking about the 1935-36 post-season from a historical perspective is the participation of three of the eight teams. As of 2013, two teams, the Catholic Cardinals and the Hardin-Simmons Cowboys compete in the NCAA's lowest level of competition, Division III. Another team, the New Mexico State Aggies, still competes in Division I, however, they possess the longest bowl drought (their last bowl appearance was in the 1960 Sun Bowl) and one of the worst winning percentages in Division I. Two teams from the Southeastern Conference would play in bowl games, the LSU Tigers and the Ole Miss Rebels, however, they would lose both by a combined score of two points.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Stanford Indians[/TD]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]SMU Mustangs[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]TCU Horned Frogs[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]LSU Tigers[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Catholic Cardinals[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]Ole Miss Rebels[/TD]
[TD]19[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sun Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Hardin-Simmons Cowboys[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]New Mexico State Aggies[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

The Rose Bowl matched unbeaten SMU (12-0-0) against Pacific champion Stanford (7-1-0) before a crowd of 86,000. Stanford had been a two time loser at Pasadena, falling to both Alabama and Columbia. Determined not to have a three-peat, the Stanford Indians scored an early touchdown and held off the Mustangs to win 7-0.

In New Orleans, the second annual Sugar Bowl pitted Texas Christian (TCU) (11-1-0) against SEC champion Louisiana State (LSU) (9-1-0) before a crowd of 38,000. TCU's Sammy Baugh, later to go on to NFL fame, was forced out of the end zone on a pass attempt, and the safety gave LSU a 2-0 lead. Two minutes later, Baugh drove the Frogs to the 17 yard line, setting up Taldon Malton's field goal. The final score was TCU 3, LSU 2.

In Miami, the second annual Orange Bowl matched Mississippi (9-2-0) against the unheralded Cardinals of Catholic University (8-1-0). A crowd of 10,000 watched Catholic take an early lead and pull off a 20-19 upset.

The Sun Bowl matched two colleges for the first time, as New Mexico State and Hardin-Simmons battled to a 14-14 tie.

Stanford's 1935 Season

The Vow Boys had gone 8-2-1 in 1933, winning 13-7 at 10-1-1 Southern Cal to take the PCC title from them, but losing 7-0 to 7-1 Columbia in a big Rose Bowl upset. In 1934 they went 9-1-1, losing 29-13 to 10-0 Alabama in the Rose Bowl. This season, the Vow Boys were seniors, and fans expected a national championship run.

Stanford opened the 1935 season with a 35-0 win over San Jose State and a 10-0 win at 5-3 San Francisco, a good minor program whom they had only beaten 3-0 the previous season. Then came the big upset loss to UCLA at home. So little was expected of this game that only 25,000 showed up to watch it.

A record crowd of 94,000 showed up for the BIG GAME as Stanford hosted Cal on Nov. 16, 1935

Oddly enough, UCLA was the only major opponent Stanford was fully healthy for this season, yet it was their only loss. Stanford dominated UCLA 253 yards to 75 and 16 first downs to 2, but they couldn't finish drives, and Monk Moscrip uncharacteristically missed an extra point and 2 field goal tries, so they came up 1 point short in the statistic that mattered most. Stanford struck first, setting up shop at the UCLA 20 yard line in the opening quarter thanks to a 25 yard interception return by quarterback Frank Alustiza. Bobby Grayson scored a touchdown in just 2 runs, but Monk Moscrip was wide on the extra point try, so it was but a 6-0 lead. UCLA answered in the same quarter. They recovered a fumble at the Stanford 40, and a 28 yard run was featured in their drive to the end zone. Fullback Ted Key scored the touchdown and kicked the extra point, and UCLA led 7-6, which would hold up as the final score as well.

Late in the first quarter, Stanford drove to the UCLA 8, but early in the 2nd quarter Moscrip was wide on a field goal try to finish the drive. Later in the half, Stanford drove to the UCLA 12, but they were pushed back to the 26 before throwing an incompletion on 4th down. In the final quarter, Stanford substitute halfback Jim Coffis returned a punt 38 yards to the UCLA 32. Bobby Grayson ran the ball 5 times for 15 yards, then Moscrip lined up for one last field goal try for the win, but the kick was short, which was odd because it was well within his range. Just not his day.

UCLA's Ted Key, who scored all of their points, was feted nationally in newspapers, which led to his undoing. A former school teacher of his back in Texas saw his picture in the paper and recognized him as Clois Francis "Shorty" Key, who had already played 4 years at 2 colleges in Texas. She called UCLA dean Earl Miller. There had already been rumors at UCLA that Ted Key was playing under an assumed name, and that he had previously exhausted his college football eligibility, but now the dean could no longer look the other way. Just 5 minutes before UCLA's big game against 6-0 California, with the PCC title and a Rose Bowl slot on the line, "Ted" Key was suspended from the team pending a full investigation.

That investigation eventually revealed that Ted Key was indeed Shorty Key, that he had played 4 years back in Texas, and that he had also played for one year at Urban Military Academy in Los Angeles under the name "Tex Maness." He had then borrowed his cousin Ted's name and high school transcripts to enroll at UCLA and play for their varsity team in 1934 and part of 1935, when he was found out. This was thus his 7th season playing college football. (more below on this cat)

Shorty Key was, as his name promised, a key player for UCLA's offense, defense, and their kicking game, and in his absence they lost 14-2 to California (9-1) and 21-0 to Southern Methodist (12-1) in back-to-back games. Stanford gave both teams their only loss. But UCLA hadn't quite been a one man team-- the rest of their backfield was fairly talented, and they recovered to win their last 4 games, including a big 13-7 win in their finale at St. Mary's (5-2-2, #12). UCLA finished 8-2 and is #7 in the fixed UPI poll. They shared the PCC title with Stanford and California, UCLA's first.

Quarterback Bill Paulman scoring the winning touchdown in a 13-7 Stanford victory over St. Mary's

The train carrying the dean from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on his fact-finding mission to the Texas Panhandle rolled into Amarillo on Nov. 6, 1935.

A lot was riding on the outcome of the unusual inquiry. If Robert. F. “Ted” Key proved to be an impostor, the star player would be kicked off the football team and UCLA could forget about the Rose Bowl.

How things had changed in two short weeks! Key was king of the sun-baked campus after scoring the tying touchdown and kicking the decisive extra point in the Bruins’ 7-6 win over Stanford. The stunning upset of the defending champion made UCLA a legitimate contender in the Pacific Coast Conference for the first time in 19 years.

A day or two later, a West Texas schoolteacher happened to see a publicity photo of Ted Key in her local paper. She recognized the pigskin hero as Clois Francis “Shorty” Key, a student of hers at Vernon High School in the late 1920’s. Without a moment’s hesitation, the educator picked up the phone and dialed the dean of men at UCLA.

The revelation did not come as a complete surprise to Earl J. Miller. Like everybody else at UCLA, he too had heard the rumor that Ted Key had exhausted his four years of athletic eligibility back in Texas and may even be playing under an assumed name. Key’s appearance was enough to arouse suspicion.

How many college boys had forehead furrows, crow’s-feet and bags under their eyes?

For Dean Miller his original strategy of looking the other way was no longer an option. The cat was bound to get out of the bag, and his job was to spare the university as much embarrassment as possible.

Five minutes before the kickoff of the UCLA-California game, Miller walked into the Bruin locker room and announced the suspension of Ted Key pending a full investigation. His disheartened teammates trudged onto the field like condemned men to a mass execution and lost by a dozen points.

Attracted by the scent of scandal, a pack of newshounds tracked the fugitive fullback to a swanky section of Los Angeles, where he lived with his father in a cottage on the grounds of a palatial estate. His offspring was unavailable for comment, but James D. Key answered the vile accusation by declaring, “I ought to know my own son.”

With coaches, players and alumni clamoring for Key’s reinstatement before the Saturday showdown with SMU, Dean Miller decided to hop the next train for the Texas Panhandle. The two Keys promised to accompany him but missed the Nov. 5 departure.

In Amarillo Dean interviewed Earl “Ox” Key, a standout at Southern Methodist in the 1920s, who swore up and down UCLA’s Ted was his younger brother. But R.E. Vaughn, school superintendent at Panhandle, positively identified the mystery man as Shorty Key who had played for him at Vernon in 1928. The ex-coach angrily added that letter bearing his signature and vouching for Key’s alias was a forgery.

Pressured into a public update, Dean Miller stated at a Nov. 4 press conference, “I believe as I did last Saturday that our Ted Key is not eligible for football.” However, he refused to speculate on who the fake fullback might really be.

That issue was resolved when the real Robert F. “Ted” Key finally came forward and spilled the beans. The pride of UCLA with the same name was his cousin Shorty. He sheepishly admitted loaning Shorty his high-school transcript from Panhandle so he could gain admission to the West Coast college and keep on playing football.

Shorty Key at last broke his silence and set the record straight. After graduating high school at Vernon, he played two years for Weatherford Junior College and two more at the Texas School of Mines in El Paso. Refusing to abide by the four-year rule, he masqueraded as “Tex Maness” for a fifth season at Urban Military Academy in suburban Los Angeles before enrolling at UCLA with his kinsman’s credentials.

“Sure, a lot of folks are going to laugh,” Shorty conceded. “But if they knew the hours I’ve spent worrying about the day when I would be exposed, they would understand the hell I’ve gone through.”

The UCLA coach professed astonishment and insisted he never had a clue. “The way Ted and his father stuck together, I’d have sworn he was okay. As it turns out, it looks as if I’m not much of a coach or else I would have had a smart fellow like Ted in there calling the signals.”

SMU, the eventual national champion, blanked Key-less UCLA 21-0. The Bruins rallied to win their final four games and finished in a three-way tie for first place in the PCC, but Stanford went to the Rose Bowl.

Aided by Shorty’s solemn assertion that he kept his dirty little secret to himself, UCLA did not receive so much as a rap on the knuckles for the gross violation of the eligibility rule.

Judge Smails · Jul 26, 2013

34 days to go ...

Miami win streak: Bookended by a 2000 road loss to Washington and a 2003 Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State, Miami reeled off 34 straight wins, including the 2002 Rose Bowl over Nebraska that won the 2001 national championship.

Clinton Portis jaunts to another long run in Miami, FL 37-14 win over Nebraska in the 2002 Rose Bowl

Dating back to World War I, only Oklahoma's historic 47-game run from 1953-57 is longer among major college teams.

And considering how drastically competition has improved nationally over the past 50 years, one could argue the 'Canes have already accomplished as much as those Sooners. Miami has already beaten more teams with winning records (24) in 34 games than Oklahoma (21) did in 47. And against opponents with a combined .568 winning percentage, the Hurricanes' average victory margin (25.2) is nearly as wide as OU's (28.7) was against teams that went .443.

A look back at this historic streak:

[TABLE="width: 470"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD][TABLE="width: 470"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD][TABLE="width: 470"]
<tbody>[TR="bgcolor: #000000"]
[TH]VS.[/TH]
[TH]Score[/TH]
[TH]The Skinny[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: #ffffff, align: left"] 47-10[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 1: Sept. 23, 2000 at West Virginia
The 'Canes return three turnovers for 131 yards and three TDs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 64-6[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 2: Sept. 30, 2000 at Rutgers
Miami's defense holds Rutgers to 4 rushing yards on 27 carries.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: #ffffff, align: left"] 27-24[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 3: Oct. 7, 2000 vs. No. 1 Florida State
Ken Dorsey leads a game-winning 68-yard drive in the final 1:37.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 45-17[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 4: Oct. 21, 2000 at Temple
WR Santana Moss gains 241 all-purpose yards, two TDs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 42-31[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 5: Oct. 28, 2000 vs. Louisiana Tech
Four turnovers, 12 penalties, 485 yards allowed -- UM still wins.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 41-21[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 6: Nov. 4, 2000 vs. No. 2 Virginia Tech
With Michael Vick hampered by injury, VT falls behind 28-0.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 35-7[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 7: Nov. 11, 2000 vs. Pittsburgh
UM holds nation's No. 1 WR, Antonio Bryant, to 31 yards.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 26-0[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 8: Nov. 18, 2000 at Syracuse
'Cuse manages just 166 total yards and nine first downs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 52-6[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 9: Nov. 25, 2000 vs. Boston College
Ken Dorsey throws a career-high five TDs, goes 17-of-26.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 37-20[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 10: Jan. 2, 2001 vs. No. 7 Florida*
Miami forces Rex Grossman into 18-of-41 passing, two INTs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 33-7[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 11: Sept. 1, 2001 at Penn State
UM racks up 602 yards of offense in Larry Coker's first game.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 61-0[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 12: Sept. 8, 2001 vs. Rutgers
Miami's D shuts down Rutgers again, allowing 126 total yards.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 43-21[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 13: Sept. 27, 2001 at Pittsburgh
Clinton Portis nets 131 yards and four TDs as UM rolls.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 38-7[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 14: Oct. 6, 2001 vs. Troy State
Led by Jeremy Shockey, eight different 'Canes catch a pass.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 49-27[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 15: Oct. 13, 2001 at No. 14 Florida State
UM hands FSU first home loss since winning there in '91.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 45-3[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 16: Oct. 25, 2001 vs. West Virginia
Freshman Frank Gore runs six times for 124 yards, two TDs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
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[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 38-0[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 17: Nov. 3, 2001 vs. Temple
Miami D holds Owls to 34 yards passing, 118 overall.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 18-7[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 18: Nov. 10, 2001 at Boston College
Ed Reed's 80-yard INT return with :13 left averts disaster.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 59-0[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 19: Nov. 17, 2001 vs. No. 14 Syracuse
Bryant McKinnie dominates Syracuse DE Dwight Freeney.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 65-7[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 20: Nov. 24, 2001 vs. No. 12 Washington
The 'Canes avenge their last loss (Sept. 9, 2000) in a major way.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 26-24[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 21: Dec. 1, 2001 at No. 14 Virginia Tech
VT rallies from 16 down but drops a 2-point conversion.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 37-14[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 22: Jan. 3, 2002 vs. No. 4 Nebraska**
'Canes leads title game 34-0 -- at halftime.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 63-17[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 23: Aug. 31, 2002 vs. Florida A&M
Backup RB Jason Geathers springs for 199 yards, two TDs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 41-16[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 24: Sept. 7, 2002 at No. 6 Florida
Willis McGahee runs for 204 in UF's worst home loss since '79.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 44-21[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 25: Sept. 14, 2002 at Temple
McGahee comes up big again, running for 134 yards, four TDs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 38-6[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 26: Sept. 21, 2002 vs. Boston College
Miami breaks open a 17-6 game with 21 points in a 2:43 span.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 48-14[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 27: Oct. 5, 2002 vs. Connecticut
McGahee runs for three TDs in the first 15:13.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 28-27[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 28: Oct. 12, 2002 vs. No. 9 Florida State
'Canes rally from 27-14, win when FSU's kick goes wide left.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 40-23[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 29: Oct. 26, 2002 at West Virginia
Dorsey throws for a career-high 422 yards.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 42-17[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 30: Nov. 2, 2002 at Rutgers
Miami trails 17-14 entering the 4th quarter before pulling away.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 26-3[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 31: Nov. 9, 2002 at Tennessee
Vols gain 74 yards on their second play, 144 rest of the way.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 28-21[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 32: Nov. 21, 2002 vs. No. 17 Pittsburgh
First play after falling behind 14-7, Willis busts a 69-yard TD.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
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[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 49-7[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 33: Nov. 30, 2002 at Syracuse
Ken Dorsey throws a career-high five TDs, goes 17-of-26.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 56-45[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] No. 34: Dec. 7, 2002 vs. No. 18 Virginia Tech
UM jumps to a 49-21 lead behind McGahee's six TDs.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #000000, colspan: 4"]Last loss[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
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[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="width: 30, align: center"]

[/TD]
[TD="width: 60, bgcolor: ffffff, align: left"] 24-29[/TD]
[TD="width: 380, bgcolor: #e7e7e7"] Sept. 9, 2000 at No. 15 Washington
Dorsey is held to 15-of-34, but nearly leads a late rally.[/TD]
[/TR]
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[/TR]
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[TH="bgcolor: #e7e7e7, colspan: 4"][/TH]
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[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #ffffff, colspan: 4"][/TH]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
* -- Sugar Bowl
** -- Rose Bowl

The average score in the 34 games was 42.1 - 16.9 and 25 of the games had margins of 20 or greater ... 19-0 at home, 13-0 on the road, 6-0 vs.Top 10 and 2-0 in Bowl games (beat Florida in the 2001 Sugar Bowl and Nebraska in the 2002 Rose Bowl).

The streak would end in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.

Many people remember this one. In the game between the Miami Hurricanes and the Ohio State Buckeyes, RB Willis McGahee suffered a torn ACL and MCL after taking a hit from Buckeye Will Allen. With the game televised live on ABC, many witnessed the injury first hand. Miami missed their star running back, eventually falling to Ohio State 31-24 in double overtime, ending the Hurricanes’ 34-game winning streak. McGahee was considered a high first-round draft pick before the injury, but the Buffalo Bills still took a gamble on him at 23rd overall.

[video=youtube_share;r_wPOfTGegA]http://youtu.be/r_wPOfTGegA[/video]

1934 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

Minnesota's consensus All American halfback, Pug Lund, carrying the ball in 1934's game of the year, in which 8-0 Minnesota scored a pair of 4th quarter touchdowns to beat 8-1 Pittsburgh 13-7.

The 1934 college football season saw the addition of not one, but two New Year's Day football games to rival the venerable Rose Bowl. On February 15, Warren V. Miller and Joseph M. Cousins had organized the New Orleans Mid-Winter Sports Association and by October, the group had enough funds to sponsor the Sugar Bowl. Meanwhile, W. Keith Phillips and the Greater Miami Athletic Club worked in November at a January 1 game for Florida, and the Orange Bowl was created.

Once again, a Big Ten team was selected by Professor Dickinson (of the University of Illinois) as the national champion, with the Minnesota Golden Gophers being accorded the honor. The conference, however, still had a bar against its members playing in the postseason, so Minnesota did not play in any of the bowl games. The Alabama Crimson Tide was selected national champions by Dunkel, Williamson and Football Thesaurus.

Minnesota had been fielding big players for decades, and prior to World War 2 they were known as the "Giants of the North."

Minnesota was led by 3 consensus All Americans in 1934 (Alabama also had 3): end Frank "Butch" Larson, guard Bill Bevan, and halfback Francis "Pug" Lund. Bevan was a transfer from Oregon who was ruled ineligible for 1935 due to playing for Oregon's freshman team, but he was elected an honorary captain for 1935 anyway. Pug Lund was the team's captain this season, and the only Hall of Famer amongst this trio of players. He rushed for 657 yards this season, he was a great blocking back and defender, and he was also a good punter and passer.

Sophomore tackle Ed Widseth was the only other Hall of Fame player on the team. He was a nonconsensus AA this season, consensus AA in 1935, and unanimous AA in 1936, and Minnesota is the consensus MNC for all 3 of his seasons there. Particularly known for great defense, he went on to a 4 year pro career, and was all-pro in 1938. The football field at the University of Minnesota-Crookston is named for him.

Minnesota was very deep in quality players, enabling Bierman to heavily rotate players at tackle, fullback, quarterback, and halfback opposite Pug Lund, with no drop-off in ability. Tackle Phil Bengtson was all conference 3 straight years 1932-1934, but his back-up, Dick Smith, saw a lot of play, and would be a nonconsensus AA in 1935 (first team on 7 lists).

Similarly, Minnesota had 2 very strong players sharing time at fullback. Stan Kostka, a 210 pound bruiser, led the team with 9 touchdowns, and he was 2nd to Pug Lund with 532 yards rushing. He was a nonconsensus AA this season, and his face appeared on Wheaties boxes. And he was the back up. The starting fullback was Sheldon Beise, all conference 3 straight years 1933-1935. He was used almost exclusively as a blocking back this season, but in 1935 he would mimic Kostka's 1934 feats, leading the team in scoring, being named nonconsensus AA, and even appearing on Wheaties boxes.

End Bob Tenner was all conference and another nonconsensus AA, giving Minnesota a total of 6 players who were named to a first team AA list this year, and 8 who did it in their careers.

GAME OF THE YEAR ... Oct. 20, 1934 ... Minnesota at Pitt
Minnesota essentially played a 1-game season this year, but that one game was huge, at MNC caliber Pittsburgh. Pitt had been regularly contending for MNCs since 1925, and the school claims national titles for 1929 and 1931, though I don't recognize either of those (they lost 47-14 to Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl following the 1929 season). Parke Davis had selected them for those seasons. But curiously, Pitt also claims an MNC for 1934, even though they lost to 8-0 Minnesota, and no organization listed in the NCAA Records Book, human or computer, selected them for this season. Their media guide lists Parke Davis as the selector who chose them for 1934, but he died in June of 1934, before the season had even started. Whoops. That's a fine institution of higher learning they've got there.

Pitt had gone 8-1 in 1933, losing 7-3 at Minnesota, and talk heading into the 1934 rematch was that the winner would go on to take the mythical national championship. The week before the game, Pitt hosted tormentor Southern Cal, who had beaten them 47-14 and 35-0 in Rose Bowls following the 1929 and 1932 seasons, and Pitt got their revenge 20-6. That had everyone abuzz about Pitt, though USC ended up having a bad season (4-6-1). Minnesota, meanwhile, had more than 2 weeks to prepare for Pitt. Their previous game had been a 20-0 win over 6-3 Nebraska. This was the furthest East Minnesota had ever ventured, and many Eastern writers would be seeing them for the first time.

As they had for the previous week's Southern Cal game, Pitt disallowed a national radio broadcast of the Minnesota game, and so tickets were very hard to get. 65,000 attended, and thousands more went to the stadium hoping to purchase tickets from someone or crash the gates (a frequent occurrence at big games back then).

Pregame traffic on Pittsburgh's Boulevard of the Allies.

Minnesota patiently spent the entire first half punting on 2nd down, and didn't even advance the ball past their own 33. Pittsburgh dominated them statistically until late in the 3rd quarter, but all Pitt got out of it was a 7-0 lead. In the 2nd quarter, Minnesota halfback Pug Lund mishandled a snap, and Pittsburgh recovered the ball at the Minnesota 6 yard line. Pitt ran the ball 4 times, but they were stopped at the 1, which would prove to be the key defensive stand of the game. The ensuing punt-out was returned to the Minnesota 29, a pass put it at the 17, and a penalty at the 12, but then Pug Lund intercepted a pass in the end zone, ending the threat. Later, with a minute to go in the half, Pittsburgh made up for their 2 squandered opportunities with 1 big play, a 64 yard touchdown run that featured Izzy Weinstock lateraling to Mike Nicksick about 10 yards past the line of scrimmage.

Minnesota didn't try to mount a serious offensive drive until late in the 3rd quarter, after end Butch Larson recovered a fumbled punt at the Pitt 42. Substitute halfback Julius Alfonse, who averaged 10 yards per carry this season, ran for 2 yards, and substitute fullback Stan Kostka ran for 9, picking up Minnesota's initial first down of the game. Kostka added 7 more, and Lund and Alfonse were held to short gains into the line. They switched sides for the 4th quarter, and on 4th and short, Alfonse took a reverse around end untouched for a 22 yard touchdown (pictured above). Guard Bill Bevan kicked the extra point, and the game was tied 7-7.

Pitt went nowhere on their next drive, punted, and Lund returned it 11 yards to the Minnesota 46. Kostka picked up 3 and Lund 8 for another first down, and then Kostka broke 3 tackles on an 18 yard ramble to the Pitt 24. 3 more plays went for short gains, bringing up 4th down, and what followed is often regarded as the greatest play in Minnesota's history.

Stan Kostka took a handoff and went forward as though to plunge into the line, then stopped and lateraled the ball back to Pug Lund, who ran to the right. Then Lund stopped and threw back across the field to his left, where end Bob Tenner caught it at the 1 and crossed over goal for the winning touchdown. It was the first time Minnesota had ever run the play in a game. Bevan missed the extra point, making the final score 13-7. Tenner had also caught the touchdown pass that beat Pitt 7-3 in 1933, and he caught a touchdown pass to beat Northwestern 7-0 in 1932 as well.

Pug Lund and ends Butch Larson and Bob Tenner played all 60 minutes for Minnesota. Pittsburgh was held to just 2 of 14 passing, and they threw 3 interceptions. Pitt won out, routing 6-3 Notre Dame 19-0, 6-3 Nebraska 25-6, and 8-1 Navy 31-7, and they ended up ranked #3.

The Rest of Minnesota's Season
Minnesota did not play any other top 25 caliber opponents, they played just 1 other winning major team (6-3 Nebraska), and they steamrolled those unranked opponents by an average score of 37-4. For the season they averaged 340 yards per game rushing and gave up 69. Due to their punt-for-a-half approach, they scored 110 of their season's 270 points in the 4th quarter. They waited until the 2nd half to score all of their points in a 34-0 win over Michigan, they tallied 28 points in the 2nd half of a 35-7 win over Chicago, and they scored 3 touchdowns in the 4th quarter of a 34-0 win at Wisconsin in their finale.

That finale at 4-4 Wisconsin was their season's exclamation point. The game was over early, Lund scoring 2 touchdowns to put Minnesota up 14-0 in the opening quarter. They outgained Wisconsin 309 yards to 16 and 13 first downs to 3, and they picked off 7 Wisconsin passes. The Associated Press game article stated that Minnesota was "Hailed by the vast majority of critics as mythical national champions."

And indeed, articles published across the East and Midwest lavished Minnesota with praise. Alison Danzig of the New York Times called them "One of the great football machines of all time ... a team that has caught the national imagination as have few others." He then quoted several Big 10 coaches on the matter:

Michigan coach Harry Kipke: "It is the greatest team I ever saw as a player or coach. Those reserves would beat almost any team in the country today."
Wisconsin coach Doc Spears: "No team in the country could stand up under its attack."
Indiana coach Bo McMillin: "It is a team without a weakness."

Several polls of sportswriters and editors selected Minnesota as MNC, and the Dickinson rating system awarded its Rockne Cup to Minnesota. The Toledo Cup, based on a vote of 250 sports editors, also went to Minnesota. Sportswriter Grantland Rice called them "One of the greatest, if not the greatest, football teams I ever saw." But he said that sort of thing about teams all the time, as though each game he covered was the first football game he'd ever seen in his life.

November 10
At Yankee Stadium, Tulane (6-0-0) faced Colgate (3-1-0), with the Red Raiders handing the Green Wave their first loss, 20-6. In a meeting of unbeaten teams, Stanford (7-0-1) hosted Washington (4-0-0) and had a sixth straight shutout 24-0. Over in Cleveland, Navy beat Notre Dame 10-6. Pittsburgh won at Nebraska 25-6. Minnesota beat Indiana 30-0, Illinois won at Northwestern 14-3, and Ohio State beat Chicago 33-0. Alabama beat Clemson 40-0 and Rice won at Arkansas 7-0. Columbia beat Brown 39-0

November 17
Navy (7-0-0) hosted Pittsburgh (6-1-0) and lost 31-7. Minnesota beat Chicago 35-7 and Ohio State defeated Michigan 34-0. Previously unbeaten (6-0-0) Illinois was upset at Madison when it faced a (3-3-0) Wisconsin Badgers team, falling 7-3. Alabama defeated Georgia Tech 40-0, while Tulane won at Kentucky 20-7. Stanford beat the Olympic Club team 40-0, and had a record of 192-7 against its opponents to that time. Colgate won at Syracuse 13-2 and Columbiaedged Penn 13-12. Rice beat Texas A&M 25-6. Yale's 11 "Iron Men" (they played the entire game with no substitutions) upset Princeton 7-0 at Princeton.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 29, Alabama beat Vanderbilt in Birmingham, 34-0, and was invited soon after to meet Stanford at the Rose Bowl. Pittsburgh beat crosstown rival Carnegie Tech, 20-0, and Kansas State beat Nebraska 19-7 to clinch the Big Six Conference championship.

December 1
In Louisiana, Tulane (8-1-0) and LSU (6-0-2) faced each other in Baton Rouge. Both teams were likely hosts for the first Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and Tulane edged the Tigers 13-12 to become the host team, where it would face 7-0-2 Temple University. Rice ended at 9-1-1 with a 32-0 win at Baylor. Colgate closed its season with a 20-13 win in Providence against Brown.

At the Army–Navy Game, held in Philadelphia, Navy (7-1-0) beat Army (7-2-0) on a field goal, 3-0.

[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Bowl game[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Home[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Away[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]points[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Rose Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Alabama Crimson Tide[/TD]
[TD]29[/TD]
[TD]Stanford Indians[/TD]
[TD]13[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sugar Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Temple Owls[/TD]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]Tulane Green Wave[/TD]
[TD]20[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Orange Bowl[/TD]
[TD]Bucknell Bison[/TD]
[TD]26[/TD]
[TD]Miami Hurricanes football[/TD]
[TD]0[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

In the first Sugar Bowl game, Tulane (9-1-0) hosted unbeaten Temple (7-0-2) before a crowd of 30,000 in New Orleans. Temple took a 14-0 lead before Tulane came back to win the game 20-14.

Temple had closed its season with a 0-0 tie against Bucknell University, which finished at 6-2-2, and the Bucknell Bison were invited to play the Miami Hurricanes in the first Orange Bowl. The 'Canes best days were still ahead of them, and they made only three first downs altogether. Although 15,000 were expected, only 5,000 turned out to watch Bucknell beat Miami 26-0.

The big game remained the Rose Bowl with Stanford, at 9-0-1, and Alabama, at 9-0-0. With both teams unbeaten, a crowd of 85,000 turned out in Pasadena to watch them. Stanford led 7-0 in the first quarter, but Alabama scored 22 points in the second, with the help of quarterback Millard (Dixie) Howell and future NFL hall of fame receiver Don Hutson, with Alabama winning 29-14.

The Sun Bowl was given a test drive, with the El Paso All-Stars beating the visiting Ranger Bulldogs 25-12 before a crowd of 3,000 in El Paso.

At Honolulu, Hawaii beat vacationing California 14-0, and in Houston, Tuskegee beat Prairie View A&M 15-6 in a New Year's Day game for ***** colleges.

From the back pages of the Maryland College yearbook, including an action shot of their 1933 game at Tulane

Screenshot of the 1934 classic, THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS

Judge Smails · Jul 26, 2013

[video=youtube_share;Zl18gyFmDAQ]http://youtu.be/Zl18gyFmDAQ[/video]

twinkie13 · Jul 26, 2013

Tulane glory days there

nice post smails

TheGarfather · Jul 26, 2013

That Miami team from 01. Wow.

Judge Smails · Jul 27, 2013

33 days to go ...

Ron Dayne's number: Jersey number of Ron Dayne, the FBS all-time leader with 6,397 career rush yards.

Ron Dayne etched his name into the college football history books, rushing for 7,125 yards in his four-year career with the Wisconsin Badgers, a career rushing total that stands atop any other. Dayne was rewarded for his career rushing record when he won the coveted Heisman Trophy award in 1999, along with numerous other awards including Big Ten Conference player of the year in 2000 and All-American placement in 1996, 1998 and 1999.

His name and number can be seen by all on the Camp Randall Stadium facade, accompanied by other Badger Football legends. Dayne's #33 was officially retired during the Nov. 10, 2007 game against Michigan.

In the 2000 NFL Draft, Dayne was selected with the 11th pick by the New York Giants, and continued to play in the NFL through 2008 for the Broncos and the Houston Texans.

Inducted into the 2011 Rose Bowl Hall of Fame
Inducted into the University of Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009
College football’s most-decorated player after winning the Heisman Trophy and Maxwell and Doak Walker Awards
National player of the year by the Associated Press, Football News, The Sporting News and Walter Camp
College football’s all- time leading rusher and the first player in college history to run for more than 7,000 career yards (post-season play included)
Three-time bowl game MVP (1996 Copper, 1999 Rose and 2000 Rose)
First three-time Big Ten rushing champion and conference career leader in rushing and scoring
Name and number on the facade of Camp Randall Stadium after setting the NCAA record at the Iowa game on Nov. 13, 1999
Landslide winner in the Heisman Trophy balloting---his 2,042 votes were the 10th-most of all time

Wisconsin tailback Ron Dayne, right, smiles during the 1999 Heisman Trophy ceremony Saturday, Dec. 11, 1999 at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York. Dayne, who won the trophy, finished his collegiate career with 6,397 yards, the Division 1-A rushing record. With him, from left are: Drew Brees of Purdue, Joe Hamilton of Georgia Tech, and Chad Pennington of Marshall.

Badgers running back Ron Dayne breaks free from a Utah defender. Dayne rushed 30 times for 246 yards and three touchdowns in the 1996 Copper Bowl.

Wisconsin's Ron Dayne (33) is helped by receiver Chris Chambers to get past Iowa's Joe Slattery (11) to break the major-college career rushing record in the second quarter Saturday, Nov. 13, 1999, in Madison, Wis. Dayne broke the record on a 31-yard run with 4:32 left in the second quarter giving him 6,288 rushing yards in his career.

1933 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

Michigan halfback Herman Everhardus, the Big 10's leading scorer, adding to his total at Chicago. Michigan was tied late in the season by 4-0-4 Minnesota, but they stretched their unbeaten streak to 18 games with a 7-0-1 finish, and they were and are the consensus choice for mythical national champion (MNC) of 1933.

Michigan opened with a 20-6 win over 4-2-2 Michigan State and a 40-0 win over 4-3 Cornell. Halfback Herman Everhardus scored touchdowns on a 52 yard run and an 85 yard kickoff return against Cornell.

Next up was Ohio State, who was starting to emerge as Michigan's most passionate rival. Within 2 years, they would become Michigan's new finale game, establishing the tradition we know today. A Michigan (and Big 10) record 93,000 attended this year's game. Substitute quarterback Bill Renner scored a touchdown late in the first half, and Everhardus added an insurance touchdown in the 4th quarter, and Michigan won 13-0.

Michigan then rolled to a 28-0 win at 3-3-2 Chicago, and at this point they were 4-0 by a total score of 101-6, but over their next 4 games they only outscored their opponents by a total of just 30-12. The same thing had happened in 1932, but there were a couple of differences between Michigan's finishes in 1932 and 1933. This time they were playing a far tougher slate of opponents down the stretch, and this time they did not go unbeaten.

Michigan's 14-game winning streak barely survived their trip to Illinois the next week. Illinois hit some passes to set up an early touchdown, but Michigan end Willis Ward blocked the ultimately critical extra point try, keeping the score at 6-0. In the 2nd quarter, Michigan converted a poor Illinois punt into a 28 yard touchdown drive, Everhardus going over goal and kicking the extra point for a 7-6 lead. But the game's real drama came at the end. With 15 seconds remaining, Michigan punted from their own end zone, and Illinois took a fair catch at the 31 yard line. According to the rules of the time, Illinois could opt to try a field goal from that spot with no interference from Michigan. This rule had been on the books from nearly the beginning, but by this point in time it was rarely remembered or put to use. Illinois sent in their kicking specialist, but he barely missed the 41 yard free kick, and Michigan was off the hook.

Iowa came to Ann Arbor the next week. Bill Renner threw a touchdown pass, and Herman Everhardus kicked the extra point and a field goal for a 10-0 lead. Iowa was held to just 9 yards rushing in 28 carries, but they surprised Michigan with 118 yards through the air, hitting one pass for a touchdown in the 3rd quarter to close within 10-6, the game's final score.

Boston's Fenway Park set up for a 1933 football game

Oregon State got a lot of national attention in 1933, for a variety of reasons. First of all, they made national news when they ended Southern Cal's 25 game winning streak with a 0-0 tie in Portland. Oregon State became known as the "Iron Men" because they played that game with no substitutions, though it was the only time they did that all season. Then there was the "Pyramid Play"...

The Pyramid Play was used to defend placement kicks, OSU's 6' 5" center standing on the shoulders of 2 teammates and holding his arms up. It was first used, unsuccessfully and without much fanfare, in a 2-0 win over Washington State the week after their tie with Southern Cal. But the play made national news the following week, when they used it to block an extra point in a 13-3 loss to Oregon in Portland, as pictured above. That photo ran in the Saturday Evening Post, and after that sportswriters across the nation debated the fairness of the play.

OSU used the play again the next week in a 9-6 win over Fordham in New York City, as pictured below, but that kick went wide.

The play was banned following this season. But OSU's trip to New York City brings up another reason OSU garnered so much national attention this season...

Playing in New York City always gave teams a publicity boost, which is why so many teams traveled there to play Fordham during this time period. Oregon State had a couple of players make first team All American lists, while 9-1 Oregon, who beat OSU and won the PCC, had just 1 player make an AA list. But Oregon never left the West Coast this season, while Oregon State finished the season with the trip to New York and then a trip to play powerhouse Nebraska in Lincoln on Thanksgiving Day.

Oregon State had been playing a wide variety of intersectional games for years, which had significantly raised their national profile even before this season. During a time period when cross-country travel was much more difficult and time-consuming, they took a trip to Nebraska in 1924, and in the ensuing years they played games against Marquette, Carnegie, NYU (1928-- this was the first time a West Coast team ever played on the East Coast), Detroit twice (ending Detroit's 22 game unbeaten streak with a 14-7 win in 1929), West Virginia (played in Chicago), Fordham twice, and then another trip to Nebraska to finish out this 1933 season. And they went a respectable 5-4-1 in those games.

Duke RB Rossiter gets stuffed on this play but the Devils thumped Maryland, 38-7

Thirteen members of the old Southern Conference split off in 1933 to form the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The ten Southern teams that remained behind would later (1953) constitute the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

September 23
USC opened its season with a doubleheader against Occidental College, and Whittier College. Using a combination of varsity and reserves, the Trojans won 39-0 and 51-0, respectively. Although future President Richard M. Nixon had been on the freshman football team at Whittier, he was not part of the varsity squad that played against USC.

October 14
In Minneapolis, Minnesota and Purdue played to a 7-7 tie. In Chicago, Stanford and Northwestern played to a 0-0 tie. Oregon won at Washington 6-0, and USC beat St. Mary's 14-7. Army defeated Delaware 52-0 and Pittsburgh beat Navy 34-6. Ohio State defeated Vanderbilt 20-0. Michigan beat Cornell 40-0. Nebraska won at Iowa State 20-0. Princeton recorded its second shutout, a 45-0 win over Williams. Tennessee suffered its first defeat since 1930, losing 10-2 against Duke.

November 11
In Los Angeles, USC (6-0-1) hosted Stanford (5-1-1). The Trojans suffered their first defeat in 27 games, losing 13-7, in a game that ultimately decided the Pacific Coast championship. Michigan defeated Iowa 5-3. At Portland, Oregon beat Oregon State, 13-3 to extend its record to 8-0-0. Army won at Harvard 27-0. In Philadelphia, Ohio State beat Penn 20-7 and Purdue won at Notre Dame 19-0.Pittsburgh beat Duquesne 7-0 and Nebraska defeated Kansas 12-0 Princeton beat Dartmouth, 7-0, for its sixth straight shutout.

November 25
Princeton was finally scored upon, after holding its first seven opponents scoreless. The streak was broken by Rutgers, which lost 26-6. USC won at Notre Dame, 19-0 and Stanford beat California 7-3. The annual Army–Navy Game took place in Philadelphia, and Army won 12-7. Ohio State closed its season with a 7-6 win over Illinois and Michigan won at Northwestern 13-0, Minnesota beat Wisconsin 6-3, and Purdue won at Indiana 19-3. Nebraska beat Iowa 7-6

December 2
In Los Angeles, USC (8-1-1) hosted Georgia (8-1-0) and won 31-0 Army (9-0-0) and Notre Dame (2-5-1) met at Yankee Stadium. The Fighting Irish pulled off a 13-12 upset. Princeton, no longer having to maintain a streak of shutouts, won at Yale 27-2 to finish as the nation's only unbeaten and untied team.

Final 1933 Rankings
[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rank[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Team[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Record[/TH]
[TH="bgcolor: #F2F2F2, align: center"]Rating[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Michigan Wolverines[/TD]
[TD]7-0-1[/TD]
[TD]28.52[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Nebraska Cornhuskers[/TD]
[TD]8-1-0[/TD]
[TD]24.61[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Minnesota Gophers[/TD]
[TD]4-0-4[/TD]
[TD]23.87[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Pittsburgh Panthers[/TD]
[TD]8-1-0[/TD]
[TD]23.01[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Ohio State Buckeyes[/TD]
[TD]7-1-0[/TD]
[TD]22.79[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]USC Trojans[/TD]
[TD]10-1-1[/TD]
[TD]22.61[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Princeton Tigers[/TD]
[TD]9-0-0[/TD]
[TD]22.50[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]Oregon Ducks[/TD]
[TD]9-1-0[/TD]
[TD]22.36[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]Army Cadets[/TD]
[TD]9-1-0[/TD]
[TD]22.16[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]Purdue Boilermakers[/TD]
[TD]6-1-1[/TD]
[TD]21.88[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]Stanford Indians[/TD]
[TD]9-1-1[/TD]
[TD]20.34[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

1934 ROSE BOWL
The 1934 Rose Bowl, played on January 1, 1934, was the 20th Rose Bowl Game. The Columbia Lions defeated the Stanford Indians (now Cardinal) 7-0.

Cliff Montgomery, the Columbia quarterback, was named the Rose Bowl Player Of The Game when the award was created in 1953 and selections were made retroactively.

For the three days before the game, torrential rains soaked the field. “When we arrived the day before the game [after traveling from New York by train], the Rose Bowl looked like a lake,” Montgomery, the team captain, recalled in a 1981 article in The New York Times. The Pasadena fire department pumped out the stadium.

Game day itself, though, was also uncharacteristically rainy for Southern California, and the muddy field rendered the game scoreless going into the second quarter.

At that time, and with the ball on the Stanford 17-yard line, Columbia quarterback Montgomery executed a trick play called KF-79. During the play, he spun and slipped the ball to Al Barabas, then faked a hand-off to Ed Brominski, who ran in the opposite direction. While the Indians went for Montgomery and Brominski, Barabas successfully ran around the defense to score for the Lions.

Stanford "Vow Boys" Bobby Grayson (152 yards on 28 carries), end Monk Moscript, lineman Bob Reynolds and other stars could not overcome the margin as mishaps ruined Stanford's chances. Columbia ended up winning the game, 7-0, capping one of the biggest upsets in Rose Bowl history. The win also cemented Lou Little's reputation at Columbia as the Lions' greatest coach thus far.

At 35,000, it has the lowest attendance in the Rose Bowl game since the Rose Bowl Stadium was built in 1922. This was one of the few rainy New Year's Day celebrations in Pasadena, California.

[video=youtube_share;9MgeWGrlERA]http://youtu.be/9MgeWGrlERA[/video]

Judge Smails · Jul 28, 2013

32 days to go ...

P.J. Fleck's age: Western Michigan hired 32-year old P.J. Fleck as head coach on Dec. 18. He's the youngest active head coach in FBS.

Fleck, 32, becomes the youngest head coach in major college football, and one of the reasons athletic director Kathy Beauregard was attracted to Fleck was his energy and enthusiasm.

Fleck coached one year in Tampa under Greg Schiano and spent two more years at Rutgers coaching receivers under Schiano. Fleck is also familiar with the MAC from his playing career and three-year coaching stint at Northern Illinois. He also spent two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers as a player.

While at Northern Illinois as an assistant, Fleck had duties that included coaching wide receivers and working as a recruiting coordinator. He replaces Bill Cubit, whose strong tenure at Western Michigan included a 51-47 record and three bowl appearances. Western Michigan went 4-8 last season and just 2-6 in the MAC.

“We've lost 400 pounds of fat as a football team; think about that,” Fleck, the youngest coach in the Mid-American Conference, said today at MAC media day. “We've gained 300 pounds of muscle. We've averaged 3% lost body fat as a football team. We can’t win any games in the off-season, but that’s a win in our program. We've gained four pounds of lean mass per kid.”

Fleck was the receivers coach for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers last season and already is seeing improvement in the Broncos receivers. Jamie Wilson was MAC freshman of the year, catching 67 passes for 792 yards.

“I saw Jamie when I first got here and I had just come from the NFL,” said Fleck. “Jamie Wilson has lost 5 to 6% body fat. I’m not going to say he was fat before, but he wasn't skinny. He is now efficient.”

Fleck hoped the lost weight and quarterback Tyler Van Tubbergen’s play leads to better than last year’s fifth-place finish.

1932 COLLEGE FOOTBALL HIGHLIGHTS

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosting the 1932 Southern Cal-Notre Dame game on December 10. The stadium had hosted the Olympics in the Summer, for which its iconic Olympic cauldron torch had been added, along with additional seats that pushed capacity over 100,000.

That came in handy when 7-1 Notre Dame arrived to challenge 8-0 Southern Cal in 1932's game of the year. USC won 13-0, then pounded Pittsburgh 35-0 in the Rose Bowl to repeat as mythical national champion.

The "Thundering Herd" were coming off their first legitimate MNC in 1931, and had graduated both of their 1931 consensus All Americans, guard/kicker Johnny Baker and quarterback/punter Gus Shaver, and Hall of Fame halfback Erny Pinckert and end Garret Arbelbide were gone as well. The offense was hit hard, plummeting from 33 points per game in 1931 to 20 in 1932. Luckily, the bulk of their incredible line returned, and the defense gave up just 13 points all season, enabling them to go 10-0 in 1932, Howard Jones' only perfect season. That stretched their winning streak to 20 games. The key returnees on the line were Hall of Fame tackle Ernie Smith (USC's only consensus AA this season), Hall of Fame tackle Tay Brown (captain and nonconsensus AA), Hall of Fame guard Aaron Rosenberg (consensus AA 1933), and guard Larry Stevens (nonconsensus AA 1933). This simply had to be the best line in college football.

The only significant backfield returnee was prolific offensive backup quarterback Orv Mohler, but he suffered a neck injury and couldn't play much, chipping in just 264 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns on the season.

There was only one significant new player this season, and the offense rested heavily on him: Hall of Fame quarterback Irvine "Cotton" Warburton. He led the team in rushing and scoring in 1932 and 1933, and was a consensus AA in 1933. He wasn't actually a starter this season, but that's because he was small, 5' 7" and 145#, and Howard Jones wanted to keep him from getting too beat up. So Cotton Warburton was handled like Notre Dame's backs, usually coming in for the 2nd quarter. He became a film and television editor, eventually winning an Academy Award for Mary Poppins.

In both their MNC seasons 1931-1932, Southern Cal opened with a strong mid-major opponent rather than the traditional auto-win cupcake. That bit them in 1931, as they lost their opener to 8-2 St. Mary's. They did not, however, have that kind of struggle this year with 6-1-1 Utah, smothering them 35-0. Southern Cal's next game was against Washington State, who would end up being the 2nd best team in the PCC this year. This game wasn't much of a struggle either, USC winning 20-0.

USC started to fall asleep at the wheel after that, beating 4-6 Oregon State just 10-0, then putting on their worst performance of the season in a 6-0 win over 4-4 Loyola Marymount before 55,000 perplexed fans. Warburton scored the winning touchdown with just 5 minutes left to play in the game.

That brought Southern Cal to the meat of their conference schedule, 4 straight games against good-but-not-great PCC teams (all of them fall just outside the top 25 for 1932). They won 13-0 at 6-4-1 Stanford, 27-7 over 7-3-2 California, and 33-0 over 6-3-1 Oregon. Their toughest challenge in this stretch came in the mud at 6-2-2 Washington on Thanksgiving Day.

The mud made moving the ball difficult, but Southern Cal got on the board in the 2nd quarter with a 29 yard field goal from a difficult angle off the foot of halfback Cal Clemens. Early in the 4th quarter, Warburton scored a touchdown to make it 9-0, but the earlier field goal proved critical when Washington hit a 5 yard touchdown pass to make the final score 9-6. That was the 2nd and final touchdown USC gave up this season.

Southern Cal had a 16 day break before 7-1 Notre Dame came to town for a December 10th game at the Coliseum. Notre Dame had lost to Pittsburgh, but they'd handily won the rest of their games (average score in wins 36-1), including a 21-0 beating of 8-2 Army at Yankee Stadium in their previous outing. This was the 5th straight year that the winner of this game would claim a national championship. Attendance estimates for the 1932 game were generally around 100,000.

Notre Dame outgained Southern Cal 217 yards to 130 and 12 first downs to 4, but they gained most of that yardage on their side of the 50, crossing midfield just 3 times. They also turned the ball over 3 times to USC's once, and USC outgained them in the kicking game, twice putting quick kicks inside the Notre Dame 5 yard line. Southern Cal won 13-0, the touchdown drives set up by a long punt return and a fumble recovery.

Southern Cal was allowed 12 men on the opening kickoff: Senior Orv Mohler, injured for most of the season, held the ball, then stayed out of the play itself. Both teams durdled around in the 1st quarter, advancing no real threats, though field position advantage lay with Southern Cal. Notre Dame sent in their regular backfield for the 2nd quarter, and USC sent in Warburton. Homer Griffith, who had started for USC at quarterback, moved to fullback, where he would be a key player in this game. Midway through the 2nd quarter, Warburton returned a punt 37 yards, and then he ran a fake reverse for 22 yards to Notre Dame's 30 yard line. The next 3 plays went nowhere, but on 4th down, Homer Griffith hit halfback Bob McNeish (another 2nd quarter sub) for a 31 yard touchdown pass. That was USC's only completion of the game in 8 attempts. Ernie Smith kicked the extra point, and it was 7-0.

In the 3rd quarter, Notre Dame lost a fumble at their 26, and Southern Cal drove from there to a Griffith touchdown to make it 13-0. In the final period, USC drove to the Notre Dame 28, where Smith was short on a field goal try. Notre Dame then went to the air, advancing their best threats of the game. Four passes took them to the USC 5, where a running play was drowned for a loss, and the next pass was intercepted by Griffith. After the punt-out to the 37, Notre Dame hit another pass to the 13, then went to the running game again, but they were halted at the 9.

The Michigan Wolverines won the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy as national champion under the Dickinson system. Because the "Big Nine" conference didn't permit its teams to play in the postseason, however, the Wolverines were not able to accept a bid to the Rose Bowl. As such, the Pasadena game matched the #2 and #3 teams, USC and Pittsburgh, with the USC Trojans winning the East-West match-up 35-0.

Colgate University became the last team to shut out all of its opponents, by an average score of 29-0 in nine games. Though the '32 Red Raiders were described as "unbeaten, untied, unscored upon...and uninvited", the Rose Bowl was the only postseason bowl game at the time.

Colgate (in the partially white jerseys) against NYU at Yankee Stadium in front of 35,000 fans. Colgate halfback Whitey Ask threw a 53 yard touchdown pass on the opening drive, then an interception set up an Ask touchdown run early in the 2nd quarter, and Colgate won 14-0. NYU was held to 3 first downs and 70 yards.

As an independent, Colgate football team won against a variety of opponents: St. Lawrence (41-0), Case (27-0), Niagara (47-0), Lafayette College (35-0), New York University (14-0), Penn State (31-0), Mississippi College (32-0), Syracuse University (16-0) and Brown University (21-0).

October 8
Michigan beat Northwestern 15-6, Wisconsin beat Iowa 34-0, Purdue won at Minnesota 7-0, and Ohio State and Indiana played to a 7-7 tie. USC beat Oregon State 10-0. Pittsburgh beat Duquesne 33-0. Army beat Carleton College 57-0. Notre Dame opened with a 73-0 win over Haskell College. Tennessee beat North Carolina 20-7 and TCU beat Arkansas 34-12.

October 15
In Birmingham, Tennessee and Alabama, both 3-0-0, met, with the visitors winning 7-3. Michigan won at Ohio State 14-0, while Purdue beat visiting Wisconsin 7-6, and Pittsburgh won at Army 18-13. TCU won at Texas A&M 17-0, USC defeated Loyola Marymount 6-0 and Notre Dame beat Drake 62-0.

Unbeaten Michigan crushed Illinois, 32-0, in front of not many folks in their 1932 match-up

October 22
USC (4-0-0) and Stanford (5-0-0) met at Palo Alto, with USC winning 13-0. At Pittsburgh, Ohio State and Pitt played to a 0-0 tie. Michigan beat Illinois 32-0, Purdue tied at Northwestern 7-7, andWisconsin shut out Iowa's Coe College 39-0. Notre Dame beat Carnegie Tech 42-0. Army won at Yale 20-0. Tennessee beat Maryville College 60-0 and TCU beat Austin College 68-0

October 29
Pittsburgh (4-0-1) hosted Notre Dame (3-0-0) and won 12-0. Ohio State and Wisconsin played to a 7-7 tie giving OSU a record of 1-1-3. Michigan defeated Princeton 14-7 and Purdue beat NYU 34-9 at Yankee Stadium. Army beat William & Mary 33-0. Tennessee beat visiting Duke, 16-13, and TCU defeated Baylor 27-0.

November 5
Notre Dame won at Kansas University, 24-6. Michigan won at Indiana 7-0, Ohio State won at Northwestern 20-6, Wisconsin beat Illinois 20-12 and Purdue won at Chicago 37-0. Pittsburgh won at Penn, 19-12. USC beat California 27-7. Army won at Harvard 46-0 Tennessee beat Mississippi State 31-0 and TCU won at Hardin-Simmonds 27-0.

November 11
On Armistice Day, TCU (8-0-1) hosted Texas (6-1-0) and won 14-0.

November 12
In Nashville, Tennessee (7-0-0) and Vanderbilt (6-0-1), played to a scoreless tie. Michigan beat Chicago 12-0, Purdue won at Iowa 18-0, and Wisconsin beat Minnesota 20-13. Ohio State beat Penn 19-0. USC beat Oregon 33-0. Army beat North Dakota State 52-0. At Lincoln, Neb., Pittsburgh and Nebraska played to a 0-0 tie. At Chicago, Notre Dame beat Northwestern 21-0

[video=youtube_share;mocPdc1es3A]http://youtu.be/mocPdc1es3A[/video]
Colgate at Brown highlights, Nov. 19, 1932 ... notice the trick plays and laterals

November 19
Michigan closed its season with a 3-0 win at Minnesota, Ohio State closed at Illinois with the same 3-0 score. Wisconsin won at Chicago 18-7, and Purdue beat Indiana 25-7. Notre Damedefeated Navy in a game at Cleveland, 12-0. Pittsburgh beat Carnegie Tech, 6-0. In Houston, TCU beat Rice 16-6. Army narrowly beat visiting West Virginia Wesleyan 7-0. At Providence, Colgate (8-0-0) and Brown University (7-0-0) faced each other for the season-ender for both teams. Colgate had held its first 8 opponents scoreless, and the nation waited to see if that streak would be ended by Colgate's toughest opponent of the year. Colgate's Red Raiders won 21-0 to close the season with a 264-0 edge on its opposition.

November 24
On Thanksgiving Day, USC won at Washington 9-6; that win, along with California's 3-0 loss to Washington State, gave USC the Pacific Coast crown and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio State play in the 1932 season, the last meeting between the two programs

November 26
At Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame beat Army 21-0. Pittsburgh beat visiting Stanford 7-0 to close its season unbeaten (8-0-2). Tennessee beat Kentucky 26-0. TCU closed its season at Dallas, with an 8-0 win over SMU. In eleven games, TCU had registered seven shutouts, and finished unbeaten (10-0-1).

December 3
In the Army–Navy Game at Philadelphia, Army won 20-0. In Jacksonville, Tennessee beat Florida to close its season unbeaten (9-0-1).

December 10
In Los Angeles, USC (9-0-0) hosted Notre Dame (7-1-0) and won 13-0.

1933 ROSE BOWL

8-0-2 Pittsburgh was invited to play Southern Cal in this season's Rose Bowl. Pitt had played a very rugged schedule: the ties came to 4-1-3 Ohio State and 7-1-1 Nebraska, and they defeated 7-2 Notre Dame, 8-2 Army, 6-2 Penn, and 6-4-1 Stanford. Their 1929 team had gone 9-0 in the regular season before getting trounced 47-14 by Southern Cal in the 1930 Rose Bowl, the worst defeat in school history, and revenge was on their minds. What they got instead was an eerie case of deja vu all over again, and a new school record for worst beating. 83,000 attended the game.

Southern Cal bombed them 35-0, most of that coming as Pitt fell apart in the 4th quarter. USC took their first drive 60 yards for a score, quarterback Homer Griffith throwing a 33 yard touchdown pass. The Trojans drove to the Pitt 13 late in the 2nd quarter, but came up empty, so it remained 7-0 at half. Early in the 3rd quarter, Griffith intercepted a pass at his own 33. USC then drove to the Pitt 11, where they were halted again. But Pitt fumbled the ball right back, and this time USC converted the chance with a 1 yard touchdown pass to Griffith. This was his 2nd straight big game, and in fact Griffith was named MVP of the Rose Bowl.

Quarterback Cotton Warburton (Griffith again moved to fullback when Warburton came into the game in the 2nd quarter) scored a pair of touchdown runs in the 4th quarter, and the substitutes blocked a punt to set up the last touchdown. Ernie Smith was 4 for 4 on extra point tries. USC outgained Pitt 288 yards to 193 and 22 first downs to 9, and Pitt had 6 turnovers to USC's 2. Pitt coach Jock Sutherland's diagnosis: "They had too much power for us at the guard and tackle positions." Yeah, that's 4 All Americans and 3 Hall of Famers right there.

With their 8-1-2 finish, Pittsburgh ranks #6 for 1932.

The Associated Press game article: "While the contest had no official championship rating, many football fans regarded it as a national titular contest. After the game, Coach Jock Sutherland of Pittsburgh said Southern California should be regarded as the national champion."

1932 MICHIGAN FOOTBALL

Fielding Yost had helmed quite a few impressive scoring machines at Michigan, but they struggled in that department after his retirement as head coach. For 12 straight years 1927-1938 they failed to score 20 points a game in a season, and this year they averaged just 15. But like Southern Cal, they had a strong defense, and that enabled them to go 8-0. Also like Southern Cal, they opened the season with a strong mid-major opponent, Michigan State. This game was no contest, a 26-0 win, but MSU won out to finish 7-1, including victories over 6-2 Fordham and 8-2 Detroit.

Michigan next beat 3-4-1 Northwestern 15-6. Michigan then went to Columbus for their biggest game of the year at 4-1-3 Ohio State, winning 14-0. Michigan pummeled 5-4 Illinois, 32-0, and at this point Michigan looked like a juggernaut. But then they struggled down the stretch, staggering through a much less impressive set of 4 opponents in close game after close game.

The Michigan defense, in the dark jerseys, gets another turnover in a 15-6 win over Northwestern

Princeton was coming off 3 losing seasons, going 4-16-2 during that time, and they went 2-2-3 this season, so their trip to Michigan was not expected to be a pleasant one. But Princeton was a year away from a big resurgence under first-year coach Fritz Crisler, a future Michigan coach and Hall of Famer, and they gave Michigan and 30,000 fans all they wanted in this game. Princeton had 7 first downs in the first half to Michigan's 1, and they converted a Harry Newman fumble at his 15 into a touchdown for a 7-0 lead. Michigan scored a safety when a Princeton back muffed a punt and recovered it in his end zone, and it was 7-2 at the half. In the 3rd quarter, end Ivy Williamson blocked a punt at the Princeton 10, and center Chuck Bernard covered the ball in the end zone for an 8-7 lead. Michigan made it 14-7 on a 9 yard Harry Newman touchdown pass, their only pass of the day, but Newman missed his 2nd extra point try, so Princeton remained in range. They made things tense with a drive deep into Michigan territory, but then threw an interception with a minute to play.

Michigan continued to look ill in a 7-0 win at 3-4-1 Indiana the next week. Harry Newman won the game in the 3rd quarter, starting with a punt return to the Indiana 48. He then faked a pass and took off for 34 yards. Michigan drove to the 1, where fullback Ted Petoskey was stopped twice before Newman carried the ball wide and over goal, then kicked the extra point. Indiana was held to 97 yards of offense, and they threw 5 interceptions in 13 attempts.

The game against 3-4-1 Chicago was a similarly weak performance. Harry Newman returned a punt 70 yards for a touchdown in the 2nd quarter, but it remained 6-0 until the final minute of play, when Newman scored on a 28 yard run following a fake pass to make the final score 12-0.

There was reason to worry heading into the finale at 5-2 Minnesota, who had lost close games to 7-0-1 Purdue and 6-1-1 Wisconsin, but had beaten 7-1-1 Nebraska. 30,000 fans watched a game almost entirely devoid of offense. Michigan totaled just 2 first downs and 85 yards, but a Minnesota fumble at their 23 set up the game winner. Michigan drove to the 4, and with less than a minute left in the first half, Harry Newman booted a field goal just inside an upright. That was fortunate, as Michigan was under 50% on extra point attempts this season. Neither team got inside the other's 30 in the 2nd half, but Minnesota back Pug Lund broke free once, slipping and falling when he tried to evade the last defender with a shot at him, Harry Newman.

After the season, there was a huge media push for Michigan to play Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl. Michigan kept practicing after their last game, awaiting word from the Big 10 head office on lifting the conference's ban on post-season games, but the Big 10, unfortunately, turned down the request.

TheGarfather · Jul 28, 2013

So is PJ Fleck going to be a fitness German coach or what?

Time to start preparing

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