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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4252975, member: 289"] 1968 [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.tiptop25.com/champ1968.html[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_NCAA_University_Division_football_rankings[/URL] [URL="http://www.tiptop25.com/fixing1968.html"]Fixing the 1968 AP Poll[/URL] 1968 was the first year the AP (writer’s) Poll conducted a poll after the bowls on an annual basis, thus including all the results in its deliberations instead of ignoring the last few regular season games and the bowls. The UPI (coach’s) poll didn’t follow suit until 1974. This was also the period when the large state school really began to take over the game. Two platoon football increased recruiting requirements geometrically. It was really unlimited substitution football, meaning that schools could put their best offensive players on offense, their best defenders on defense and pull them in and out of the game as needed. They could also bring in certain players for certain situations, such as third or fourth down or goal line situations and use specialists to kick the ball. Ben Schwartzwalder’s traveling squads in the one-platoon, (limited substitution), era ere usually less than 40 players. The average number of players used in a modern game is 52 and you can have up to 85 players on scholarship. Actual rosters are over 100 players, the rest being walk-ons. That 85-player scholarship limit, (and 25 per recruiting class), didn’t exist until the 1980’s. When Johnny Majors was hired to revitalize the Pittsburgh program in 1973, he handed out a whopping total of 76 scholarships. Those guys went from 1-10 to 6-5-1 and a bowl game in their first year. As seniors, they won the national championship. All this recruiting required schools to go outside their geographical area to compete for players. Ben Schwartzwalder never had a significant player not from New York or an adjacent state. Now to be a top national power a school had to battle for recruits all over the map. The big state schools and a few private schools who were either located in prime recruiting areas, (Southern California and later U of Miami) or with unmatched winning traditions, (Notre Dame), could compete but most private school or small state schools, (Syracuse, Duke, Mississippi, Kansas) could not. The large state schools, the schools in prime recruiting areas and the schools with great winning traditions have always done well but the teams they played regularly could at least give them relatively close games. Winning games by two touchdowns was considered decisive and by three was a rout. Anything more than that made headlines. Just winning consistently was the key. The 1963 Texas team never scored more than 17 points in any of heir last six regular season games and didn’t win any of them by more than a touchdown but they won them and held on to their #1 ranking to win the national championship. Beginning in the late 60’s, winning by large margins was the default setting for teams competing for the title. Huge scores were like the roar of mighty guns echoing across the country. If the country heard nothing from your guns, people would start to doubt you legitimacy as a contender. People complained about rolling up scores but that was less evident in the games won by 50+ points, which were more about over-matched opponents lacking depth and/or playing poorly and just giving way under a flood of scores, than it was in the unexpectedly competitive games where an underdog embarrassed the would-be contender by refusing to collapse. I recall a 1974 game where Syracuse shocked Penn State by jumping out to a 14-3 lead which they held onto for much of the game. But the Nittany Lions pounded their way to a 14-30 lead and had the ball with less than a minute to play. They started filling the air with footballs, rather than sitting on the ball and letting the clock run out. The reason was obvious to everybody: beating Syracuse only 30-14 would be embarrassing when Ohio State and Oklahoma and Alabama were winning games 40-0. Those were Penn State’s really opponents. 37-14 would look so much better. 1968 was when winning by big scores started to become common – and they would go bigger as the years progressed. One of the things that helped them to grow bigger was the creation of a Texas assistant coach named Emory Bellard: the wishbone formation, featuring the triple option. The option dated back to rugby and had been a feature of the split T formation that took over college ball in the 1940’s: the quarterback would run along the line and either run it or pitch to a trailing back depending on how the defense responded. Bellard inverted the normal ‘T’ set to position the fullback right behind the quarterback and the halfbacks behind him. He had the quarterback turn to hand off to the fullback, who plunged straight ahead – or the quarterback pulled the ball away from the fullback and headed toward one end or the other of the line with the halfback, now called a ‘tailback’, trailing him. The play then became a traditional option. The defense had to cover the entire line-of scrimmage and any one of four backs could wind up carrying the ball. That took away their aggressiveness as they maneuvered to cover territory. All the had to do is get to one spot late or go for a fake and the back was off to the races. It was really the fullback that made it lethal: if he could have success funning inside, it sucked the defense in and opened up the outside. Passing was minimal because the rushing attack was so dominate it wasn’t really needed. But when the quarterback did fade back to pass, he often found wide-open receivers because all the defenders were up at the line of scrimmage. This would become the dominant offense of the 1970’s and it started at Texas in 1968. Despite the innovation, or maybe because they were getting used to it, they were tied in their first game by Houston, 20-20, then lost to Texas Tech 22-31. Then they won their next 30 games in a row, baffling their opponents with their new toy, having relatively close wins over Oklahoma and Arkansas but beating everyone else by at least three touchdowns, including an 8-1-1, #8 tranked Tennessee team in the Cotton Bowl, 36-13: [MEDIA=youtube]vOOF2fGFvcY[/MEDIA] They were probably the best team in the country at that time but it was too late to win the 1968 national championship but they would win it in 1969 and be ranked #1 going into the Cotton Bowl after the 1970 season. Alabama and Oklahoma both adopted the formation and the play and others schools like Nebraska, Michigan and Ohio State did variations on it, to great success. 1969 Rose Bowl: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il32mM0r768"]1969 Rose Bowl: Ohio State v. USC (Drive-Thru)[/URL] 1969 Orange Bowl: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwEut996wlc"]1/1/1969 Penn State vs. Kansas (Orange Bowl)[/URL] Still another trend began this year: Penn State running the table in the same year somebody else did and finding themselves ranked #2 – or lower. It happened in 1968, 1969, 1973 and 1994. There was no playoff then. Even the BCS didn’t start until 1998. Otherwise Joe Paterno’s teams would have played for national championships in all of those years. The problem was that Penn State was still regarded as an ‘eastern team’ and it was presumed that an eastern teams with a comparable record were the inferior of teams from other parts of the country. It was from this period that Paterno started to tell reporters that he didn’t consider Penn State to be an eastern team and plotted their eventual entrance in the Big 10. But, under LiMu’s system, the Buckeyes and the Nittany Lions will decide things on the field. Ohio State vs. Penn State Ohio State beat Southern Methodist 35-14 who be Oklahoma 28-27 who beat Kansas 27-23 who post to Penn State 14-15 = +25 for Ohio State Ohio State beat Purdue 13-0 who beat Virginia 44-6 who beat Navy 24-0 who lost to Boston College 15-49 who lost to Penn State 0-29 = +12 for Ohio State Ohio State beat Michigan State 25-20 who beat Syracuse 14-10 who lost to Penn State 12-30 = +9 for Penn State Ohio State beat Michigan 50-14 who beat Duke 31-10 who lost to Army 25-57 who lost to Penn State 24-28 = +21 for Ohio State Ohio State beat Southern California 27-16 who beat UCLA 28-16 who lost to Syracuse 7-20 who lost to West Virginia 6-23 who lost to Penn State 20-31 = +18 for Penn State Result: +31/5 = Ohio State wins the national championship by 6 points. They finally win one after losing under this system in 1942, 1944, 1954, 1957 and 1961. [/QUOTE]

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