SWC75
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1953
The big issue in 1953 was one that should resonate with Syracuse’s modern day fans: feigned injuries to stop the clock.
The season got off with a bang: Notre Dame invaded Norman, Oklahoma on a sweltering day to take on the Oklahoma Sooners. Frank Leahy had gotten past the limitations imposed on his football program by the Notre Dame administration in the wake of all their 1940’s success and built a new powerhouse. Bud Wilkinson’s Sooners were also on the verge of returning to greatness after their great success of 1948-50. From “50 years of College Football” by Bob Boyles and Paul Guido:
“The Irish started in a hole at their own 2 yard line after HB Johnny Lattner bobbled the opening kick-off and the Sooners jumped to a 7-0 lead after tackle Dick Bowman recovered a fumble at the Notre Dame 23….OU HB Larry Grigg cut inside end Carl Allison’s block and dashed over on the 8th play of a short drive. After Notre Dame recovered a fumble at the Oklahoma 15, QB Ralph Guglielmi, (pronounced Goul –Yami), lofted a short TD pass to HB Joe Heap. The teams traded second quarter TDs: Sooners little HB Jack Ging tallied after QB Buddy Leake faked handoff to permit Allison to break open for 62 yard to the Irish 18. Notre Dame countered with what Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson thought was the game’s biggest play. Tackle Frank Varrichione blocked FB’s Max Boydston’s quick kick and end don Penza recovered at the Oklahoma 9. Guglielmi soon score don an option run to send the teams to the half at 14-14. Heap’s 36 yard catch in the end zone broke the third quarter tie after Guglielmi intercepted (a pass from) Leake and Worden followed with a 9 yard TD run for a 28-14 margin. Oklahoma HB Merrill Green used great blocking to steam 60 yards for a TD on a punt return….With 5 minutes remaining, the Irish prevailed because of the game’s biggest play from Johnny Lattner…From the Sooner’s 40, Leake slipped a screen pass to Allison who zipped 17 yards behind 2 blockers. But last tackler Lattner slipped between them to drop Allison at the ND 43 to effectively end the threat.” This was Oklahoma’s first home loss in 25 games and their last loss of any kind until Notre Dame beat then again Norman four years later. When I was a kid my older brother had a collection of NFL football cards and Ralph Guglielmi, (Redskins)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Ralph_Guglielmi_-_1955_Bowman.jpg
and Max Boydston (Cardinals)
https://images.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2007/231/21023740_118770611589.jpg
were among them. ‘Little’ Jack Ging became an actor and appears in many movie and TV productions from the mid 50’s onward:
Jack Ging - Wikipedia
And here is the game on You-Tube:
(The film is black and white. The Irish jerseys appear to be dark blue – they sometimes wore green- while the Sooners are in bright red, another example of both teams wearing colored jerseys in the old days.)
Johnny Lattner, from “Wake Up the Echoes” by Ken Rappoport: “They wouldn’t let us stay in Oklahoma City for the game. We had to stay in Guthrie, a one-street place that had one hotel in the whole town. The hotel didn’t have any air conditioning and ti was awful. We worked out Friday afternoon and then had to go back to that hotel and it was terribly hot. Well, we found out the next day why we had to stay there. Right before the game Leahy walked into the dressing room and said we couldn’t stay in Oklahoma City because of the fact that on our squad we have two color ballplayers and the would let us stay in any of the big hotels in Oklahoma City. Leahy said they had forced us into this small, uncomfortable hotel in Guthrie. Well, you could imagine 35, 40 kids thinking this way. I don’t know if it was true or not. Leahy was a psychologist and he would tell an untruth if necessary to motivate you. Here we were in this dinky hotel, getting madder every day and, right before the game, he tells us this.”
Guglielmi both played quarterback and intercepted a pass in that game because the NCAA had tried to legislate a return to one platoon football by passing a rule that if a player left a game in a quarter, he could not play until the next quarter. Teams generally had a first team that went both ways and played until late in the first and third quarters, then gave way to a second team that played into the second and fourth quarters. They chipped away at the rules for the next decade and then finally gave up the ghost and allowed unlimited substitutions in 1964. Also, freshmen ineligibility was reinstated this year so first year players were sophomores until 1972, when freshmen became eligible again.
The writer expected Leahy’s team to make a strong comeback and made them their pre-season #1 with the two top teams of 1952, Michigan State and Georgia Tech #2-3. Then came UCLA, Alabama, (still impressed by their Orange Bowl destruction of Syracuse), Oklahoma, Ohio state, with their young coach Woody Hayes, Southern Cal, Maryland and Duke. That first week the Irish beat the Sooners, Tech saw its 18 game winning streak come to an end in a 0-0 tie against Florida. Per “50 Years of College Football” Their streak “blew away in hurricane conditions”. It doesn’t say but I’d guess conditions were similar at Mobile, Alabama, where the Tide was tied by LSU, 7-7. The next week there was still another tie, between Oklahoma and Pittsburgh in the Steel City, 7-7. The next we week the now 16th ranked Sooners, a disappointing 0-1-1, beat #15 Texas 19-14, the first of 47 consecutive victories. That same day, young Hayes had a difficult day in Columbus against speedy Illinois and its new star, J. C. Caroline. (My dad used to tell me that J. C. was the O. J. of the 50’s – he rushed for 1,256 yards that year, leading the nation by a whopping margin of 312 yards!). The Illini blew out to a 21-0 lead, say the Buckeyes come back to make it 21-20 at the half, (a very high score between top teams in that era). Illinois then intercepted a pass on the second play of the second half and went on to totally dominate and win going away, 41-20. Caroline ran for 192 yards and 2 scores, one on a “mesmerizing 64 yard scoring sprint”. In week 4, UCLA was nipped by Stanford, 20-21 and Duke lost to Army 13-14. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts….
Saturday October 24th was a seminal day in college football. Michigan State’s 28 game winning streak and Georgia Tech’s 31 game unbeaten streak, both dating back to 1950, came to an end. And Notre Dame’s Frank Leahy almost died. The Spartans finally had scheduled enough Big Ten games to give them a shot at the championship and the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately, that included a trip to Purdue, a school that has probably produced more prominent upsets than any other. The Boilermakers intercepted 5 Tom Yewcic passes and finally scored themselves early in the 4th quarter but couldn’t convert the extra point. LeRoy Bolden returned the subsequent kickoff 95 yards for a score but one of his teammates had clipped a Purdue player “far behind the flow of the play”, (per ”The Spartans” by Fred W. Stanley) and the score remained 0-6, which is how it ended. It was the Spartan’s first shut out in 59 games. Stanley: “The winning streak had grown oppressive. State had been faltering. It was playing defensive football instead of the all-out hell-for-leather game of which it was capable and even mediocre clubs were giving it fits.” Don’t you just hate winning streaks?
Meanwhile at South Bend, Notre Dame engineered a 7-0 halftime advantage over Georgia Tech. Frank Leahy walked toward the locker room, trying to ignore chest pains he had begun feeling. He started to write out some notes for his halftime lecture, then blacked out. Rappoport: “One of the Notre Dame fathers thought he was dying and gave him the last rites of the church. Leahy was rushed to the hospital in the ambulance held at the ready for the players. Before the players went out on the field for the second half, they prayed that Leahy would live…The Fighting Irish looked sluggish, in a state of shock. Their 7-0 halftime lead quickly disappeared as Georgia tech stormed back. ‘Then the boys got mad’ Lattner remembers. ‘They talked about the coach now and then but they also began to play football for them. They survived penalties, came up with key plays in the pinches – including as fine a catch as I’ve ever seen by Don Penza who went up with three Tech defenders to make a fingertip catch of Guglielmi’s bullet pass….The second team, which had saved the day against Pitt, was most affected by the dressing room tragedy. Two fumbles deep in Irish territory, both recovered by Tech, put the game in severe jeopardy. The first team had to play 50 minutes but it finished strong while tech was faltering in the closing minutes of the game.”
“Notre Dame had a 20-14 lead near the end and the ball on the 2 yard line of Georgia Tech when the student body called the play. They sang “Happy Birthday” to Lattner and everyone in the stadium, including Georgia Tech, knew who was going to carry the ball. Lattner went in standing up to celebrate his 21st birthday and cap the day’s scoring….the victory apparently had a therapeutic effect on Leahy because he was back on his feet a few days later. Leahy had suffered a severe intestinal spasm, (other sources call is “acute pancreatitis”) and was forced to curtail some of his work…..Leahy was relegated to supervisory duties instead of his usual rigorous coaching routine. Finally, for the Iowa, game, Leahy joined the team on the bench. But ti turned out, it was no place for a sick man.”
You Tube has the highlights of this game:
1953 Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech
Notre Dame appears to be wearing green jerseys in this one. They are certainly lighter than the Oklahoma game clip above. Ralph Guglielmi appears in on the cover of the 1954 Street and Smiths:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81ICV5hBBFL._SY587_.jpg
Georgia Tech assistant coach Frank Broyles assessment of Notre Dame: They have more power than any team should have.”
The undefeated teams in the October 26 poll were: 1) Notre Dame 4-0-0; 2) Maryland 6-0-0; 3) Baylor 5-0-0; 4) Illinois 4-0-1; 5) West Virginia 5-0-0; 7) Southern California 5-0-1. Michigan State at 4-1, was the #6 team in the polls. On October 31, USC lost to Oregon 7-13. The other unbeatens won that week. On November 7th, Texas spoiled Baylor’s dreams 21-20. On November 14th, 6-0-1 Illinois traveled to Madison to take on Wisconsin, 5-2. It was a battle with the two supreme running backs of the year, J.C. Caroline, who dominated the rushing yards race and Alan Ameche, on his way to setting the career NCAA rushing record and winning the 1954 Heisman Trophy, (Lattner would win in 1953, with lesser statistics). Ameche won the day with 145 of the Badgers’ 383 rushing yards on 17 carries while Caroline was held to 83 on 25 carries. Wisconsin crushed Illinois 34-7.
That left two unbeaten teams: Notre Dame and Maryland. Then Iowa came to South Bend. I have three sources describing this game: Wake Up the Echoes” by Ken Rappoport; “Football’s Unforgettable Games” by Harold Claassen and “50 years of College Football” by Bob Boyles and Paul Guido. The chapter in the Claassen book on this game is entitled “Is there a doctor in the house?” Iowa had a deceiving 5-3 record. After losing their opener 7-21 to Michigan State they’d lost 13-14 at Michigan and 6-10 at Wisconsin. They’d beaten Washington State, Wyoming, (then a strong mid-major), Indiana, Purdue and Minnesota by a combined 147-32. Forrest Evashevski, who used to open holes for Tom Harmon at Michigan, was turning the Hawkeyes into a powerhouse that wouldn’t really blossom until the late 50’s. Notre Dame was already a powerhouse at 7-0 (215-97) against one of the country’s toughest schedules, (including Oklahoma and Georgia Tech) and a #1 ranking.
“The young Hawkeyes were unimpressed and unrattled by their task. Notre Dame staged a drive in the first period which dusty rice halted by intercepting a Guglielmi pass. Iowa took over on its 29. The Hawkeyes hurled their attack into the teeth of the vaunted Irish defense. Broeder got loose on a 30 yard quick opener up the middle as a feature of an 8 play advance made entirely on the ground. Vincent broke over tackle from the 13 for a touchdown.” The conversion gave the visitors a 7-0 lead, which they still had late in the first half.
“For most of the half Notre Dame moved, moved and moved some more in a demonstration of ball control. At one point the Irish had possession for nearly 7 minutes. Iowa had the ball for only 18 plays in the entire first two periods. Time was running out when Guglielmi, unable to send the Irish across the Iowa goal via the running game, took to the air form his 42. His passes covered 43 of the 46 yards to the Iowa 12. The clock was going to kill the chance until (Frank) Varrichione screamed and staggered. His collapse to the turf brought an official’s time out for an injured player with two seconds left. Varrichione was replaced Guglielmi had time for a quick pass, spotted Shannon unguarded on the goal line and completed the 12 yard scoring strike. Don Schaefer booted the tying conversion.”
“Broeder and Lattner spent the third period in strategic punting. The break both sides were seeking came late in the final quarter. Broeder intercepted a Guglielmi toss and returned it six yards to his 48. Broeder and Vincent hammered the line for short, consistent chunks of yardage until Iowa had a first down on the Irish 6. Three plays yielded only two yards. On fourth down Evashevski sent in elusive little reserve halfback Bob Stearnes, who caught the defense napping by throwing a southpaw pass to Gilliam for the touchdown. Freeman again converted and the Hawkeyes led 14 to 7 with two minutes, six seconds left.”
“Guglielmi had no choice now. As soon as Notre Dame got the kickoff, the Irish went aloft. Guglielmi hit halfback Joe heap with a 12 yard pass, then 17 to Lattner, 9 to heap, 11 to Lattner. Again the race was on with the clock. A pass missed connections from the Iowa 9. Now it was Captain Penza and Hunter who drew time with injuries. While the doctors worked on them, Notre Dame set its strategy. The hand on the clock showed 6 seconds to go. Guglielmi threw another last-chance pass which Shannon fielded in his midsection for a score. Schaefer’s kick completed the 14-14 tie amid bedlam.” Notre dame had out-gained Iowa 358-198 and controlled the ball most of the time. Three interceptions by Iowa were a big factor. But all anybody talked about was the faked injuries.
Rappoport reports that “one observer noted that (Varrichione, who became known as “Fainting Frank”), was only injured when struck by the thought that Iowa was ahead.” Guglielmi responded that Frank “was really hurt – he got taken out of the ballgame.” Ken notes that “However, it stretched the imagination somewhat when and identical situation existed late in the game….This time Guglielmi concedes it was faked. Apparently, everyone else knew it, too, except for the officials, who called a time out. Guglielmi recalls with a chuckle, ‘We had to go around kicking them in the ass and telling them to get up.” Still, the Chicago Tribute described Varrichione as “the most accomplished faker.” Umpire Don Elsner: I do not want the responsibility of passing judgement on the seriousness of a player’s injury. When there is a man down on the field, there is only one thing to do: stop the play and that’s what we did.”
“Feigning injuries to preserve precious time was not new but never more dramatic. A national furor followed….Leahy’s enemies screamed bloody murder and started a national clamor….The NCAA determined that the feigned injury play was ‘dishonest, unsportsmenlike and contrary to the rules… The NCAA not only slapped Leahy’s wrist but the Rules Committee eventually slapped his face by legislating against feigned injuries. It was seen as a put-down of the Notre Dame coach. Leahy-haters rejoiced.” (Where is that legislation now?) Broyles and Guido: “Notre Dame’s image was tarnished as it became the subject of national editorials. The press held the Fighting Irish to a higher standard.”
“Notre Dame had both accusers and supporters in the press.” One of the accusers was, naturally enough, Forest Evashevski, who updated Grantland Rice: “When the great Scorer comes to write against your name, he writes not that you won or lost but how come we got gypped at Notre Dame?” Leahy “answered critics…by saying he had noted no such condemnation of other teams when there they had resorted to similar tactics.” He cited the 1949 game against Southern Methodist, (a 27-20 ND win),: “near the end, the Mustangs feigned injuries to gain time, play after play”; the 1952 game against Oklahoma, (a 27-20 ND win): “One of their players lay sprawled. This stopped the clock and gave them a chance to get off one more pass. It didn’t click but it could have”; 1952 in Pittsburgh: “A feigned injury near the end of the first half gave us time to throw a touchdown pass. Nobody said anything about it. We lost the game, 22-19. There may be a connection.” Broyles and Guido add “Iowa used similar tactics earlier in the season”, without giving details.
Leahy quoted Rockne: “Be sure that the man who fakes the injury had the most capable replacement.” He added: “Other coaches have told their players the same thing. Just ask any coach or player you know at the college, high school or even the grade school level. Yet you probably never heard about a feigned injury until our Iowa game and I’ll tell you why. Usually, the extra seconds gained avail a team little or nothing. Against Iowa, we used the extra seconds to score two touchdowns, a tribute to Notre Dame‘s typical determination and poise. It seems to me that the feigned-injury controversy was caused not by what was done, but by who did it and how successfully.”
(You-Tube has nothing on this game.)
Thirteen years later, Notre Dame would survive a tie with Michigan State by crushing USC 51-0 the next week and win the national championship over not only the Spartans but a 10-0 Alabama team. They tried the same thing in 1953: they closed out the season with a 48-14 win over the 9th ranked Trojans and a 40-14 triumph over SMU. But it didn’t work: Maryland’s steam-roller assumed the #1 slot after the Iowa game and their revenge tour victories over the two teams that had beaten them the year before: 38-0 over Mississippi and 21-0 over Alabama. That closed out their season at 10-0-0 (298-31) and ranked #1 with 9-0-1 Notre Dame #2, (after being #1 all season), 8-1 Michigan State #3 and Oklahoma, who had won 8 in a row since their 0-1-1 start, (on their way to 47 in a row) #4. #5 was an 8-1-0 UCLA team that had lost one game by one point.
Notre Dame didn’t do bowl games in those days but Maryland and Oklahoma did and were matched in the Orange Bowl. Michigan State finally got to go to the Rose Bowl as Big Ten champs and took on UCLA. The result was two titanic battles that meant nothing in those days as there were no polls after the bowls but which would mean a great deal to modern fans.
The big one was in Miami where the Sooners, 8 games in to their 47 game winning streak, took on the Terps. It was the nation’s #1 defense, (Maryland 3 points and 84 rushing yards per game) against its top rushing team, (Oklahoma with 306 ypg). From “Big Bowl Football” by Fred Russell and George Leonard: “The tangibles favored Maryland. If you considered only the intangible factors – morale, thoroughness of preparation, hard work, enthusiasm – Oklahoma was the choice. Seldom had a coach asked a team to work so hard for a bowl battle as Bud Wilkinson asked his Sooners.“ The day before the game, an Oklahoma assistant said “If Maryland was only two touchdowns better at the end of the regular season, we’ll beat them. Our boys are ready to overcome that much of a handicap.”
A goal line stand in the first period turned the favorites away. Maryland pinned Oklahoma on its own 1 yard line with a punt. They got the ball back, after forcing a punt, on the Oklahoma 36 and drove to the 4. They got to the 1 foot line but no farther in four plays. Two subsequent field goal attempts from 44 and just 11 yards were wide before the momentum shifted to the Sooners. An 11 play 80 yard drive resulted in a 25 yard touchdown run by halfback Larry Grigg. It proved to be the only score of the game. Grigg ran for 89 yards and on defense recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass. Chet “the Jet” Hanulak returned a punt to the Oklahoma 44 in the third period. Ralph Felton burst for 15 yards. But the drive went no farther. Later Hanulak broke free on a punt return but was tackled by the last man who could have stopped him, Buddy Leake. In the fourth quarter Charley Boxold threw into the end zone but the ball was intercepted. That was it. Oklahoma 7 Maryland 0, the first time the Terps had been shut out in 51 games.
Maryland held Oklahoma to 230 net yards but 206 were on the ground while the Terps totaled only 212 yards, 176 on the ground. A late-season knee injury to Maryland QB Bernie Faloney was a factor. There were rumors that the Oklahoma players were going to “rack him up” but that proved to be false. Not only were the Sooners good sports but they “had swarmed over (Faloney’s back-up Charley) Boxhold gang tackled the running backs, covered punts aggressively and displayed overwhelming speed in the line” per Paul Attner, author of “The Terrapins”. Per “50 Years of College Football” “Several Sooners felt afterwards that their September opponent, Notre Dame, might have been superior to Maryland.”
(I could find nothing on You-Tube about this game, either, but this photo show’s Grigg dramatically plunging into the end zone for the winning score:
In Pasadena, UCLA was determined to spoil Michigan State’s first Rose Bowl trip. They took a 14-0 lead after recovering two fumbles in Michigan State territory. With 5 minutes left in the first half, Paul Cameron of UCLA dropped back to his own 15 yard line to punt. In a famous photograph, Ellis Duckett of Michigan State broke through the line, leaped and blocked the punt.
From “Big Bowl Football”: “The snap from center was a bit soft. It was a bit high besides. Duckett hustled in unchecked. He blocked the kick in almost the instant Cameron’s foot thumped the ball Expertly, Duckett, maintaining his feet, scooped it up on the 6 and ran across the goal line for a sudden, easy touchdown. The deed staggered UCLA. Simultaneously it picked up the Spartans who had been stalled until then. It changed the complexion of the game.” It was a classic before-the-half momentum . The Spartans went 78 yards in 14 plays with the second half tick-off to tie the game. After a Cameron quick-kick, State drove 73 yards for another score to take the lead. Still another recovered fumble on the Spartan’s 24 allowed the Bruins to score on a short drive but the extra point was missed. Billy Wells clinched the victory for the Spartans with a 62 yard punt return for a score in the 4th quarter. The final score was Michigan State 28 UCLA 20. Billy had already scored a date with Debbie Reynolds at the Rose Bowl banquet so he was a very happy fella. State had been out-gained 206-242 but they had out-rushed the Bruins 195-90 and bunched their yards together on this two third quarter drives.
Here is a film of the game, narrated by Biggie Munn:
1954 Rose Bowl MSU Film Reel (Michigan State 28 UCLA 20)
Duckett’s big block is at the 16:30 mark while Wells’ clinching punt return is at 39:55.
It was the last game Biggie Munn ever coached. He retired from that job at age 45 to be State’s full-time athletic director, a job he held for the next 18 years. He spent much of that time criticizing his successor, Duffy Daugherty, who won too many games to get fired. There was a famous incident in which Duffy had to order Biggie to leave his locker room after he stormed in to complain about the coaching staff, (which included Bob Devaney, Dan Devine and Bill Yeoman). Biggie died in 1975 at age 66 from a stroke. Maybe he shouldn’t have worried so much about how Duffy was doing. Frank Leahy also retired that year for his health, also at age 45. He, too had a few things to say about his successors but otherwise tried to stay away from football, trying “various business projects with indifferent success“, (per “Wake Up the Echoes).” Then he was going to coach at Texas A&M but his doctors “did not deem it advisable”. He was briefly the first General Manager of the Los Angeles Chargers, (yes, they were in LA their first year), but again resigned due to ill health. He briefly had a TV show and a newspaper column. He developed leukemia and when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970, he had to be helped to podium to give his speech. He died in 1973 at the age of 64. His heart stopped five times on the day he died and started back up again- four times. Red Sanders of UCLA died of a heart attack in 1958 during a session with a prostitute, (which kept him out of the Hall of Fame until 1996). Jim Tatum of Maryland died at age 46 in 1959 of “a rickettsial disease similar to typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever" (Wikipedia). Of the coaches of the top teams of 1953, the only one to live a normal life span was Bud Wilkinson, who died at age 77 in 1994.
The big issue in 1953 was one that should resonate with Syracuse’s modern day fans: feigned injuries to stop the clock.
The season got off with a bang: Notre Dame invaded Norman, Oklahoma on a sweltering day to take on the Oklahoma Sooners. Frank Leahy had gotten past the limitations imposed on his football program by the Notre Dame administration in the wake of all their 1940’s success and built a new powerhouse. Bud Wilkinson’s Sooners were also on the verge of returning to greatness after their great success of 1948-50. From “50 years of College Football” by Bob Boyles and Paul Guido:
“The Irish started in a hole at their own 2 yard line after HB Johnny Lattner bobbled the opening kick-off and the Sooners jumped to a 7-0 lead after tackle Dick Bowman recovered a fumble at the Notre Dame 23….OU HB Larry Grigg cut inside end Carl Allison’s block and dashed over on the 8th play of a short drive. After Notre Dame recovered a fumble at the Oklahoma 15, QB Ralph Guglielmi, (pronounced Goul –Yami), lofted a short TD pass to HB Joe Heap. The teams traded second quarter TDs: Sooners little HB Jack Ging tallied after QB Buddy Leake faked handoff to permit Allison to break open for 62 yard to the Irish 18. Notre Dame countered with what Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson thought was the game’s biggest play. Tackle Frank Varrichione blocked FB’s Max Boydston’s quick kick and end don Penza recovered at the Oklahoma 9. Guglielmi soon score don an option run to send the teams to the half at 14-14. Heap’s 36 yard catch in the end zone broke the third quarter tie after Guglielmi intercepted (a pass from) Leake and Worden followed with a 9 yard TD run for a 28-14 margin. Oklahoma HB Merrill Green used great blocking to steam 60 yards for a TD on a punt return….With 5 minutes remaining, the Irish prevailed because of the game’s biggest play from Johnny Lattner…From the Sooner’s 40, Leake slipped a screen pass to Allison who zipped 17 yards behind 2 blockers. But last tackler Lattner slipped between them to drop Allison at the ND 43 to effectively end the threat.” This was Oklahoma’s first home loss in 25 games and their last loss of any kind until Notre Dame beat then again Norman four years later. When I was a kid my older brother had a collection of NFL football cards and Ralph Guglielmi, (Redskins)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Ralph_Guglielmi_-_1955_Bowman.jpg
and Max Boydston (Cardinals)
https://images.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2007/231/21023740_118770611589.jpg
were among them. ‘Little’ Jack Ging became an actor and appears in many movie and TV productions from the mid 50’s onward:
Jack Ging - Wikipedia
And here is the game on You-Tube:
(The film is black and white. The Irish jerseys appear to be dark blue – they sometimes wore green- while the Sooners are in bright red, another example of both teams wearing colored jerseys in the old days.)
Johnny Lattner, from “Wake Up the Echoes” by Ken Rappoport: “They wouldn’t let us stay in Oklahoma City for the game. We had to stay in Guthrie, a one-street place that had one hotel in the whole town. The hotel didn’t have any air conditioning and ti was awful. We worked out Friday afternoon and then had to go back to that hotel and it was terribly hot. Well, we found out the next day why we had to stay there. Right before the game Leahy walked into the dressing room and said we couldn’t stay in Oklahoma City because of the fact that on our squad we have two color ballplayers and the would let us stay in any of the big hotels in Oklahoma City. Leahy said they had forced us into this small, uncomfortable hotel in Guthrie. Well, you could imagine 35, 40 kids thinking this way. I don’t know if it was true or not. Leahy was a psychologist and he would tell an untruth if necessary to motivate you. Here we were in this dinky hotel, getting madder every day and, right before the game, he tells us this.”
Guglielmi both played quarterback and intercepted a pass in that game because the NCAA had tried to legislate a return to one platoon football by passing a rule that if a player left a game in a quarter, he could not play until the next quarter. Teams generally had a first team that went both ways and played until late in the first and third quarters, then gave way to a second team that played into the second and fourth quarters. They chipped away at the rules for the next decade and then finally gave up the ghost and allowed unlimited substitutions in 1964. Also, freshmen ineligibility was reinstated this year so first year players were sophomores until 1972, when freshmen became eligible again.
The writer expected Leahy’s team to make a strong comeback and made them their pre-season #1 with the two top teams of 1952, Michigan State and Georgia Tech #2-3. Then came UCLA, Alabama, (still impressed by their Orange Bowl destruction of Syracuse), Oklahoma, Ohio state, with their young coach Woody Hayes, Southern Cal, Maryland and Duke. That first week the Irish beat the Sooners, Tech saw its 18 game winning streak come to an end in a 0-0 tie against Florida. Per “50 Years of College Football” Their streak “blew away in hurricane conditions”. It doesn’t say but I’d guess conditions were similar at Mobile, Alabama, where the Tide was tied by LSU, 7-7. The next week there was still another tie, between Oklahoma and Pittsburgh in the Steel City, 7-7. The next we week the now 16th ranked Sooners, a disappointing 0-1-1, beat #15 Texas 19-14, the first of 47 consecutive victories. That same day, young Hayes had a difficult day in Columbus against speedy Illinois and its new star, J. C. Caroline. (My dad used to tell me that J. C. was the O. J. of the 50’s – he rushed for 1,256 yards that year, leading the nation by a whopping margin of 312 yards!). The Illini blew out to a 21-0 lead, say the Buckeyes come back to make it 21-20 at the half, (a very high score between top teams in that era). Illinois then intercepted a pass on the second play of the second half and went on to totally dominate and win going away, 41-20. Caroline ran for 192 yards and 2 scores, one on a “mesmerizing 64 yard scoring sprint”. In week 4, UCLA was nipped by Stanford, 20-21 and Duke lost to Army 13-14. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts….
Saturday October 24th was a seminal day in college football. Michigan State’s 28 game winning streak and Georgia Tech’s 31 game unbeaten streak, both dating back to 1950, came to an end. And Notre Dame’s Frank Leahy almost died. The Spartans finally had scheduled enough Big Ten games to give them a shot at the championship and the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately, that included a trip to Purdue, a school that has probably produced more prominent upsets than any other. The Boilermakers intercepted 5 Tom Yewcic passes and finally scored themselves early in the 4th quarter but couldn’t convert the extra point. LeRoy Bolden returned the subsequent kickoff 95 yards for a score but one of his teammates had clipped a Purdue player “far behind the flow of the play”, (per ”The Spartans” by Fred W. Stanley) and the score remained 0-6, which is how it ended. It was the Spartan’s first shut out in 59 games. Stanley: “The winning streak had grown oppressive. State had been faltering. It was playing defensive football instead of the all-out hell-for-leather game of which it was capable and even mediocre clubs were giving it fits.” Don’t you just hate winning streaks?
Meanwhile at South Bend, Notre Dame engineered a 7-0 halftime advantage over Georgia Tech. Frank Leahy walked toward the locker room, trying to ignore chest pains he had begun feeling. He started to write out some notes for his halftime lecture, then blacked out. Rappoport: “One of the Notre Dame fathers thought he was dying and gave him the last rites of the church. Leahy was rushed to the hospital in the ambulance held at the ready for the players. Before the players went out on the field for the second half, they prayed that Leahy would live…The Fighting Irish looked sluggish, in a state of shock. Their 7-0 halftime lead quickly disappeared as Georgia tech stormed back. ‘Then the boys got mad’ Lattner remembers. ‘They talked about the coach now and then but they also began to play football for them. They survived penalties, came up with key plays in the pinches – including as fine a catch as I’ve ever seen by Don Penza who went up with three Tech defenders to make a fingertip catch of Guglielmi’s bullet pass….The second team, which had saved the day against Pitt, was most affected by the dressing room tragedy. Two fumbles deep in Irish territory, both recovered by Tech, put the game in severe jeopardy. The first team had to play 50 minutes but it finished strong while tech was faltering in the closing minutes of the game.”
“Notre Dame had a 20-14 lead near the end and the ball on the 2 yard line of Georgia Tech when the student body called the play. They sang “Happy Birthday” to Lattner and everyone in the stadium, including Georgia Tech, knew who was going to carry the ball. Lattner went in standing up to celebrate his 21st birthday and cap the day’s scoring….the victory apparently had a therapeutic effect on Leahy because he was back on his feet a few days later. Leahy had suffered a severe intestinal spasm, (other sources call is “acute pancreatitis”) and was forced to curtail some of his work…..Leahy was relegated to supervisory duties instead of his usual rigorous coaching routine. Finally, for the Iowa, game, Leahy joined the team on the bench. But ti turned out, it was no place for a sick man.”
You Tube has the highlights of this game:
1953 Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech
Notre Dame appears to be wearing green jerseys in this one. They are certainly lighter than the Oklahoma game clip above. Ralph Guglielmi appears in on the cover of the 1954 Street and Smiths:
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Georgia Tech assistant coach Frank Broyles assessment of Notre Dame: They have more power than any team should have.”
The undefeated teams in the October 26 poll were: 1) Notre Dame 4-0-0; 2) Maryland 6-0-0; 3) Baylor 5-0-0; 4) Illinois 4-0-1; 5) West Virginia 5-0-0; 7) Southern California 5-0-1. Michigan State at 4-1, was the #6 team in the polls. On October 31, USC lost to Oregon 7-13. The other unbeatens won that week. On November 7th, Texas spoiled Baylor’s dreams 21-20. On November 14th, 6-0-1 Illinois traveled to Madison to take on Wisconsin, 5-2. It was a battle with the two supreme running backs of the year, J.C. Caroline, who dominated the rushing yards race and Alan Ameche, on his way to setting the career NCAA rushing record and winning the 1954 Heisman Trophy, (Lattner would win in 1953, with lesser statistics). Ameche won the day with 145 of the Badgers’ 383 rushing yards on 17 carries while Caroline was held to 83 on 25 carries. Wisconsin crushed Illinois 34-7.
That left two unbeaten teams: Notre Dame and Maryland. Then Iowa came to South Bend. I have three sources describing this game: Wake Up the Echoes” by Ken Rappoport; “Football’s Unforgettable Games” by Harold Claassen and “50 years of College Football” by Bob Boyles and Paul Guido. The chapter in the Claassen book on this game is entitled “Is there a doctor in the house?” Iowa had a deceiving 5-3 record. After losing their opener 7-21 to Michigan State they’d lost 13-14 at Michigan and 6-10 at Wisconsin. They’d beaten Washington State, Wyoming, (then a strong mid-major), Indiana, Purdue and Minnesota by a combined 147-32. Forrest Evashevski, who used to open holes for Tom Harmon at Michigan, was turning the Hawkeyes into a powerhouse that wouldn’t really blossom until the late 50’s. Notre Dame was already a powerhouse at 7-0 (215-97) against one of the country’s toughest schedules, (including Oklahoma and Georgia Tech) and a #1 ranking.
“The young Hawkeyes were unimpressed and unrattled by their task. Notre Dame staged a drive in the first period which dusty rice halted by intercepting a Guglielmi pass. Iowa took over on its 29. The Hawkeyes hurled their attack into the teeth of the vaunted Irish defense. Broeder got loose on a 30 yard quick opener up the middle as a feature of an 8 play advance made entirely on the ground. Vincent broke over tackle from the 13 for a touchdown.” The conversion gave the visitors a 7-0 lead, which they still had late in the first half.
“For most of the half Notre Dame moved, moved and moved some more in a demonstration of ball control. At one point the Irish had possession for nearly 7 minutes. Iowa had the ball for only 18 plays in the entire first two periods. Time was running out when Guglielmi, unable to send the Irish across the Iowa goal via the running game, took to the air form his 42. His passes covered 43 of the 46 yards to the Iowa 12. The clock was going to kill the chance until (Frank) Varrichione screamed and staggered. His collapse to the turf brought an official’s time out for an injured player with two seconds left. Varrichione was replaced Guglielmi had time for a quick pass, spotted Shannon unguarded on the goal line and completed the 12 yard scoring strike. Don Schaefer booted the tying conversion.”
“Broeder and Lattner spent the third period in strategic punting. The break both sides were seeking came late in the final quarter. Broeder intercepted a Guglielmi toss and returned it six yards to his 48. Broeder and Vincent hammered the line for short, consistent chunks of yardage until Iowa had a first down on the Irish 6. Three plays yielded only two yards. On fourth down Evashevski sent in elusive little reserve halfback Bob Stearnes, who caught the defense napping by throwing a southpaw pass to Gilliam for the touchdown. Freeman again converted and the Hawkeyes led 14 to 7 with two minutes, six seconds left.”
“Guglielmi had no choice now. As soon as Notre Dame got the kickoff, the Irish went aloft. Guglielmi hit halfback Joe heap with a 12 yard pass, then 17 to Lattner, 9 to heap, 11 to Lattner. Again the race was on with the clock. A pass missed connections from the Iowa 9. Now it was Captain Penza and Hunter who drew time with injuries. While the doctors worked on them, Notre Dame set its strategy. The hand on the clock showed 6 seconds to go. Guglielmi threw another last-chance pass which Shannon fielded in his midsection for a score. Schaefer’s kick completed the 14-14 tie amid bedlam.” Notre dame had out-gained Iowa 358-198 and controlled the ball most of the time. Three interceptions by Iowa were a big factor. But all anybody talked about was the faked injuries.
Rappoport reports that “one observer noted that (Varrichione, who became known as “Fainting Frank”), was only injured when struck by the thought that Iowa was ahead.” Guglielmi responded that Frank “was really hurt – he got taken out of the ballgame.” Ken notes that “However, it stretched the imagination somewhat when and identical situation existed late in the game….This time Guglielmi concedes it was faked. Apparently, everyone else knew it, too, except for the officials, who called a time out. Guglielmi recalls with a chuckle, ‘We had to go around kicking them in the ass and telling them to get up.” Still, the Chicago Tribute described Varrichione as “the most accomplished faker.” Umpire Don Elsner: I do not want the responsibility of passing judgement on the seriousness of a player’s injury. When there is a man down on the field, there is only one thing to do: stop the play and that’s what we did.”
“Feigning injuries to preserve precious time was not new but never more dramatic. A national furor followed….Leahy’s enemies screamed bloody murder and started a national clamor….The NCAA determined that the feigned injury play was ‘dishonest, unsportsmenlike and contrary to the rules… The NCAA not only slapped Leahy’s wrist but the Rules Committee eventually slapped his face by legislating against feigned injuries. It was seen as a put-down of the Notre Dame coach. Leahy-haters rejoiced.” (Where is that legislation now?) Broyles and Guido: “Notre Dame’s image was tarnished as it became the subject of national editorials. The press held the Fighting Irish to a higher standard.”
“Notre Dame had both accusers and supporters in the press.” One of the accusers was, naturally enough, Forest Evashevski, who updated Grantland Rice: “When the great Scorer comes to write against your name, he writes not that you won or lost but how come we got gypped at Notre Dame?” Leahy “answered critics…by saying he had noted no such condemnation of other teams when there they had resorted to similar tactics.” He cited the 1949 game against Southern Methodist, (a 27-20 ND win),: “near the end, the Mustangs feigned injuries to gain time, play after play”; the 1952 game against Oklahoma, (a 27-20 ND win): “One of their players lay sprawled. This stopped the clock and gave them a chance to get off one more pass. It didn’t click but it could have”; 1952 in Pittsburgh: “A feigned injury near the end of the first half gave us time to throw a touchdown pass. Nobody said anything about it. We lost the game, 22-19. There may be a connection.” Broyles and Guido add “Iowa used similar tactics earlier in the season”, without giving details.
Leahy quoted Rockne: “Be sure that the man who fakes the injury had the most capable replacement.” He added: “Other coaches have told their players the same thing. Just ask any coach or player you know at the college, high school or even the grade school level. Yet you probably never heard about a feigned injury until our Iowa game and I’ll tell you why. Usually, the extra seconds gained avail a team little or nothing. Against Iowa, we used the extra seconds to score two touchdowns, a tribute to Notre Dame‘s typical determination and poise. It seems to me that the feigned-injury controversy was caused not by what was done, but by who did it and how successfully.”
(You-Tube has nothing on this game.)
Thirteen years later, Notre Dame would survive a tie with Michigan State by crushing USC 51-0 the next week and win the national championship over not only the Spartans but a 10-0 Alabama team. They tried the same thing in 1953: they closed out the season with a 48-14 win over the 9th ranked Trojans and a 40-14 triumph over SMU. But it didn’t work: Maryland’s steam-roller assumed the #1 slot after the Iowa game and their revenge tour victories over the two teams that had beaten them the year before: 38-0 over Mississippi and 21-0 over Alabama. That closed out their season at 10-0-0 (298-31) and ranked #1 with 9-0-1 Notre Dame #2, (after being #1 all season), 8-1 Michigan State #3 and Oklahoma, who had won 8 in a row since their 0-1-1 start, (on their way to 47 in a row) #4. #5 was an 8-1-0 UCLA team that had lost one game by one point.
Notre Dame didn’t do bowl games in those days but Maryland and Oklahoma did and were matched in the Orange Bowl. Michigan State finally got to go to the Rose Bowl as Big Ten champs and took on UCLA. The result was two titanic battles that meant nothing in those days as there were no polls after the bowls but which would mean a great deal to modern fans.
The big one was in Miami where the Sooners, 8 games in to their 47 game winning streak, took on the Terps. It was the nation’s #1 defense, (Maryland 3 points and 84 rushing yards per game) against its top rushing team, (Oklahoma with 306 ypg). From “Big Bowl Football” by Fred Russell and George Leonard: “The tangibles favored Maryland. If you considered only the intangible factors – morale, thoroughness of preparation, hard work, enthusiasm – Oklahoma was the choice. Seldom had a coach asked a team to work so hard for a bowl battle as Bud Wilkinson asked his Sooners.“ The day before the game, an Oklahoma assistant said “If Maryland was only two touchdowns better at the end of the regular season, we’ll beat them. Our boys are ready to overcome that much of a handicap.”
A goal line stand in the first period turned the favorites away. Maryland pinned Oklahoma on its own 1 yard line with a punt. They got the ball back, after forcing a punt, on the Oklahoma 36 and drove to the 4. They got to the 1 foot line but no farther in four plays. Two subsequent field goal attempts from 44 and just 11 yards were wide before the momentum shifted to the Sooners. An 11 play 80 yard drive resulted in a 25 yard touchdown run by halfback Larry Grigg. It proved to be the only score of the game. Grigg ran for 89 yards and on defense recovered a fumble and intercepted a pass. Chet “the Jet” Hanulak returned a punt to the Oklahoma 44 in the third period. Ralph Felton burst for 15 yards. But the drive went no farther. Later Hanulak broke free on a punt return but was tackled by the last man who could have stopped him, Buddy Leake. In the fourth quarter Charley Boxold threw into the end zone but the ball was intercepted. That was it. Oklahoma 7 Maryland 0, the first time the Terps had been shut out in 51 games.
Maryland held Oklahoma to 230 net yards but 206 were on the ground while the Terps totaled only 212 yards, 176 on the ground. A late-season knee injury to Maryland QB Bernie Faloney was a factor. There were rumors that the Oklahoma players were going to “rack him up” but that proved to be false. Not only were the Sooners good sports but they “had swarmed over (Faloney’s back-up Charley) Boxhold gang tackled the running backs, covered punts aggressively and displayed overwhelming speed in the line” per Paul Attner, author of “The Terrapins”. Per “50 Years of College Football” “Several Sooners felt afterwards that their September opponent, Notre Dame, might have been superior to Maryland.”
(I could find nothing on You-Tube about this game, either, but this photo show’s Grigg dramatically plunging into the end zone for the winning score:
In Pasadena, UCLA was determined to spoil Michigan State’s first Rose Bowl trip. They took a 14-0 lead after recovering two fumbles in Michigan State territory. With 5 minutes left in the first half, Paul Cameron of UCLA dropped back to his own 15 yard line to punt. In a famous photograph, Ellis Duckett of Michigan State broke through the line, leaped and blocked the punt.
From “Big Bowl Football”: “The snap from center was a bit soft. It was a bit high besides. Duckett hustled in unchecked. He blocked the kick in almost the instant Cameron’s foot thumped the ball Expertly, Duckett, maintaining his feet, scooped it up on the 6 and ran across the goal line for a sudden, easy touchdown. The deed staggered UCLA. Simultaneously it picked up the Spartans who had been stalled until then. It changed the complexion of the game.” It was a classic before-the-half momentum . The Spartans went 78 yards in 14 plays with the second half tick-off to tie the game. After a Cameron quick-kick, State drove 73 yards for another score to take the lead. Still another recovered fumble on the Spartan’s 24 allowed the Bruins to score on a short drive but the extra point was missed. Billy Wells clinched the victory for the Spartans with a 62 yard punt return for a score in the 4th quarter. The final score was Michigan State 28 UCLA 20. Billy had already scored a date with Debbie Reynolds at the Rose Bowl banquet so he was a very happy fella. State had been out-gained 206-242 but they had out-rushed the Bruins 195-90 and bunched their yards together on this two third quarter drives.
Here is a film of the game, narrated by Biggie Munn:
1954 Rose Bowl MSU Film Reel (Michigan State 28 UCLA 20)
Duckett’s big block is at the 16:30 mark while Wells’ clinching punt return is at 39:55.
It was the last game Biggie Munn ever coached. He retired from that job at age 45 to be State’s full-time athletic director, a job he held for the next 18 years. He spent much of that time criticizing his successor, Duffy Daugherty, who won too many games to get fired. There was a famous incident in which Duffy had to order Biggie to leave his locker room after he stormed in to complain about the coaching staff, (which included Bob Devaney, Dan Devine and Bill Yeoman). Biggie died in 1975 at age 66 from a stroke. Maybe he shouldn’t have worried so much about how Duffy was doing. Frank Leahy also retired that year for his health, also at age 45. He, too had a few things to say about his successors but otherwise tried to stay away from football, trying “various business projects with indifferent success“, (per “Wake Up the Echoes).” Then he was going to coach at Texas A&M but his doctors “did not deem it advisable”. He was briefly the first General Manager of the Los Angeles Chargers, (yes, they were in LA their first year), but again resigned due to ill health. He briefly had a TV show and a newspaper column. He developed leukemia and when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970, he had to be helped to podium to give his speech. He died in 1973 at the age of 64. His heart stopped five times on the day he died and started back up again- four times. Red Sanders of UCLA died of a heart attack in 1958 during a session with a prostitute, (which kept him out of the Hall of Fame until 1996). Jim Tatum of Maryland died at age 46 in 1959 of “a rickettsial disease similar to typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever" (Wikipedia). Of the coaches of the top teams of 1953, the only one to live a normal life span was Bud Wilkinson, who died at age 77 in 1994.
