Skip to main content

WINNING TOE FOR DUKE

Superior weight and condition, plus one good kick, were enough to undo favored Arkansas

I couldn't believe it...I just couldn't believe it," cried Duke's jubilant Quarterback Don Altman in the Duke dressing room. "I was expecting to throw to the halfback, but Moorman was just wide open—I couldn't believe it."

Neither could a dejected Frank Broyles, the Arkansas coach, whose team played the entire game exactly as he wanted it to only to lose in the dying minutes and by the length of a toe. The toe belonged to Duke Guard Art Browning, who kicked the extra point after Tee Moorman, an All-America end, had caught Altman's pass. Duke thus came from behind to win 7-6, in the closest of the major bowl games.

The game would have ended in a tie had not Duke blocked Mickey Cissell's try for the extra point following Arkansas' only score, made on a brilliant 49-yard punt return by Lance Alworth, the great Arkansas halfback. But perhaps more important than either the blocked kick or the successful one was the decision made at half time by Duke Coach Bill Murray. After two periods of classic—if dull—position football during which both teams were able to produce a meager total of three first downs, the offenses opened up and Duke, surprisingly, got the best of it. "We had information that we could run wide to the weak side. We had been running up the middle. As everybody saw, this failed miserably," Murray said. Duke also drove the Arkansas ends in sharply and started using short passes, most of them to Moorman, with great effect.

Duke outweighed Arkansas 10 pounds per man ("They were so big we couldn't block 'em," said Broyles) and, as Murray pointed out, "our boys were well conditioned and much stronger in the fourth quarter. This was very pleasing."

Alworth was voted the game's most valuable player. Ironically, he was also its goat. It was he who let Moorman, the lonesome end, get away for Duke's lonesome touchdown.

PHOTO

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

DUKE'S ART BROWNING KICKS POINT AS DON ALTMAN HOLDS AND HAROLD HORTON (41) AND STEVE BUTLER (84) STRETCH