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FOOTBALL'S WEEK
SOUTHWEST
1. TEXAS (3-0)
2. ARKANSAS (3-0)
3. HOUSTON (1-2)
He went unnoticed through the entire first half, jammed up in Austin's Memorial Stadium with 63,500 of his fellow Americans, but then the Texas band gave him away—first by playing Ruffles and Flourishes, then The Star-Spangled Banner. Soon the nearest aisle was so crowded that Lyndon B. Johnson retreated to a vacant seat among some high-rank Navy officers in a neighboring section. But, alas, the admirals' defense was no better than the Naval Academy's football team out there on the field. So, midway through the third quarter, L.B.J. formed up his interference into a rough facsimile of the old flying wedge, left the stadium and thereby was spared the boredom of sitting through the final moments of Texas' 56-17 victory over Navy.
Even at that, Johnson stayed around longer than the Longhorns' first team, which left the field for good with 10 minutes left in the second quarter. By that time Texas' offense already had scored four touchdowns—Halfback Ted Koy scoring two and Quarterback James Street and Halfback Jim Bertelsen accounting for one each—while the Longhorns' defense had yielded Navy a paltry 23 yards. When it was finally over Texas had gained 523 yards on the ground alone, while scoring the school's most points since 1949 and the most ever against the Middies. "This is the worst thing that has happened to Navy since Pearl Harbor," said Oklahoma Line Coach Pat James, one of six Sooner coaches who were in the press box looking for ways to beat Texas in next week's big game. The victory was Darrell Royal's 100th at Texas, and his team gave him the game ball.
Every other college team in the country may be swept up in the current scoring rage, but not Arkansas, stubborn old Arkansas. The Razorbacks still win games by playing defense. You all do remember defense, right? Against poor Texas Christian, for instance, Arkansas won 24-6 by not letting the Horned Frogs score a touchdown, something Arkansas has not given up in its last 18 quarters. Oh, TCU tried all right. Quarterback Steve Judy directed drives of 73, 93, 73 and 60 yards—all without crossing the goal. Three times TCU got inside the Arkansas five, but a couple of Wayne Merritt field goals were the best the Frogs could manage. Meanwhile, Arkansas Quarterback Bill Montgomery pulled the tape off his injured ribs in the first quarter, then passed for two touchdowns before leaving the game with eight minutes left.
After flopping miserably in its first two games, both losses, Houston was up to its old tricks. Faced with the perennial patsy of the SEC—Mississippi State—the Cougars kept the Astrodome scoreboard blinking like a pinball machine, running the score all the way up to 74-0. Sophomore Quarterback Gary Mullins (whose nickname, of course, is Moon) completed five of six passes in the first half.
Oklahoma State overcame a 10-0 deficit to beat Texas Tech 17-10. Tackle John Ward set up the winning touchdown by grabbing a misfired punt, then lumbering 20 yards to the Tech 22. "I'm not coached too much on running," apologized Ward.
MIDWEST
1. OHIO STATE (2-0)
2. MISSOURI (3-0)
3. PURDUE (3-0)
The quarterback, No. 15, took the snap from center and sprinted right, along with the entire black-shirted Purdue team. He was supposed to run, he said later, but he looked up and saw all sorts of white Stanford shirts coming at him. So once more he cocked that right arm, and he threw the football. All told, the pass did not go more than five yards, and it did not even count in the official game statistics. But Mike Phipps did not throw a more important pass all day, because when Greg Fenner went among three defenders and gathered it in Purdue had a two-point conversion and a remarkable 36-35 victory over Stanford.
Purdue could have played it safe and kicked the extra point for a tie, but the way Phipps had been playing Purdue Coach Jack Mollenkopf didn't think one more option play was exactly a gamble. "Phipps is one of the few quarterbacks in the country who could have thrown a pass like that," Mollenkopf said later. "It was 45° behind him and right in between three defenders. We sure would have hated to lose it, but in a game of this kind you play to win."
Phipps, the baby-faced senior from Columbus, Ind., passed for 429 yards and five touchdowns, both school records. He completed 28 of 39—including 13 straight in the last quarter as Purdue came back from a 14-point deficit. The 12th pass in that string was for Purdue's fifth TD, and No. 13 was the two-point conversion. "It was a great comeback," said Mollenkopf.
Only a performance like Phipps' could have overshadowed that of Stanford's own fine quarterback, Jim Plunkett, who had been responsible for putting Purdue in the hole it was in. Plunkett threw four TD passes, completing 23 of 46 for 355 yards.
Elsewhere in the Big Nine—Big Nine because everybody knows Ohio State is in a league by itself and can't go to the Rose Bowl any way—it was not such a happy week. Besides Purdue, only Ohio State (of course) and Iowa (which smashed winless Arizona 31-19) were able to win nonconference games, which makes Purdue the heir apparent to the Rose Bowl berth.
In South Bend, Notre Dame shrugged off its loss to Purdue and thumped Michigan State 42-28 as Quarterback Joe Theismann made like a Lujack-Huarte-Hanratty. He hit Ed Ziegler with a 29-yard scoring pass to put the Irish ahead for good, and then Notre Dame helped itself to the most points against State since Michigan scored 55 in 1947. Theismann completed 20 of 33 passes for 294 yards.
The Big Ten—er, Nine—got an even bigger jolt when Colorado beat Indiana 30-7 behind Tailback Bobby Anderson, who had been a quarterback until only a few days before the game. "I was immensely frustrated with our offense," said Colorado Coach Eddie Crowder, "so I decided to put Anderson at tailback. My coaches said nuts." Anderson scored three times and gained 161 yards, giving him 4,096 yards in career total offense—fourth in Big Eight history. Perhaps Indiana's wide-open offense was bothered by the sloppy field, the result of an early fall storm that dumped 12 inches of snow around the Boulder area.
Two of the East's best teams, Syracuse and Penn State, ventured into the Midwest. The Orangemen swamped Wisconsin 43-7, leaving the Badgers still looking for their first win in three seasons, but Penn State had more trouble than it bargained for before finally beating upcoming Kansas State 17-14. Kansas State Coach Vince Gibson tried to inspire his squad by reciting the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk (come on, Vince) but the Wildcats still couldn't chop through Penn State's defensive line. On the way home, Penn State's plane stopped for fuel in Columbus, Ohio, leading one fan to observe, "That's as close as they will come to Ohio State all season."
Michigan fumbled and stumbled against Missouri, losing 40-17 for the Wolverines' first defeat since Bo Schembechler became head coach. Afterward the new coach was fuming, mainly over a blocked punt that Missouri used to break the game open. "A blocked punt is a sin," Schembechler said. The main sin Northwestern committed in a 36-0 loss to UCLA was showing up.
SOUTH
1. GEORGIA (3-0)
2. ALABAMA (3-0)
3. TENNESSEE (3-0)
While most of the South was losing its cotton-picking mind over the hot SEC (page 20), Clemson gave its redoubtable old coach, Frank Howard, one of his finest moments. Heading into its game with Georgia Tech, Clemson had not beaten the Yellow Jackets in their last 10 games, a drought dating back to 1945. Losing to Tech had become such a tender subject with the otherwise gruff Howard that two years ago, after losing to Tech 13-12 in Atlanta, he sat in the dressing room with tears rolling down his red cheeks, and he told the press that he just hated to come to Atlanta and get beat, then have to go back to Clemson and walk down the street Monday morning.
So after Clemson came from behind to finally beat Tech 21-10, Howard was shouldered off the field by his players, who were bending under his 265 pounds. One observer noted that the scene "much resembled a safari, the elephant getting the ride."
Clemson's No. 1 hero was Tailback Ray Yauger, who gained 146 yards and scored all three touchdowns after being switched from fullback in a surprise move earlier in the week. Two of Yauger's scores came on passes from sophomore Quarterback Tommy Kendrick of Stone Mountain, Ga. Tech's top quarterback, Charles Dudish, had to leave the game after an injury to his left wrist, and then his backup man, Jack O'Neil, was knocked silly.
"When you lose two quarterbacks it hurts," said Tech Coach Bud Carson.
"It sure does," replied Howard, who also has a memory like an elephant. "I've had to play Tech with my two quarterbacks hurt."
All around the country fans were choking on their morning coffee and calling up their local newspapers but, yes, the score was correct: Pitt 14, Duke 12, ending Pitt's most recent losing streak at nine games.
EAST
1. PENN STATE (3-0)
2. WEST VIRGINIA (4-0)
3. RUTGERS (3-0)
At halftime, with its team leading 10-7, the Harvard band serenaded the Boston University stands—and its team—with the Mickey Mouse Theme. Normally this would seem like asking for trouble, but the Harvards were not worried. Wasn't their team undefeated in 10 games in a row? Wasn't this funny old Boston U. from across the Charles River, the school that had never beaten Harvard? What was wrong with a little innocent funmaking?
"When the band struck up Mickey Mouse it made us a little mad," said Quarterback Pete Yetten in the dressing room after Boston U. came back for a 13-10 victory. "I think that's the impression that everybody has, that we play Mickey Mouse football. We wanted to show them that we play it another way.
And that they did. Yetten, who had lost his job 10 days earlier, came off the bench in the second half and threw the game-winning pass to Gary Capehart. On defense, Boston U. held Harvard to only 100 yards total offense. After the victory, the third straight for Boston U., the players carried Coach Larry Naviaux off the field.
"You have a good football team," Naviaux told Harvard's John Yovicsin.
"Thank you, but you have a better one," replied Yovicsin, showing considerably more class than his school's band.
About 1,000 fans, many of them wearing big stetsons, followed Texas A&M to West Point for the game with Army, and the Aggies rewarded them with a 20-13 upset over what was supposed to be one of the best teams in the East. It was the first win of the year for Texas A&M and Army's first loss. The visitors' sophomore quarterback, Rocky Self, called his own number frequently, then befuddled the Cadets with his keepers, fakes, rollouts and passes.
West Virginia and surprising Rutgers each picked up easy victories. In Morgantown, West Virginia won 32-0 over VMI, the only major team in the nation without a point after three games. The Mountaineers' regulars sat out all the last half, but national scoring leader Jim Braxton still managed to run his total to 66 points with a touchdown, two field goals and two extra points. Rutgers Quarterback Rich Policastro, the nation's leading percentage passer, had an "off" day, completing a mere 16 of 27, as the Scarlet Knights beat Cornell 21-7.
WEST
1. USC (3-0)
2. UCLA (4-0)
3. STANFORD (2-1)
Since the same team cannot represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl two years in a row, Ohio State got as close to Pasadena as it will come this season by flying out to Seattle to play Washington. The Buckeyes ended what Coach Woody Hayes often calls the exhibition portion of their season by doing in the Huskies 41—14 to run the nation's longest major winning streak to 16. The rest of Ohio State's schedule is within the conference and, as the Buckeyes landed back in Columbus, Hayes said, "Now we can get down to some football."
If that means what it sounds like, then at season's end Washington may be able to look back on last Saturday's game with considerable pride. After all, they did stop Ohio State's first two drives, but then cool junior Quarterback Rex Kern got away on a 64-yard scoring run and the Buckeyes were on their way to 502 yards total offense. When Kern was not skirting Washington's flanks or picking apart the defense with his passing, Fullback Jim Otis was hitting the line in his usual sledgehammer way, good this game for three touchdowns. Washington seemed to have more trouble figuring out its new triple-option Y offense than did Ohio State's defense.
Southern Cal fans cannot help comparing their new tailback, Clarence Davis, with the ghost of Orenthal James, much the way baseball fans like to point out that such-and-such home run hitter is X many games ahead of Babe Ruth's record. It was Davis up the middle over and again as the Trojans beat Oregon State 31-7 in Corvallis. His final statistics—181 yards in 29 carries—gave him 460 yards for the year and put him 18 yards ahead of O.J.'s total in his first three games. "They keep you so scared of that draw play with Davis," said Oregon State Coach Dee Andros, "that it opens up their passing game—and that kills you." Indeed, Jimmy Jones, USC's sophomore quarterback, passed for 103 yards and three TDs.
With 53 seconds left, California trailed Rice 21-17 in Berkeley, but Cal had the ball on the Rice 41. Quarterback Steve Curtis, a junior-college transfer, put the ball in the air, and End Jim Calkins leaped over his defenders to make the catch and give Cal the lead. Exactly 24 seconds later Linebacker Paul Martyr intercepted a Rice pass and returned it 25 yards to finish off the Owls 31-21. Afterward, Coach Ray Willsey blubbered, "I told the team that we had to stop being lucky and start being good. Yet the luckiest people I know are the good people. The good people are the lucky people, not the bad people." Undoubtedly there is a message there somewhere.
Taking his coach's advice to run more, Utah Quarterback Ray Groth got loose for an 80-yard touchdown as the Redskins beat UTEP 24-6. New Mexico ended a 21-game losing streak by beating stumbling Kansas 16-7 in Albuquerque.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
THE BACK: Mike Phipps, the latest—and perhaps the greatest—of Purdue's line of passers (Dale Samuels, Len Dawson, Bob Griese), threw for a two-point conversion—his 13th straight completion—to beat Stanford 36-35.
THE LINEMAN: Alabama Offensive Guard Alvin Samples made the holes for all three of his team's rushing touchdowns, then came in at middle guard to help stop a late Ole Miss drive as the Crimson Tide won 33-32.
