THE WEEK
WEST
1. USC (9-1-1)
2. UCLA (9-2)
3. ARIZONA STATE (10-1)
Woody Green, barely mentioned in a lot of people's Heisman speculations, accomplished his third straight 1,000-yard season while Arizona State was Greening Arizona 55-19 before the biggest crowd in Sun Devil Stadium history, 51,383. Quarterback Danny White set six NCAA records. He passed for 333 yards and four TDs and completed 22 of 38, and now has been responsible or partly responsible for 73 touchdowns in three years. Green carried 25 times for 192 yards. Ben Malone ran for 147 more. Morris Owens set an NCAA record for average yards per reception in one season (21.5 yards averaged on 50 catches). And on and on. What it boils down to is that ASU is going to the Fiesta Bowl against Pittsburgh armed with more firepower than the Seventh Fleet, and not a bad defense either; Linebacker Bob Breunig, for instance, blocked an Arizona punt, intercepted a pass and was in on 13 tackles.
The Game was in New Haven, The Biggest Game was down in L.A., but The Big Game was at Palo Alto—Stanford hosting California with the Axe and not much else at stake. Stanford won 26-17, but it got the Axe back early. A conspirator imitated Cal Coach Mike White's voice and asked that the trophy be brought to a sportswriters' pre-game meeting. When the courier arrived he was jumped by Stanford students and de-axed. That was a lot more exciting than the first half of the game itself, then things warmed up in the second. A 56-yards-in-the-air Steve Bartkowski pass helped Cal get ahead 17-13 before the Cardinals took command. "When we finally settled down in the fourth quarter," said Stanford's star runner, Scott Laidlaw, "our line started opening holes that we could sweep through. Most of that line will be back next year. Stanford is building for something big."
The situation in beautiful flower-scented Hawaii was ugly and smelly. The Honolulu police department was investigating charges by departed Quarterback Casey Ortez that a small group of University of Hawaii defensive players had been betting on the team all year. Ortez and Wide Receiver Allen Brown quit and left for the mainland. On Saturday the Rainbows managed only a field goal in losing to San Jose State 23-3. Three different quarterbacks failed to move the team to a pot of gold or anything else. San Jose finished with a 5-4-2 record, its first winning season in more than 10 years.
Some people suggested the Oregon-Oregon State game be called the Lemon Bowl and one newspaper labeled it the Battle of the Weak. Still, nearly 40,000 fans showed up on a cold and showery day in Eugene for the 77th renewal of the intrastate contest. Oregon State surprised the Ducks 17-14, winning only its second game of the season, and the Beaver defense deserved most of the credit. Oregon intercepted passes at the OSU 36 and 22, and recovered fumbles at the Beaver 36, 33 and 17—and out of all those opportunities got only seven points. Beaver Tailback Ray Taroli took a pitchout on the first play, stopped and threw a 26-yard touchdown pass. Then, with OSU trailing 14-10, he took the second-half kickoff on his goal line and returned it 68 yards to set up his team's final touchdown.
In the other Northwest traditional rivalry, Washington State beat hapless Washington 52-26 and finished with a 5-6 record. And who wouldn't have six losses after meeting USC, UCLA, Arizona State, Ohio State, Kansas and Stanford? More Idahos on the schedule or more quality athletes on the team are what the Cougars need. Washington's final record: 2-9. Whatever happened to the Purple Gang?
SOUTH
1. ALABAMA (10-0)
2. LSU (9-1)
3. NO. CAROLINA ST. (8-3)
If Kentucky's Ron Steele, who had kicked a 46-yard field goal the week before to tie a school distance record, could just make it from 34 yards out, the Wildcats would beat Tennessee and have their first winning season since 1965. The Volunteers, playing Kentucky for the 69th time, called time out to let the pressure build up even more for Steele. His kick with 19 seconds left was on line but passed about a foot under the crossbar. Tennessee won 16-14. Nevertheless, Kentucky finished with a 5-6 record, its best in eight years, and at least had the satisfaction of having battled back from 16-0 to give the Vols a horrible scare. "In 13 years of coaching, I've never seen a more courageous bunch of boys," said Kentucky Coach Fran Curci. Said Steele, "I wasn't nervous, I got a good hold, but I just got under it too much."
Buoyed by its first bowl invitation in 17 years (the Peach), Maryland crushed Tulane 42-9 in College Park. The Terrapins improved their record to 8-3, their best since going 10-1 in 1955 and the first winning season in 11 years. "Since that first loss to West Virginia in the opener we've come a long way," said second-year Coach Jerry Claiborne. "We showed people today we ought to be one of the ranked teams in the country." Tulane trailed only 14-3 at the half and in the third quarter moved the ball to the Terp seven before losing it on a fumble. Maryland then went 93 yards to a TD in 10 plays and the romp was on. Claiborne used 62 men. Maryland Defensive End Kevin Ward said, "The hitting was unbelievable out there and after a while Tulane just didn't want to hear it."
Sophomore Quarterback Jeff Grantz, who had missed the previous two games because of an ankle injury, ran for 185 yards and passed for 121 more in leading South Carolina to a 32-20 victory over state rival Clemson. His 306 yards of total offense gave him 1,670 in nine games this season. "I just wish I could play for another year or that we had had him at quarterback the last two years," said senior Center Darrell Austin. "We would have had some great football teams because he is a super quarterback." Clemson Coach Red Parker was just as impressed: "I don't believe I've ever seen as fine an option quarterback. He's a superb athlete—a great athlete."
Duke and North Carolina often play for bowl invitations and Atlantic Coast Conference championships, but this year it was for nothing but pride. Duke won 27-10, which it had to do to avoid being winless in the league. Before the game Duke students stole the North Carolina ram and painted his horns and some other parts deep Blue-Devil blue. The mascot was returned at halftime while the Carolina band was on the field performing. In the other big intrastate battle North Carolina State toyed with Wake Forest 52-13, and Willie Burden became the first Wolf packplayer ever to get 1,000 yards rushing in a season. Bruce Shaw was on the starting end of a 53-yard touchdown pass play and thus surpassed Roman Gabriel's school passing-yardage record.
Miami has one game to go—at night against Notre Dame—and that contest will determine if the Hurricanes finish winners or losers. Florida beat Coach Pete Elliot's team 14-7 to make the Miami record 5-5, which ain't bad considering the previous losses were to Oklahoma, Houston, West Virginia and Alabama. It was very nearly another Hurricane happening. Miami drove from its 40 to the Gator five before being stopped with 33 seconds left.
Vanderbilt got ready for Tennessee with an 18-16 win over Tampa. Mississippi had an easy time in neutral Jackson, bopping Mississippi State 38-10, and Tennessee at Chattanooga edged Eastern Tennessee 26-21.
EAST
1. PENN STATE (11-0)
2. PITTSBURGH (6-4-1)
3. TEMPLE (9-1)
Penn State trailed 13-3 at halftime, but then the Nittany Lions woke up, sealing off the Pitt offense in the second half and winning their 11th straight game 35-13. The victory gave Coach Joe Paterno his third perfect season in the last six years and boosted his eight-year coaching record to 74-13-1, best in the country. John Cappelletti closed his Heisman Trophy campaign with 161 yards. Pitt freshman Tony Dorsett made 77.
"There is too much competition going on around here," said an Old Blue, surveying the elaborate tailgate table settings outside Yale Bowl in New Haven. In The Game there was almost no competition at all after Yale had taken a 14-0 lead in the second quarter. Hitting with a fervor that it had shown only sporadically this season, the Eli defense, led by Elvin Charity—who showed none—helped bury Harvard 35-0. Yale was equally devastating on offense. Rudy Green and John Donohue took turns running around and through the Harvards, and second-string Kevin Rogan passed over them. Total offense: 523 yards. "We had tremendous consistency," said Yale Coach Carmen Cozza. "For the first time this year we had offense and defense."
Harvard had no one to blame but itself for the passing part of it. "When I was in high school," said flinger Rogan, "Harvard didn't recruit me that heavily. I got a letter or two, but Harvard acted as though it was doing me a favor. Yale alumni took me out to dinner and showed an interest in me." So he went to Yale but suffered a separated shoulder in his first frosh game and had played in only nine varsity games prior to this season.
Dartmouth, as expected, won its fifth straight Ivy championship and its 10th in 18 years by beating weak Princeton 42-24. Rick Klupchak scored three touchdowns and gained 154 yards. His career mark of 1,788 bettered by 25 the 1957-1959 total of Jake Crouthamel, now the Dartmouth coach.
And let's hear it for Brown! The usually hapless Bruins, who haven't done much on the football field since a quarterback named Paterno left some time ago, beat Columbia 37-14 and improved their Ivy record to 4-3, the best since 1958. First-year Coach John Anderson, who worked similar miracles at Middlebury, was riding high, but it was a sad day for Columbia Coach Frank Navarro, who had already announced his departure after six years of trying to get the Lions out of the muck of failure. Brown Quarterback Pete Beatrice completed 18 of 26 passes, including two for touchdowns.
At Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Penn's Marty Vaughn threw three TD passes as the Quakers beat Cornell 31-22. Temple, which began the season well and then lost to Boston College 45-0 in the second game, won its eighth straight, bashing neighbor Villa-nova 34-0. C.W. Post filled up its trophy case by beating Hofstra 53-14. There was the Governor's Cup for the Metropolitan Conference title, the Westbrook Cup for winning the Post-Hofstra game and the Gibson Trophy for having the best record on Long Island. The Lambert Bowl came next.
MIDWEST
1. OKLAHOMA (9-0-1)
2. NOTRE DAME (9-0)
3. MICHIGAN (10-0-1)
Oklahoma, which will be banned from television the next two seasons (because of recruiting violations, not low Nielsen ratings), decided to leave a strong impression on viewers' minds. The stingy Sooners shut out Nebraska 27-0 and allowed the Cornhuskers to cross the 50-yard line only once, and that on a 33-yard pass play that ended with a fumble recovered by Oklahoma. Nebraska had not been blanked since the Okies did it back in 1968. "It amazes even me," said OU Defensive Coach Larry Lacewell, and Texas Coach Darrell Royal, an awed spectator, said, "The defense was as good as I've ever seen. I don't recall ever watching a defensive team dominate like that." Royal raved about the Selmon brothers, "You can get by with three men when all three are named Selmon."
In extending its unbeaten string to 17, longest in the country, Oklahoma was impressive offensively, too. Quarterback Steve Davis gained 114 yards and scored his 13th, 14th and 15th touchdowns of the year. Halfback Joe Washington ran for 107 yards, prompting Coach Barry Switzer to say, "There's no back in the country who can do the things Joe Washington can do." Both Davis and Washington are sophomores. Too bad they will not have TV cameras trained on them again until they are pros.
Weird plays highlighted Iowa State's 28-12 victory over Oklahoma State. That result is a little weird in itself, but check this: in the fourth quarter Iowa State's freshman quarterback, Buddy Hardeman, rolled left, then darted off tackle and was in the clear with two blockers when Cowboy Guard Deacon Stephens—a reserve offensive guard—made the tackle. Of course, he jumped from out of bounds to do it. The officials credited Hardeman with 74 yards and a TD. "I don't really know what happened," said the 12th defender, "but I could see that no one was going to get him, so I just stepped out and tackled him." That's not all. In the third quarter Iowa State Safety Barry Hill picked off a fumble in midair, ran 38 yards, then fumbled it right back. And Oklahoma State's Coy Everett tried an onside kick that turned out to be a little more onside than he hoped. The ball went five yards backward and out of bounds.
Notre Dame continued its destructive impact on the military-industrial complex, battering Air Force 48-15 in South Bend. Its combined score against Army, Navy and Air Force in 1973 was 154-25. The Falcons had barely taken off when they were turned into praying rather than preying birds—the Irish scored 28 points in the first 12 minutes. Now if Ara Parseghian could just schedule the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine and Virginia Military Institute.
For nearly three quarters the Kansas-Missouri game was a classic of ineptitude. In one sequence of four plays near the end of the first half, Missouri fumbled, Kansas recovered, mishandled two snaps from center and fumbled the ball back to Missouri. But late in the third period the game turned into a classic, period, as rousing as any of the 81 previously played between the two schools. The Jayhawks came back to win it 14-13 on a David Jaynes-to-Emmett Edwards pass with less than two minutes left. The difference was a missed PAT by Greg Hill, best field-goal kicker in Tiger history and a man who had connected on 20 straight conversions this season. The win gave Kansas, which had been picked for seventh place in the Big Eight by the sportswriters, a tie for second with Nebraska.
Keith Brumley, a fifth-year senior at Kansas State, missed four field-goal tries in an early season game, but he made up for that Saturday in Boulder, kicking a 30-yarder with five seconds left to help beat inept Colorado 17-14. Earlier in the loosely played game his 48-yard try hit the crossbar and bounced back. K-State Coach Vince Gibson called the game "a great win for our seniors. They hadn't had much good happen to them during their careers." Colorado Coach Eddie Crowder was the target of snowballs from Buffalo fans who expected better than a 5-6 record. One good thing for the home team: Charlie Davis rushed for 113 yards, upping his career total to 3,172 and putting him in second place behind Oklahoma's Steve Owens on the all-time Big Eight list.
Purdue-Indiana drew 60,434 fewer fans than Michigan-Ohio State, but the fight was nearly as fierce before Purdue won the Old Oaken Bucket 28-23. Indiana finished with a 0-8 record in the Big Ten. "I tried everything I knew to win this football game—mentally and physically," said Hoosier Coach Lee Corso. "We played our best game of the season. We played this game with heart, soul and body and every ounce of energy we had." Well, at least Indiana Safety Quinn Buckner did not get hurt. He reported to Basketball Coach Bobby Knight the next day.
Wichita State, which had won only one Missouri Valley Conference game, scored three touchdowns in the second half to beat favored Tulsa 28-19. The touchdown putting Wichita ahead 14-13 came on a 25-yard pass play from Tom Owen to Jim Fenwick and Tulsa never could catch up. Tulsa and North Texas State thus tied for the league championship with 5-1 records.
Toledo dropped its fifth straight to Xavier 35-31, and things weren't too great for its old coach, Frank Lauterbur, either. Already fired as Iowa coach, he watched his Hawkeyes fall to Michigan State 15-6 and finish with a 0-11 record. Lauterbur's record after three seasons at Iowa: 4-28-1. The disenchantment in Iowa City was obvious. The crowd was announced at 31,119, but newspapermen estimated that because of no-shows the actual count was no higher than 20,000, the smallest since World War II. In one section of Nile Kinnick Stadium a group of fans chanted, "We're No. 10. We're No. 10." Did Lauterbur have any thoughts after such an emotional week? "Yeah," he said. "I keep wondering where I'll be working next year." Northwestern beat error-plagued Illinois 9-6. Kent State battered Central Michigan 28-7, giving the Chippewas a foul taste of what it's going to be like when they join the Mid-American in 1976. Minnesota took third place in the Big Ten by beating lake-country rival Wisconsin 19-17.
SOUTHWEST
1. TEXAS (8-2)
2. HOUSTON (9-1)
3. TEXAS TECH (10-1)
SMU lost consecutive Southwest Conference games to Texas Tech, Texas and Texas A&M when its fine senior quarterback, Keith Bobo, was injured. With Bobo running things, the Mustangs had a 4-1-1 record for the rest of the schedule, and unfortunately for Baylor last Saturday in Waco, Bobo was bristling with good health. He threw a 63-yard touchdown pass to End Kenny Harrison on SMU's second play of the game and later scored himself on runs of nine and 16 yards. He rushed for 92 yards in 15 carries and directed the Wishbone attack that gashed Baylor's defense for 452 yards, 23 first downs and a 38-22 victory. "It was great to have Keith back in top shape," said SMU Coach Dave Smith. "He worked the plays beautifully."
The most spectacular, and sneakiest, play was the TD pass to Harrison, which tricked poor Baylor badly. Smith, who had used the same play last year at Oklahoma State against Iowa State, said, "We didn't huddle, and when the ref moved away from the line and as Baylor broke its defensive huddle, we snapped the ball. By the time they looked around, Harrison was behind everybody."
Bobo or no Bobo, Texas won its sixth consecutive SWC championship, stomping Texas A&M 42-13 in College Station on Thanksgiving Day. Roosevelt Leaks sprained his left knee in the third quarter and did not return, but he already had set a conference season rushing record of 1,415 yards. He should be back by Cotton Bowl time. Quarterback Marty Akins scored three Longhorn touchdowns.
Texas Tech Quarterback Joe Barnes led the Red Raiders to a 24-17 win over Arkansas in Little Rock. It gave Tech a 10-1 record, the best since it was admitted to the league in 1960. "Barnes made the difference," said Arkansas Coach Frank Broyles. "He has an uncanny knack of making people miss him." Barnes ran for 119 yards, passed for 112 and his 20-, 25- and 30-yard runs in passing situations set up two touchdowns and a field goal, bringing Tech back from a 10-0 deficit.
Houston battered Wyoming 35-0 in the Astrodome. Rice beat TCU 14-9 and left the poor Horned Frogs with a 3-7 record with SMU still to play.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
THE LINEMAN: Junior Linebacker Rod Shoate helped Oklahoma hold Nebraska scoreless for the first time in five years. A valuable ally of the Selmon brothers, he was in on 14 tackles, three unassisted.
THE BACK: Sophomore Archie Griffin of the Rose Bowl-bound Ohio State Buckeyes gained 163 yards in 30 carries vs. Michigan and stretched his 1973 yardage to 1,428, the most in State's 74-year football history.