The OU v Neb Thanksgiving game (aka "The Game of the Century") had a not-so-glorious record. I was a member of the OU Marching Band ("The Pride of Oklahoma"). The back and forth on the scoreboard was so stressful for some of the older fans that the medical tents treated 6 heart attacks that day. Pruitt v Rogers was an amazing thing to watch, no matter which team won.
I don't remember where I heard it, but somebody said that Nebraska happened to be the team that was ahead when time ran out. There's definitely some truth to that. Jerry Tagge said it best: "Both teams deserved to win." And I don't say that as a disappointed Sooner fan. I'm a lifelong Husker fan, but I have a ton of respect for the 71 Sooners.
Rogers' name is always brought up when this legendary game is discussed. But the best offensive player on the field for Nebraska, and maybe Oklahoma too, was fullback Jeff Kinney. I remember his torn to shreds jersey.
I loved it. I preferred watching it to passing offenses. I particularly loved how the quarterback could pitch even after he passed the line of scrimmage. It was dangerous, but so hard to defend.
The '71 Oklahoma wishbone was a thing of beauty. They had two rushers each with over a thousand yards, Pruitt and Mildren. Those two alone totaled not just 2000 yards but 3000. What's even more amazing is that for all practical purposes they had a third thousand yard runner. The other halfback position was shared by two guys that totaled 960 yards between them. As the records show, that offense has never been equaled. And I say that as a lifelong Nebraska fan. The NU-OU game that year was arguably the greatest game ever played between two of the greatest teams to ever play. So this once I will say, "Boomer Sooner!"
@@smoothcriminal4038 You do know that just about every team ran the ball 97-99%% of the time from 1900 to 1980s. So it is VERY impressive what the 1971 Oklahoma team did. You are welcome for the free education.
There are two versions to that story. I don't know which one is true. One is the story that is told in this video. That Royal told Bellard to help Swtizer before OU played Texas in 1970. However, others dispute that story. The other version of the story is that OU sprung the wishbone on Texas without anybodies knowledge in 1970. It says that Royal told Bellard to help Switzer during spring practice of 1971.
I grew up a hard-core Nebraska fan. I used to have nightmares about the Oklahoma wishbone. JC Watts, Thomas Lott, Billy Sims, Jamelle Holloway, etc, etc, etc. Whatever faults Barry Switzer might have had (he had plenty, like all people), he was a *GREAT* college football coach and he cared deeply about his players. He was also a masterful recruiter. He understood what few coaches did in those days. If you want to entice a young Southern kid with talent to leave home (particularly a young Southern black kid), you don't sell to the kid and you don't sell to the kid's father. You sell to the kid's mother. When he entered a recruit's home, he all but ignored the recruit and the recruit's daddy. He charmed momma. He said, "Yes, Ma'am", "no Ma'am", "Why yes, I would like a glass of sweet tea, Ma'am", and, "Ma'am, this is the best sweet potato pie I've ever had". He did not promise the kid or his father that he would play in the NFL. He promised momma that her son would be educated, that he would make certain her son went to church on Sunday, and that she would be given the chance to watch her boy in Norman or on television every Saturday afternoon. Barry Switzer would almost certainly win no awards for modern political correctness. But, he made more black families feel more important and valuable than any politician ever did.
@@mwright_boomer Osborne never beat Switzer/Oklahoma with any regularity until he implemented wishbone principles into his Power I offense - including the use of athletic, often black quarterbacks. I still contend that Tommie Frazier is the best quarterback ever to play at the college level. Obviously, he was never going to play QB in the NFL. And he was a modest 50% passer. But his skill at running the triple option, his decision making, and his competitive fire were truly elite. In three years as a full time starter, he came within a shanked field goal of winning 39 consecutive games, and three consecutive national championships. His magnum opus was the 1995 season. In my view, and I've got a little evidence to support my claim, that was by far the greatest team the modern college game has ever seen. In the 96 Fiesta Bowl, the score at the end of the first quarter was 10-6 in Florida's favor. I literally said out loud, "This game is over. Nebraska is going to murder these guys". Final score: Nebraska 62, Florida 24. And it was nowhere near that close. The Cornhuskers could have hung 90 on them, and at least 1 of Florida's touchdowns was a gift from the referees. I do miss football as it was played in those days.
He even charmed the older brother...told me I reminded him of Joe Washington .....he was quite the recruiter and we had EVERYONE coming for a visit to our home....Barry stood out for sure
We ran the wishbone in high school and I saw it at it's peak when we had a QB that could run along with a durable hybrid fullback/halfback type that would break the long run if you didn't tackle the full back every single play. Speed definitely is the key to a successful wishbone offense. The problem comes when all of a sudden there's 8 men in the box and they force you to throw......something wishbone offenses aren't used to practicing much because it takes so much repetition to get the timing down on the option plays. If you had 5 stud linemen that are going to create a hole no matter what the defense does then it is game over all day long. Yes if you have the personnel it is unstoppable.
@@Corey-dy2cq Before the 1995 season, Nebraska’s offensive coaches went to visit with Spurrier in Gainesville to get some pointers to improve their passing game. They were reviewing film and Spurrier was showing them his four receiver offense, and he was sending the running back out for a pattern. One of the Nebraska coaches said “but if they blitz the linebacker on the weak side, won’t you have four blockers trying to block five rushers?” Spurrier’s response was “ah, don’t worry. Nobody ever blitzes that 5th man.” So, when they played in the Natty game, the Nebraska coaches went to their derive guys and let them know if you blitz the fifth guy there is no one to block him. And they almost beat Spurrier’s QB to death all night.
In the 1970's and 80's, I use to love the wishbone offense scheme! Oklahoma and Alabama were two of my favorite teams! The wishbone made football more exciting to watch! I hope someday the wishbone makes a comeback to college football and I also hope that the NFL begin to use it!
Hey IDigg !! I’m 60 and a college football nut . Been a UGA fan since 8 years old and adored Vince Dooley . My brother graduated from ND in 73 the years ND beat Bama 24/23 last sugar bowl at Tulane stadium with H Cosell in the broadcast booth . Anyway this correct about Emory B designing the wishbone. However my fav and best version of it all time . Was Billy Sims / David Overstreet/ Elvis Peacock with Thomas Lott at qb. Nobody ran it better . Period . The cameraman would be lost trying to cover it . Lott could HIP-HIDE the ball so beautifully. JC Watts and Jamille Holloway were great but Lott was the king QB at it . I don’t know how old you are but your comment struck a cord and I know exactly where your coming from and what you mean . Later Joey in Western Pa next to Youngstown Ohio. Take care Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Don't see it mentioned but Royal was born and raised in....Hollis, Oklahoma. When we would cross the Red River into Texas on the holidays to go to my grand parents house for dinner, I could always look forward to the conversation between my dad (from Oklahoma) and my grand dad (on my mothers side...from Texas) "Well, looks like the horns hooked you Sooners again!" - Grandpa "Sure they did. They are being coached by Royal. The okie from Hollis"! - My Dad ....until. OU started winning. Then they didn't talk football anymore. But do to an unspoken bet, we kids all got the best burgers at Bevo's for dinner in the 70's!
When Alabama was down in the late-60's, that's when Bear almost went to the Miami Dolphins (in 1970) to be their HC. He changed his mind, and the rest was history.
Jab knows this, but Bama did not have a prolific passer going into the 1971 season. We'd tied Oklahoma in the '70 Bluebonnet Bowl (we missed a FG at game end to tie), and Bryant was diagramming plays on flight home of wishbone. Bama ran the T-formation that spring, but in the summer Bryant told the coaches they were going to "sink or swim" with the bone. It was top secret. Sportswriters around the southeast used to go to each school once in the fall (skywriter's) and watch a practice. That day Bryant had the offense running the T-formation, and he put "curtains" around the practice field. The video explains how no one knew about the change before the USC kickoff (save for radio announcer John Forney). We upset them 17-10 in LA...they had killed us the year before 42-21 in Birmingham. Last story...on Thursday night before leaving for California, there was a pep rally on the quad. The students got so fired up they ran over to the practice field and climbed over the fences to watch the team practice. RB Johnny Musso said he KNEW that were going to win after that. And it ushered in a great era of Tide football.
Can you imagine Steve Sarkisian helping Brent Venables? I can't. And I have quite an imagination! I wonder if Royal would have wanted a mulligan on that decision?
Hell, I played in the mid-80’s on my HS team.. and we ran the wishbone for many years. We changed one year when we suddenly found ourselves with a QB prodigy.. (Only to see him injured a week before the season started).. I was told they went back to it the year after.. and what killed us? Turnovers and bad decisions on backup QB’s… rarely the other team.
I am a NZer and have only followed nfl-college football for about 12yrs. Love learning about the history of the sports. Wishbone is very rugby-like. Would love to see a team spend a couple of off-seasons playing touch rugby and try some more ball movement.
Watched from Australia 🇦🇺 and found this very informative and enjoyable. Part 1 was great and this, Part 2, was well done. Learned more about American football plays here than watching highlights elsewhere.
Growing up in the 70s Nebraska vs Oklahoma was the game to watch every year it seemed like they were always in the top five in the rankings I used to love watching those offenses that was big time smash mouth football. The game has evolved and the athletes today are much bigger and faster but there was just something about that brand of football that was sort of primal. It was fun to watch
As an elementary school student during the Johnnie Rodgers vs. Greg Pruitt classic I became a lifelong fan of Mr. “Hello/Goodbye!” This is what he had silk screened on the front and back of a t-shirt! Greg Pruitt all- time Cleveland Browns fan favorite!
RONALD: Okay, Barry Switzer told me that he still had lots of respect for the Veer, when we'd meet for dinner at Toto's in Norman during the 1980s.. Most high school coaches could not recruit like college coaches could before 1990... But guess what, Ronald?...With the "portal" and the "NIL" nowadays, that perhaps might change... Thanks...
@@thomasboushier2972 Times have changed, yes. I coached middle school football for about ten years back in the early 2000s. I ran a lot of I-formation as well as spread because our high school coach was running the spread. He didn't like it that I ran I-formation stuff, but I liked to be able to mix things up. We won a lot of games then and even had a couple of undefeated seasons, so I guess it worked. Frankly, disciplined defensive schemes can stop the Veer (or triple option for that matter) cold. The defense has to play gap control and assignment priority. I ran a modified 4-4 defense with two inside linebackers. The linebackers would read the backfield first and the linemen second. If a linebacker saw a dive back coming his way, that was his responsibility. That dive back got tackled by the near-side inside linebacker no matter what. The Sam backer (outside linebacker) lined up on the line of scrimmage outside the defensive tackle. If he saw the quarterback coming his way, he tackled the quarter back no matter what. Conversely, if the play was going away from the Sam backer, the strong safety was responsible for the quarterback. The offside inside line backer saw backfield motion away, so he was scraping over the top to tackle the pitch man no matter what. The defensive linemen were responsible to plug their gaps and maintain gap discipline (and keep blockers off the line backers). This worked remarkably well and teams that use this scheme can stop the Veer. I guess people hadn't figured that out yet back in the 80s when we ran all over them.😁
I began watching the Longhorns in 1977, the year after DKR retired and Akers decided to have Earl Campbell switch to tailback and they ran the “I”formation with Johnny “Ham” Jones at fullback. Many teams stuck with the wishbone throughout the 80’s and 90’s until teams with elite speed on defense began to slow it down. Great video and thanks for sharing!!
I officiated for 17 years, know alot of coaches. Several have told me in the last 5 years or so that they just don't have kids that can run an offense like this in college and HS?! That's why they just match up and basically play man to man basketball now! Also an option creates a whole different defense that the kids this day find extremely hard to defend. In HS I quarterbacked and we ran the veer option. JC Watts at OU was and still is one of my favorite players to watch. When the wishbone is run efficiently it is such a beautiful thing for people like me! Probably never see it on the field again 😕?. I think Michael Vick (Virginia Tech) is one of the best QB's ever in college football. I would have loved to watch him run the Bone?!
Greg Pruitt from Houston Elmore. Oklahoma out recruiting Texas for Texas high school talent was mainly what made them better and faster at running back. They got Pruitt, Joe Washington (Port Arthur) Billy Sims (Hooks) while Texas only got Earl Campbell (Tyler) in the 1970s. Longhorns were scared Oklahoma was going to get Eric Dickerson (Sealy) and they both missed on Ladainian Tomlinson (Waco.) Then they got Adrian Peterson (Palestine) and then quarterbacks became more valuable than running backs and they got Hurts, Murray and Mayfield from Channelview, Allen, Austin, respectively and after the success of Vince Young (Houston.) Anyway, this video was well-done on the Wishbone and I didn’t know Darrell Royal and Emory Bellard were so helpful to Switzer and Bear Bryant. Very informative. Royal must have wanted a raise and didn’t get it and got revenge on Texas. It would interesting to know. Probably just some political thing.
I remember watching that Bluebonnet Bowl on the black and white set in my parents bedroom. I guess I was about ten years old at the time. I wasn't a fan of either team (Go Irish!) and I can't remember who I rooted for that night.
What can you say? For that era the bone was the bomb. But rules and defenses changed that. Interesting to hear a backhanded compliment to the all time greatest team, 1971 Nebraska the one team the bone couldn’t beat. (Side note: Nebraska had more rushing yards than Oklahoma, 297 to 279. Nebraska forced Oklahoma to pass, gambling that OU would falter.)
@@rkelsey3341A lot of that and " Meat on the Hoof" were just BS. The rules, or almost no rules of the game in those days made it very dangerous. They rules of contact today make it impossible for the fullback to make the 1st dive option repeatedly. He would be taken out of the game for concussion observation and testing. It was super violent; that made it exciting. But it was too brutal to play today. Texas had games where each starting back had 100+ yds. So Oklahoma was just barely ahead of them in yardage.
@@larrytischler570 Darrell would also recruit as many players as he could, just to keep them away from the other schools in the conference. Since you couldn't transfer back then, once the kids signed with Darrell, they were his. Although he promised all of them they would play, he knew most of them wouldn't, and to get them to give up their scholarships, he had practice drills which were designed to injure the players to the point they either couldn't play any more, or wanted to get away from the Longhorn program. Meat on the Hoof was written by a kid who was a blue-chipper in high school, was recruited by Texas, and was run off after an injury which made him of no further use to the program. He was there, and it was not BS. I stick to my premise that Darrell was a cruel man who used players and cast the majority of them aside in his quest for glory.
Jack Mildren pitching at the last minute to a full speed Greg Pruitt! Those were great days. One of many Games of Century was Oklahoma vs Nebraska in 1971. I loved the intricacies and gamesmanship of those years. College football lost some its aura when it adopted NFL style of play.
Even though it's a ground gaining offense, USC showed in 71 that pursuit angles, staying in position and good tackling shuts down the wishbone. Yeah they lost 17-10 but only gave up 17 points to a high powered offense. And all 17pts came in the 1st quarter after a surprise offensive scheme. It had it's time, mostly successful in highschool where one team has overall better athletes than most others. Coach McKay was a better coach than many of his contemporaries.
When they changed the rule that defenders could return pitch fumbles it killed the wishbone before the rule change you could only recover wild or fumbled pitch
You forgot to mention how Switzer paid Royal back by cheating. Bad enough that OU was caught fixing grades to get players in who couldn't get to college otherwise, there was outright cheating against opponents. Switzer spied on Texas and got got in the Orange Bowl in a rematch with Nebraska with all the diagrams and calls on a coach's clipboard left at midfield when OU finished pregame and with into their locker room. The Nebraska coach originallythought is was one of their own coaches because of the info contained on the clipboard because it was stuff they had never done before in a game. Switzer was a pathetic individual.
Every school does that. Then everyone is shocked when someone gets caught lol. How do you think those big schools win? Lol.I was referring to the grades and stuff not the stealing of info.
@@brad6420 Not at all. I just don't like cheaters. Or coaches who lose control of their teams. Remember the shootings that happened inside the football dorm? The gun found? All the rampant cheating?
Darrell Royal loved Oklahoma and coach Wilkenson so much he cried the first time his longhorns beat OU. He had to come to Oklahoma to learn how to play football, then went back to texas and helped them out of the dumpster!
Agreed, you know your football. The Jamile Holloway team was impossible to stop or figure out who or where the ball was. Heck the camera man was always faked out .!!
@@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615 Yes sir, Jamelle was the best ever WB QB, IMHO And what's really funny, Troy Aikman was on that '85 team. He gets hurt, enter stage right: Jamelle. The rest is history. Troy goes the UCLA and becomes a star in '87 and '88. And from what I understand, it was Barry that insisted Troy go to UCLA. Funny how things work out.
*What I never understood about Switzer & Wishbone was ALABAMA WAS GREAT AT DEVELOPING A PASS OPTION OF A SCREEN PASS & EVEN MOVING BOTH HBs UP AS RECEIVERS......... SWITZER NEVER MELDED A GOOD PASS OPTION INTO THE 'BONE' AT OU. You saw the QB (Blevens, White, Hollieway, etc) do more panic throws than good passes.* The OU pass success was always as a dedicated drop-back pass to Keith Jackson or a WR.
I respectfully disagree. Switzer always has a great TE and the OU QB would do the ole fake the FB handoff, take another step, then 2-3 back and launch a long pass to the TE. It was deadly effective.
Texas beat Alabama in the January 1, 1965 Orange Bowl. That was the 1064 season. The score at halftime was Texas 21- Bama 0. Tid😊e QB Joe Namath tried a sneak to win the game but middle Texas LB Tommy Nobis stopped him. Nobis went on to play a NFL carrier with The Falcons.
My grandparents knew the Royals, they grew up in southwest Oklahoma. I had no idea until I went to visit my grandmother around 2010 in assisted living and she said Miss Royal died. I said who. She repeated her comment. It was not Darrell's wife but his sister in-law. She lived in assisted living with grandma. I asked did you know Darrell she said will yes she knew all the Royals and gramps played golf with them all the time. I am thinking 50's and 60's. This was a shock to me since my grandparents raised me from junior high on. She thought I knew that they knew the Royals as I went to OU. The story gets stranger when I called my mom and said did you know that gramps and granny knew the Royals she could not believe I didn't know. Then she said she roomed with Darrell's niece at college. Everybody just assumed I knew all this. Ha. Life is stranger than fiction.
I don't know who the greatest WB running back ever is. There's been a lot of them, and I'll let someone more knowledgeable talk about that. But Greg Pruitt? Man-oh-man. He was special. He was to the early 70s what Barry Sanders was to the mid-to-late 80s. That GP's pro career wasn't what Barry's was takes nothing away from his college career. He struck terror in the hearts of defenders.
I agree. OU should have been able to win with the Veer. Not that different an offense. And about the same time, USC began running a lot of option out of the I.
I’ll tell you exactly why Darell Royal helped Bud Wilkinson & Barry Switzerland. Sportsmanship. The coaches insisted on players respecting their team’s opponents and playing hard-nosed, not dirty, football.
More restrictive rules regarding guarding wide receivers, and generally faster defensive players, led to the fall of the great wishbone formation, unfortunately.
Not everyone understood the option to change with it. Defenses change so the option changed. A formation doesn't make the offense the principles of the offense do. A triple option is a triple option with one back in the backfield or four. If you get stuck on a formation, then you'll be stuck losing.
Not just guarding WRs, several blocking schemes were ruled illegal (chop block, cut blocks by downfield wrs) and rightfully so due to the risks of injury for defenders. What really killed it, was its success. A whole generation of more talented QBs, weren’t gonna be satisfied throwing 5-10 times a game and taking 40 hits. It’s wasn’t just the Bone that got left behind, it was largely the triple option.
I can't believe Darrell Royal was such a traitor. I don't care what anyone says. You don't do that. We probably missed a couple of championships because of that stupidity.
Wasn’t the prior Season, ‘70, the year SC fullback and African American Sam Cunningham ran all over the all whiteTide? With Bryant saying afterwards Cunningham did more for integration than anyone else. Or something like that. So ‘71 was also when the Tide started adding black players to his Tide team!
There had been a couple of black walk-on's in 1967 but they were not quality players. But Bryant had already signed a black player in the spring of 1970 (RB Wilbur Jackson). But first to get on the field was a Jr College DE player in that '71 USC game.
Oklahoma and the sooners have always taken things from Texas to be successful in the football game… Not only did they use the wishbone that was the brainchild of coach Emory Bellard the OC at Texas under Daryl Royal…, but they still to this day, recruit the very largest number of Texas athletes from Texas high schools to fill their roster to win… So every time you see someone looking foolish by putting horns down, they need to thank TEXAS and its athletes for giving them the players to compete…that’s why it is such a rival,simply because they are players who have played against each other all thru high school…oh, and Jack Mildred qb of oklahoma was also. Texas high school star! in a nutshell, Oklahoma could take it to Lucky stars each and every time they put a team on the field… so basically, it is the University of Texas at Austin playing the university of Texas at Norman every year… You got to live with that sooners and I know that’s a difficult pill to swallow!But, facts are facts! Daryl Royal “cratered” by giving Chuck Fairbanks the scheme, and how to run the wishbone,the rest is again,history! Oh, and all American, Billy Sims was from Hooks Texas. Also another Texas product I could go on and on and on, but you already know all of this don’t you?!HOOK’EM HORNS!
Texans are pretty smart. They know they have a better chance of winning championships if they cross the Red River. Texas also owes pretty much their whole program to Oklahoma. You’re welcome for Darrell Royal, Sooner grad from Hollis, OK. Texas named their stadium after a Sooner. Talk about a hard pill to swallow.
@@mwright_boomer that’s why the stadium should be renamed… You have to know and you have to admit look at all the all Americans that came from Texas… How are you guys have all the players that Texas sends y’all! And unless they get these blue chip guys,they’ll crater,and you know that also…and leave it to a sooner to contact a former sooner in Texas, and beg to know how to run the wishbone…but, that’s the way you guys have always rolled! Then try to stick your chests out like “ou” really did something…😂😂😂🤘🤘🤘Hook’emHorns!
Whoever finished number one in the polls was officially the champs so I have to go with that. Penn State could make a case though. Unfortunate that they didn’t get the votes.
@@davidroman1654 yep. WAY more. Switzer knew that was his secret sauce that Darrell Royal couldn’t do anything about. OU could flood the field with AA players…Royal couldn’t recruit more than a token few. It took decades for Texas to catch up again after falling behind because Switzer spread the word to black Texas athletes that they weren’t welcome at UT. Switzer admitted this in his autobiography. Lol
I was always fascinated with the wishbone
It would be interesting to see a few teams run it today.
🤔
The OU v Neb Thanksgiving game (aka "The Game of the Century") had a not-so-glorious record. I was a member of the OU Marching Band ("The Pride of Oklahoma"). The back and forth on the scoreboard was so stressful for some of the older fans that the medical tents treated 6 heart attacks that day. Pruitt v Rogers was an amazing thing to watch, no matter which team won.
I don't remember where I heard it, but somebody said that Nebraska happened to be the team that was ahead when time ran out. There's definitely some truth to that. Jerry Tagge said it best: "Both teams deserved to win." And I don't say that as a disappointed Sooner fan. I'm a lifelong Husker fan, but I have a ton of respect for the 71 Sooners.
Rogers' name is always brought up when this legendary game is discussed. But the best offensive player on the field for Nebraska, and maybe Oklahoma too, was fullback Jeff Kinney. I remember his torn to shreds jersey.
I really enjoyed watching the wishbone back in the day. The split second decision making made every play exciting.
We ran the bone in highschool. We never had a QB for the option but we did give size so we just beat everyone down with double leads lol
I loved it. I preferred watching it to passing offenses. I particularly loved how the quarterback could pitch even after he passed the line of scrimmage. It was dangerous, but so hard to defend.
The home and home vs. USC is legendary in Alabama lore. In desegregation lore. Etc.
The '71 Oklahoma wishbone was a thing of beauty. They had two rushers each with over a thousand yards, Pruitt and Mildren. Those two alone totaled not just 2000 yards but 3000. What's even more amazing is that for all practical purposes they had a third thousand yard runner. The other halfback position was shared by two guys that totaled 960 yards between them. As the records show, that offense has never been equaled. And I say that as a lifelong Nebraska fan. The NU-OU game that year was arguably the greatest game ever played between two of the greatest teams to ever play. So this once I will say, "Boomer Sooner!"
That's not all that impressive when you run the ball 54 times a game which is like 97 % of the time
@@smoothcriminal4038
You do know that just about every team ran the ball 97-99%% of the time from 1900 to 1980s.
So it is VERY impressive what the 1971 Oklahoma team did.
You are welcome for the free education.
College football was such a better game in the past. Quality characters. (says a really old guy).
Darrell Royal, what a helper.
There are two versions to that story. I don't know which one is true. One is the story that is told in this video. That Royal told Bellard to help Swtizer before OU played Texas in 1970. However, others dispute that story. The other version of the story is that OU sprung the wishbone on Texas without anybodies knowledge in 1970. It says that Royal told Bellard to help Switzer during spring practice of 1971.
I grew up a hard-core Nebraska fan. I used to have nightmares about the Oklahoma wishbone. JC Watts, Thomas Lott, Billy Sims, Jamelle Holloway, etc, etc, etc.
Whatever faults Barry Switzer might have had (he had plenty, like all people), he was a *GREAT* college football coach and he cared deeply about his players.
He was also a masterful recruiter. He understood what few coaches did in those days. If you want to entice a young Southern kid with talent to leave home (particularly a young Southern black kid), you don't sell to the kid and you don't sell to the kid's father. You sell to the kid's mother.
When he entered a recruit's home, he all but ignored the recruit and the recruit's daddy. He charmed momma. He said, "Yes, Ma'am", "no Ma'am", "Why yes, I would like a glass of sweet tea, Ma'am", and, "Ma'am, this is the best sweet potato pie I've ever had". He did not promise the kid or his father that he would play in the NFL. He promised momma that her son would be educated, that he would make certain her son went to church on Sunday, and that she would be given the chance to watch her boy in Norman or on television every Saturday afternoon.
Barry Switzer would almost certainly win no awards for modern political correctness. But, he made more black families feel more important and valuable than any politician ever did.
I often wish I had been old enough to live through those Switzer-Osborne years. Two polar opposite men temperamentally, both great competitors.
@@mwright_boomer
Osborne never beat Switzer/Oklahoma with any regularity until he implemented wishbone principles into his Power I offense - including the use of athletic, often black quarterbacks.
I still contend that Tommie Frazier is the best quarterback ever to play at the college level. Obviously, he was never going to play QB in the NFL. And he was a modest 50% passer. But his skill at running the triple option, his decision making, and his competitive fire were truly elite.
In three years as a full time starter, he came within a shanked field goal of winning 39 consecutive games, and three consecutive national championships. His magnum opus was the 1995 season. In my view, and I've got a little evidence to support my claim, that was by far the greatest team the modern college game has ever seen.
In the 96 Fiesta Bowl, the score at the end of the first quarter was 10-6 in Florida's favor. I literally said out loud, "This game is over. Nebraska is going to murder these guys".
Final score: Nebraska 62, Florida 24. And it was nowhere near that close. The Cornhuskers could have hung 90 on them, and at least 1 of Florida's touchdowns was a gift from the referees.
I do miss football as it was played in those days.
Wow well said and spot on
@@MilehighCLE216
Very kind of you. Thanks for the kind words.
He even charmed the older brother...told me I reminded him of Joe Washington .....he was quite the recruiter and we had EVERYONE coming for a visit to our home....Barry stood out for sure
As a very young child, I was at that game in Texas where OU lost 41-9!
Wow ... what a memory come back!
The Wishbone/Triple Option were a real challenge for defenses; difficult to prepare for since it wasn’t a scheme you saw each week.
Royal sharing the wishbone with Oklahoma reminds me of Steve Spurrier telling the Nebraska coaches “don’t worry, no one ever rushes that 5th man.”
Not sure what that means? What was the score to that game like 62-25 or something?
We ran the wishbone in high school and I saw it at it's peak when we had a QB that could run along with a durable hybrid fullback/halfback type that would break the long run if you didn't tackle the full back every single play. Speed definitely is the key to a successful wishbone offense. The problem comes when all of a sudden there's 8 men in the box and they force you to throw......something wishbone offenses aren't used to practicing much because it takes so much repetition to get the timing down on the option plays. If you had 5 stud linemen that are going to create a hole no matter what the defense does then it is game over all day long. Yes if you have the personnel it is unstoppable.
@@Corey-dy2cq Before the 1995 season, Nebraska’s offensive coaches went to visit with Spurrier in Gainesville to get some pointers to improve their passing game. They were reviewing film and Spurrier was showing them his four receiver offense, and he was sending the running back out for a pattern. One of the Nebraska coaches said “but if they blitz the linebacker on the weak side, won’t you have four blockers trying to block five rushers?” Spurrier’s response was “ah, don’t worry. Nobody ever blitzes that 5th man.” So, when they played in the Natty game, the Nebraska coaches went to their derive guys and let them know if you blitz the fifth guy there is no one to block him. And they almost beat Spurrier’s QB to death all night.
@@chandlerwhite8302 that would've happened regardless people forget that team was made solely for Florida speed
In the 1970's and 80's, I use to love the wishbone offense scheme! Oklahoma and Alabama were two of my favorite teams! The wishbone made football more exciting to watch! I hope someday the wishbone makes a comeback to college football and I also hope that the NFL begin to use it!
Hey IDigg !! I’m 60 and a college football nut . Been a UGA fan since 8 years old and adored Vince Dooley . My brother graduated from ND in 73 the years ND beat Bama 24/23 last sugar bowl at Tulane stadium with H Cosell in the broadcast booth . Anyway this correct about Emory B designing the wishbone. However my fav and best version of it all time . Was Billy Sims / David Overstreet/ Elvis Peacock with Thomas Lott at qb. Nobody ran it better . Period . The cameraman would be lost trying to cover it . Lott could HIP-HIDE the ball so beautifully. JC Watts and Jamille Holloway were great but Lott was the king QB at it . I don’t know how old you are but your comment struck a cord and I know exactly where your coming from and what you mean . Later Joey in Western Pa next to Youngstown Ohio. Take care Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
@@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615forgot 1975 Oklahoma 🏈 team ❤️ wishbone offense
@@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615❤️ Joe Washington & 1975 Oklahoma 🏈 team were unbeatable & Selman brothers
Service academies are schools that might run it.i think they use flexbone which is similiar.
In 1973 my little league team used the wishbone. We won the championship that year! I was 8 years old. lol
I remember this formation and how well it worked when it was prime ... I was a young boy and never missed the saturday football games.
The wishbone was briefly tried in the NFL in the 1980s. The Colts ran it for a year or two when they had Eric Dickerson.
Didn’t know that!
Don't see it mentioned but Royal was born and raised in....Hollis, Oklahoma.
When we would cross the Red River into Texas on the holidays to go to my grand parents house for dinner, I could always look forward to the conversation between my dad (from Oklahoma) and my grand dad (on my mothers side...from Texas)
"Well, looks like the horns hooked you Sooners again!" - Grandpa
"Sure they did. They are being coached by Royal. The okie from Hollis"! - My Dad
....until. OU started winning.
Then they didn't talk football anymore.
But do to an unspoken bet, we kids all got the best burgers at Bevo's for dinner in the 70's!
Excellent video. Lol at 4:54 where the defender hit his own teammate
When Alabama was down in the late-60's, that's when Bear almost went to the Miami Dolphins (in 1970) to be their HC. He changed his mind, and the rest was history.
Didn’t know that!
Jab knows this, but Bama did not have a prolific passer going into the 1971 season. We'd tied Oklahoma in the '70 Bluebonnet Bowl (we missed a FG at game end to tie), and Bryant was diagramming plays on flight home of wishbone.
Bama ran the T-formation that spring, but in the summer Bryant told the coaches they were going to "sink or swim" with the bone.
It was top secret. Sportswriters around the southeast used to go to each school once in the fall (skywriter's) and watch a practice. That day Bryant had the offense running the T-formation, and he put "curtains" around the practice field. The video explains how no one knew about the change before the USC kickoff (save for radio announcer John Forney). We upset them 17-10 in LA...they had killed us the year before 42-21 in Birmingham. Last story...on Thursday night before leaving for California, there was a pep rally on the quad. The students got so fired up they ran over to the practice field and climbed over the fences to watch the team practice. RB Johnny Musso said he KNEW that were going to win after that. And it ushered in a great era of Tide football.
Can you imagine Steve Sarkisian helping Brent Venables? I can't. And I have quite an imagination! I wonder if Royal would have wanted a mulligan on that decision?
You got that right. I bet if Royal had to do it over again he would change his mind!
Deep down Darrell was loyal to OU because he was born in Oklahoma. He wore the Crimson & Cream as part of the greatest win streak in NCAA history.
@@mwright_boomerBullshit.
Boys hoard.
Men help.
Lincoln helped Kirby Smart in the spring of 2017, see how that turned out
That doesn't explain why he helped Alabama. He was just an honorable man and good sport. @@trainman42dude
Hell, I played in the mid-80’s on my HS team.. and we ran the wishbone for many years. We changed one year when we suddenly found ourselves with a QB prodigy.. (Only to see him injured a week before the season started).. I was told they went back to it the year after.. and what killed us? Turnovers and bad decisions on backup QB’s… rarely the other team.
Bear Bryant did pretty well with the wishbone also thanks to Darryl Royal.
Bryant was convinced to switch to the Wishbone after playing Oklahoma in the 1970 Bluebonnet Bowl.
@@DNSKansas But he needed DKR and Texas to teach him how to run the Wishbone
I am a NZer and have only followed nfl-college football for about 12yrs. Love learning about the history of the sports. Wishbone is very rugby-like. Would love to see a team spend a couple of off-seasons playing touch rugby and try some more ball movement.
The first time I saw rugby I thought, “Oh, this is kind of like running a really long option play!”
Fabulous videos.
Great documentary on the history of the wishbone offensive package, highly recommend it.
Watched from Australia 🇦🇺 and found this very informative and enjoyable. Part 1 was great and this, Part 2, was well done. Learned more about American football plays here than watching highlights elsewhere.
Growing up in the 70s Nebraska vs Oklahoma was the game to watch every year it seemed like they were always in the top five in the rankings I used to love watching those offenses that was big time smash mouth football. The game has evolved and the athletes today are much bigger and faster but there was just something about that brand of football that was sort of primal. It was fun to watch
I watched all the videos, they were great history lesson. So, college football owes everything to Texas. Shoulda guessed it 🤣.
Good thing DKR came to Oklahoma to learn how to play football!
@@brad6420 Wrong, he went back to Ok to teach them how to play football. DKR was to nice.
As an elementary school student during the Johnnie Rodgers vs. Greg Pruitt classic I became a lifelong fan of Mr. “Hello/Goodbye!” This is what he had silk screened on the front and back of a t-shirt! Greg Pruitt all- time Cleveland Browns fan favorite!
Coaches are good friends. Like judges and attorneys they play golf together.
Gooooo Dawgs whip em sickem again !
great series. I appreciate the hard work
Good video I enjoy the wishbone.
You don’t say 😂😂😂
❤️ wishbone offense Oklahoma & Nebraska 1970s & 1980s
This is excellent content. This channel deserves way, way more subscribers.
We ran the Veer in high school. 1980, 1981, and 1982 (my sophomore to senior year), we were 30-0 on the regular season.
RONALD: Okay, Barry Switzer told me that he still had lots of respect for the Veer, when we'd meet for dinner at Toto's in Norman during the 1980s..
Most high school coaches could not recruit like college coaches could before 1990...
But guess what, Ronald?...With the "portal" and the "NIL" nowadays, that perhaps might change...
Thanks...
@@thomasboushier2972 Times have changed, yes. I coached middle school football for about ten years back in the early 2000s. I ran a lot of I-formation as well as spread because our high school coach was running the spread. He didn't like it that I ran I-formation stuff, but I liked to be able to mix things up. We won a lot of games then and even had a couple of undefeated seasons, so I guess it worked.
Frankly, disciplined defensive schemes can stop the Veer (or triple option for that matter) cold. The defense has to play gap control and assignment priority. I ran a modified 4-4 defense with two inside linebackers. The linebackers would read the backfield first and the linemen second. If a linebacker saw a dive back coming his way, that was his responsibility. That dive back got tackled by the near-side inside linebacker no matter what. The Sam backer (outside linebacker) lined up on the line of scrimmage outside the defensive tackle. If he saw the quarterback coming his way, he tackled the quarter back no matter what. Conversely, if the play was going away from the Sam backer, the strong safety was responsible for the quarterback. The offside inside line backer saw backfield motion away, so he was scraping over the top to tackle the pitch man no matter what. The defensive linemen were responsible to plug their gaps and maintain gap discipline (and keep blockers off the line backers). This worked remarkably well and teams that use this scheme can stop the Veer.
I guess people hadn't figured that out yet back in the 80s when we ran all over them.😁
I began watching the Longhorns in 1977, the year after DKR retired and Akers decided to have Earl Campbell switch to tailback and they ran the “I”formation with Johnny “Ham” Jones at fullback. Many teams stuck with the wishbone throughout the 80’s and 90’s until teams with elite speed on defense began to slow it down. Great video and thanks for sharing!!
I officiated for 17 years, know alot of coaches. Several have told me in the last 5 years or so that they just don't have kids that can run an offense like this in college and HS?! That's why they just match up and basically play man to man basketball now! Also an option creates a whole different defense that the kids this day find extremely hard to defend.
In HS I quarterbacked and we ran the veer option.
JC Watts at OU was and still is one of my favorite players to watch. When the wishbone is run efficiently it is such a beautiful thing for people like me! Probably never see it on the field again 😕?. I think Michael Vick (Virginia Tech) is one of the best QB's ever in college football. I would have loved to watch him run the Bone?!
Greg Pruitt from Houston Elmore. Oklahoma out recruiting Texas for Texas high school talent was mainly what made them better and faster at running back. They got Pruitt, Joe Washington (Port Arthur) Billy Sims (Hooks) while Texas only got Earl Campbell (Tyler) in the 1970s. Longhorns were scared Oklahoma was going to get Eric Dickerson (Sealy) and they both missed on Ladainian Tomlinson (Waco.) Then they got Adrian Peterson (Palestine) and then quarterbacks became more valuable than running backs and they got Hurts, Murray and Mayfield from Channelview, Allen, Austin, respectively and after the success of Vince Young (Houston.) Anyway, this video was well-done on the Wishbone and I didn’t know Darrell Royal and Emory Bellard were so helpful to Switzer and Bear Bryant. Very informative. Royal must have wanted a raise and didn’t get it and got revenge on Texas. It would interesting to know. Probably just some political thing.
I remember watching that Bluebonnet Bowl on the black and white set in my parents bedroom. I guess I was about ten years old at the time. I wasn't a fan of either team (Go Irish!) and I can't remember who I rooted for that night.
What can you say? For that era the bone was the bomb. But rules and defenses changed that. Interesting to hear a backhanded compliment to the all time greatest team, 1971 Nebraska the one team the bone couldn’t beat. (Side note: Nebraska had more rushing yards than Oklahoma, 297 to 279. Nebraska forced Oklahoma to pass, gambling that OU would falter.)
I went to 32 straight Red River Rivalry games, like a bowl game at midseason
Darrell Royal seems like about the best guy ever.
I knew him through my brother who was a businessman in Austin at the time. Very down-to-earth, genial, one of the best HC/ADs ever.
Read the novel "Meat on the Hoof." It will let you know how he abused his players to achieve his ends. He was definitely NOT the best guy ever.
@@rkelsey3341A lot of that and " Meat on the Hoof" were just BS. The rules, or almost no rules of the game in those days made it very dangerous. They rules of contact today make it impossible for the fullback to make the 1st dive option repeatedly. He would be taken out of the game for concussion observation and testing. It was super violent; that made it exciting. But it was too brutal to play today. Texas had games where each starting back had 100+ yds. So Oklahoma was just barely ahead of them in yardage.
@@larrytischler570 Darrell would also recruit as many players as he could, just to keep them away from the other schools in the conference. Since you couldn't transfer back then, once the kids signed with Darrell, they were his. Although he promised all of them they would play, he knew most of them wouldn't, and to get them to give up their scholarships, he had practice drills which were designed to injure the players to the point they either couldn't play any more, or wanted to get away from the Longhorn program. Meat on the Hoof was written by a kid who was a blue-chipper in high school, was recruited by Texas, and was run off after an injury which made him of no further use to the program. He was there, and it was not BS. I stick to my premise that Darrell was a cruel man who used players and cast the majority of them aside in his quest for glory.
@@rkelsey3341 that was a great book
Jack Mildren pitching at the last minute to a full speed Greg Pruitt! Those were great days. One of many Games of Century was Oklahoma vs Nebraska in 1971. I loved the intricacies and gamesmanship of those years. College football lost some its aura when it adopted NFL style of play.
Averaging 472 yards rushing, per game, over the whole season!? Are you f'ing KIDDING me!?
And 12 yards passing probably.
@@chandlerwhite8302 Actually Mildren was a good passer. The average was 90 per game.
Even though it's a ground gaining offense, USC showed in 71 that pursuit angles, staying in position and good tackling shuts down the wishbone. Yeah they lost 17-10 but only gave up 17 points to a high powered offense. And all 17pts came in the 1st quarter after a surprise offensive scheme. It had it's time, mostly successful in highschool where one team has overall better athletes than most others. Coach McKay was a better coach than many of his contemporaries.
That’s a good point, though they did give up 33 to Oklahoma that year (granted ‘71 USC was a far cry from most of those 70s Trojan teams)
Red River Shootout. Pete Rose, finally got it.
dude make more of these you are awesome 👍
When they changed the rule that defenders could return pitch fumbles it killed the wishbone before the rule change you could only recover wild or fumbled pitch
These are good videos. I don't know why it was recommended to me but I bet your channel is about to explode.
Something about them Texas coaches sharing lol Mack brown share his offense with penn state when they had a running qb
As a Texas fan, sucks to see them share it with Oklahoma, as a football fan, glad they did, otherwise it could have died off after royal retired
Awesome videos.
Great video!!
Darrel Royal was from Oklahoma and played at OU
love the wishbone. wish notre dame ran it, in certain game situations.
You forgot to mention how Switzer paid Royal back by cheating. Bad enough that OU was caught fixing grades to get players in who couldn't get to college otherwise, there was outright cheating against opponents. Switzer spied on Texas and got got in the Orange Bowl in a rematch with Nebraska with all the diagrams and calls on a coach's clipboard left at midfield when OU finished pregame and with into their locker room. The Nebraska coach originallythought is was one of their own coaches because of the info contained on the clipboard because it was stuff they had never done before in a game. Switzer was a pathetic individual.
Every school does that. Then everyone is shocked when someone gets caught lol. How do you think those big schools win? Lol.I was referring to the grades and stuff not the stealing of info.
The bootleggers boy.
Still salty Barry whooped that ass!!!!
@@brad6420 Not at all. I just don't like cheaters. Or coaches who lose control of their teams. Remember the shootings that happened inside the football dorm? The gun found? All the rampant cheating?
@@43pace Salty af! Let it go bruh, they ain't done anything nobody else wasn't doing so get over it already!
Darrell Royal loved Oklahoma and coach Wilkenson so much he cried the first time his longhorns beat OU. He had to come to Oklahoma to learn how to play football, then went back to texas and helped them out of the dumpster!
Oklahoma had the most dangerous lethal Wishbone they ran it the best
Agreed, you know your football. The Jamile Holloway team was impossible to stop or figure out who or where the ball was. Heck the camera man was always faked out .!!
I'm sure Alabama would disagree.
@@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615 Yes sir, Jamelle was the best ever WB QB, IMHO And what's really funny, Troy Aikman was on that '85 team. He gets hurt, enter stage right: Jamelle. The rest is history. Troy goes the UCLA and becomes a star in '87 and '88. And from what I understand, it was Barry that insisted Troy go to UCLA. Funny how things work out.
@@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615Oklahoma couldn't beat Miami
Danny Ford,and Clemsom with Homer Jordan ran a damn good one too.
Great vid.
Where is part 5?
Thanks! It’s in the works. Kind of like part 4, there are quite a few teams to cover.
@@mwright_boomer You're awesome.
*What I never understood about Switzer & Wishbone was ALABAMA WAS GREAT AT DEVELOPING A PASS OPTION OF A SCREEN PASS & EVEN MOVING BOTH HBs UP AS RECEIVERS......... SWITZER NEVER MELDED A GOOD PASS OPTION INTO THE 'BONE' AT OU. You saw the QB (Blevens, White, Hollieway, etc) do more panic throws than good passes.* The OU pass success was always as a dedicated drop-back pass to Keith Jackson or a WR.
I respectfully disagree. Switzer always has a great TE and the OU QB would do the ole fake the FB handoff, take another step, then 2-3 back and launch a long pass to the TE. It was deadly effective.
Texas beat Alabama in the January 1, 1965 Orange Bowl. That was the 1064 season. The score at halftime was Texas 21- Bama 0. Tid😊e QB Joe Namath tried a sneak to win the game but middle Texas LB Tommy Nobis stopped him. Nobis went on to play a NFL carrier with The Falcons.
I have an interview for a head coching job tomorrow amd they runthe wish bone I dont like it but I'll make it work.
That block at 7:46 was fucking brutal
The option out of the pistol is the best way to run it.
OU perfected the Wishbone offense.
I thought Jack Mildred was from Oklahoma? 😊 oh high school in Texas.
Nebraska and Johnny Rogers. That guy was lightening in a bottle. He singlehandedly beat Alabama when they played.
Unstoppable
My grandparents knew the Royals, they grew up in southwest Oklahoma. I had no idea until I went to visit my grandmother around 2010 in assisted living and she said Miss Royal died. I said who. She repeated her comment. It was not Darrell's wife but his sister in-law. She lived in assisted living with grandma. I asked did you know Darrell she said will yes she knew all the Royals and gramps played golf with them all the time. I am thinking 50's and 60's. This was a shock to me since my grandparents raised me from junior high on. She thought I knew that they knew the Royals as I went to OU. The story gets stranger when I called my mom and said did you know that gramps and granny knew the Royals she could not believe I didn't know. Then she said she roomed with Darrell's niece at college. Everybody just assumed I knew all this. Ha. Life is stranger than fiction.
The takeaway here is that the 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers are the greatest team of all time...at least until the 1995 Huskers came along
No argument here!
According to the media USC in 2005 was the Greatest Team of All Time, at least until Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns beat them.
I thought the key takeaway was that USC was expecting the I formation but Alabama surprised them by giving them the 'bone.
Pumped
To quote Bo Schembechler “there are 4 things that can happen when you throw the football and 3 of them are bad”
I believe Bo learned that from Woody Hayes when he was at Ohio State. It was 2 bad things out of 3. Incomplete, interception or completion.
Now, though, there's a fourth thing: bogus pass interference call against the defense.
Woody Haye words
Please research. It was D Royal who said that . Not Hayes . I’m positive.
@ronniewoodinsteadofmt2615 it , it doesn't matter he doesn't "t have a patent on the statement
And supposedly on one of those runs ….. he used excessive roughness
If Bryant wanted Martians, he wouldn’t have been questioned. Money talks.
I don't know who the greatest WB running back ever is. There's been a lot of them, and I'll let someone more knowledgeable talk about that. But Greg Pruitt? Man-oh-man. He was special. He was to the early 70s what Barry Sanders was to the mid-to-late 80s. That GP's pro career wasn't what Barry's was takes nothing away from his college career. He struck terror in the hearts of defenders.
Earl Campbell. All you need to know.
Everyone had turf
If Texas gets another OU quarterback as head coach they’ll win some more national championships.
I love how the poster avoided saying the obvious:
OU put fast black athletes on the field, while their segregationist brethren were stuck in the mud.
While I enjoyed the video you have to show the veer some love. It's all about the option.
I agree. OU should have been able to win with the Veer. Not that different an offense. And about the same time, USC began running a lot of option out of the I.
I’ll tell you exactly why Darell Royal helped Bud Wilkinson & Barry Switzerland. Sportsmanship. The coaches insisted on players respecting their team’s opponents and playing hard-nosed, not dirty, football.
More restrictive rules regarding guarding wide receivers, and generally faster defensive players, led to the fall of the great wishbone formation, unfortunately.
Not everyone understood the option to change with it. Defenses change so the option changed. A formation doesn't make the offense the principles of the offense do. A triple option is a triple option with one back in the backfield or four. If you get stuck on a formation, then you'll be stuck losing.
Not just guarding WRs, several blocking schemes were ruled illegal (chop block, cut blocks by downfield wrs) and rightfully so due to the risks of injury for defenders. What really killed it, was its success. A whole generation of more talented QBs, weren’t gonna be satisfied throwing 5-10 times a game and taking 40 hits. It’s wasn’t just the Bone that got left behind, it was largely the triple option.
When football was played by tough young men.
The Bear wasn't washed up, the segregated system he was stuck with was holding the Crimson Tide back.
The Bear said many times "I won't be the first SEC coach to recruit a black guy. And I won't be the last either."
@@yeildo1492 BYU, LSU and Ole Miss were the last to finally have a black player.
Yeah. Alabama really struggled in '64, '65 and '66.
Barry Switzer has commented that a lot of his success was due to his ability to recruit black athletes.
@@Boi-xc4dk For sure. Oklahoma was out front on that and it paid off big.
In the mid 90's Oregon state had the worst wishbone team in history.
I can't believe Darrell Royal was such a traitor. I don't care what anyone says. You don't do that. We probably missed a couple of championships because of that stupidity.
Great vids. Really interesting, and very clearly explained. BTW, the possessive of Texas is Texas' and is pronounced TEX-izz, not Tex-izz-izz.
Praise Jesus
Wasn’t the prior Season, ‘70, the year SC fullback and African American Sam Cunningham ran all over the all whiteTide? With Bryant saying afterwards Cunningham did more for integration than anyone else. Or something like that. So ‘71 was also when the Tide started adding black players to his Tide team!
There had been a couple of black walk-on's in 1967 but they were not quality players. But Bryant had already signed a black player in the spring of 1970 (RB Wilbur Jackson). But first to get on the field was a Jr College DE player in that '71 USC game.
Sam the BAM!
John Mitchell @@mr.g1758
I despise phony digital film aging
But didn't Forest Gump score a touchdown every game on special teams? That had to help. Yugh yugh yugh.
WTF was Royal thinking?
Texas’ arch rival is A&M, not Oklahoma.
@@dayray65 Agree to disagree on that one
You're saying Ballard wrong.
His name is actually Bellard, pronounced buh-LARD, as in this clip at :33 - m.ruclips.net/video/0QrGSzsnJHk/видео.html&pp=ygUNRW1vcnkgYmVsbGFyZA%3D%3D
35-31 NU over OU 1071. Power I and beat the Wishbone. Eventually teams figured out how to defend it.
It was an incredible thing to do…incredibly stupid 😅
Haha, no argument here
Ha! I actually did LOL when I read this 🤣🤣🤣
Absolute.
Oklahoma and the sooners have always taken things from Texas to be successful in the football game… Not only did they use the wishbone that was the brainchild of coach Emory Bellard the OC at Texas under Daryl Royal…, but they still to this day, recruit the very largest number of Texas athletes from Texas high schools to fill their roster to win… So every time you see someone looking foolish by putting horns down, they need to thank TEXAS and its athletes for giving them the players to compete…that’s why it is such a rival,simply because they are players who have played against each other all thru high school…oh, and Jack Mildred qb of oklahoma was also. Texas high school star! in a nutshell, Oklahoma could take it to Lucky stars each and every time they put a team on the field… so basically, it is the University of Texas at Austin playing the university of Texas at Norman every year… You got to live with that sooners and I know that’s a difficult pill to swallow!But, facts are facts! Daryl Royal “cratered” by giving Chuck Fairbanks the scheme, and how to run the wishbone,the rest is again,history! Oh, and all American, Billy Sims was from Hooks Texas. Also another Texas product I could go on and on and on, but you already know all of this don’t you?!HOOK’EM HORNS!
Texans are pretty smart. They know they have a better chance of winning championships if they cross the Red River. Texas also owes pretty much their whole program to Oklahoma. You’re welcome for Darrell Royal, Sooner grad from Hollis, OK. Texas named their stadium after a Sooner. Talk about a hard pill to swallow.
@@mwright_boomer that’s why the stadium should be renamed… You have to know and you have to admit look at all the all Americans that came from Texas… How are you guys have all the players that Texas sends y’all! And unless they get these blue chip guys,they’ll crater,and you know that also…and leave it to a sooner to contact a former sooner in Texas, and beg to know how to run the wishbone…but, that’s the way you guys have always rolled! Then try to stick your chests out like “ou” really did something…😂😂😂🤘🤘🤘Hook’emHorns!
Nobody could match oklahoma's cheating either
But look Astro fake grass - easy running -
Texas didn’t win the 1969 championship Nixon dubbed them champs and the ap followed this lead. I say Penn State won the nat championship.
Whoever finished number one in the polls was officially the champs so I have to go with that. Penn State could make a case though. Unfortunate that they didn’t get the votes.
Boomer!!
Nebraska and Oklahoma rolled up everyone with the wishbone because they were free to recruit black athletes. Texas, Bama and Arkansas were not.
OK always had more Texas players than anyone.
@@davidroman1654 yep. WAY more. Switzer knew that was his secret sauce that Darrell Royal couldn’t do anything about. OU could flood the field with AA players…Royal couldn’t recruit more than a token few. It took decades for Texas to catch up again after falling behind because Switzer spread the word to black Texas athletes that they weren’t welcome at UT. Switzer admitted this in his autobiography. Lol
Nebraska never ran the wishbone
Fantastic video man
Much appreciated!