'68 🤘
Here comes the Wishbone!!! 🤘
Darrell Royal's use of the wishbone launched an offensive revolution that change college football.
1. 1968 Texas
Head coach: Darrell Royal
Record: 9-1-1
So many college football innovations have started far outside the mainstream, in places like Carlisle, Pennsylvania, or Mount Pleasant, Iowa. But one of the single most influential innovations of all time took place at one of college football's power schools.
In essence, it doesn't sound like much of a tweak. Tasked with modernizing a stale offense, new coordinator Emory Bellard -- who, strangely enough, had been hired as the linebackers coach a year earlier -- basically went back in time to install the Split-T option offense as a way of getting more from a loaded backfield. Only, he had the fullback line up closer to the quarterback as a faster way of either hitting the hole on the dive portion of the option or fulfilling his blocking assignments. But somehow that little tweak, which made the formation look like a wishbone(or, as writer Mickey Herskowitz called it at the time, "a pulley-bone on a chicken"), led to a revolution.
Having won just 20 games in the three previous seasons, Texas began 1968 with a tie against Houston and a loss to Texas Tech. But backup quarterback James Street looked good in a comeback attempt against Tech; he was named the starter the next week, and Texas wouldn't lose again until 1971. They rolled through the rest of their 1968 slate, then went a perfect 11-0 in 1969, winning an all-time classic against Arkansas, then confirming a national title with a Cotton Bowl win over Notre Dame.
Because of Texas' blueblood profile, the Wishbone didn't have to work its way up from the lower levels of the sport. The other powers immediately understood that it could work for them. Alabama's Bear Bryant quickly adopted it following the Longhorns' 1969 success. So, too, did rival Oklahoma. And while the Horns would certainly reap the benefits of this offensive explosion -- they enjoyed four top-five finishes from 1968 to 1972, then another top-10 finish before Royal's retirement in 1976 -- Bama and OU would dominate the decade, with five national titles and 16 combined top-five finishes from 1971 to 1980. Never has an innovation caught on so quickly, and for the success it brought both Texas and others, the team that perfected the 'Bone should be considered the most influential team the sport has seen.