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Posted
7 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Could be titled “how DKR rescued OU football”

And rescued Alabama football - Bryant practiced the wishbone all summer and sprang it on USC in game 1 of 1971 after warming up in the same old pro set.  Halftime score 17-0 zip Bama.  Ole Bear true to form sat on the lead and the defense made it stand. Final 17-10.  After 6-win seasons in 69 and 70, Bama went through the 71 reg season undefeated but ended up being stomped by Johnny Rodgers, Rich Glover, Jerry Tagge and the Nebraska Corncobbers in the Orange Bowl, 38-6, and it wasn’t that close.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Bama Llama said:

And rescued Alabama football - Bryant practiced the wishbone all summer and sprang it on USC in game 1 of 1971 after warming up in the same old pro set.  Halftime score 17-0 zip Bama.  Ole Bear true to form sat on the lead and the defense made it stand. Final 17-10.  After 6-win seasons in 69 and 70, Bama went through the 71 reg season undefeated but ended up being stomped by Johnny Rodgers, Rich Glover, Jerry Tagge and the Nebraska Corncobbers in the Orange Bowl, 38-6, and it wasn’t that close.

It also might have helped that Bama didn't integrate the football team until the 1971 season. Elevate talent, innovate on offense and, voila, a great decade. 

When did Bryant switch out his aging staff for a bunch of new blood? My father's told me all of my life that one of the key things Bear did that DKR didn't was that he switched out his staff when things got stale and Bama wasn't winning at the level that Bryant thought they should be. I've never really fact-checked that, but your post reminded me of the premise. 

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Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, PGFrog said:

Sorry, but the fact it is titled :SEC Storied: Wishbone" is wrong at some level.  

Similar to showing clips of Ricky as one of the SEC's trophy winners. 

It's not like we like any of that shit either, but this is the path the school's leadership chose. Some byproducts of that decision are fine - the competition, bigger brands, money, recruiting. Some are not - generally being affiliated with a bunch of mouthbreathing, chestbeating hillbillies, seeing credit taken for UT's achievements and players' achievements, cheating, SEC chants, etc. 

Edited by closetojumping
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Posted
5 hours ago, closetojumping said:

It also might have helped that Bama didn't integrate the football team until the 1971 season. Elevate talent, innovate on offense and, voila, a great decade. 

When did Bryant switch out his aging staff for a bunch of new blood? My father's told me all of my life that one of the key things Bear did that DKR didn't was that he switched out his staff when things got stale and Bama wasn't winning at the level that Bryant thought they should be. I've never really fact-checked that, but your post reminded me of the premise. 

I don’t know- Royal never had much of a coaching tree (Pittman? MacWilliams, Bellard, Akers), and Bryant’s is definitely better (Schnellenberger, Stallings, Perkins, fuck Sherrill, Bum Phillips). They both had long term security blankets as DC- Campbell at Texas and Donahue at Bama. 
 
I collect old game programs and I’m amazed at some staffs that teams can put together. Examples:

1966 Oklahoma- HC MacKenzie, assistants Fairbanks, Switzer, Rice, Hall, Lacewell

1984 Iowa- HC Fry, assistants Snyder, Stoops, Ferentz, Alvarez

I don’t know that Texas ever had a staff like that. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, closetojumping said:

It's not like we like any of that shit either, but this is the path the school's leadership chose. Some byproducts of that decision are fine - the competition, bigger brands, money, recruiting. Some are not - generally being affiliated with a bunch of mouthbreathing, chestbeating hillbillies, seeing credit taken for UT's achievements and players' achievements, cheating, SEC chants, etc. 

Well to be fair, UT made some of those achievements kicking SEC ass starting in the 1965 Orange Bowl, plus more over the decades.

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Posted
5 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Could be titled “how DKR rescued OU football”

DKR rejected multiple head coaching offers from blOU after Wilkinson retired (makes sense, no one wanted to be the guy who followed Wilkinson). In some twisted way he probably felt bad and figured he would help his alma mater. Bellard and Akers both tried to talk him out of giving Switzer the keys to the offense, all in vain. DKR later said he regretted the decision after Switzer repaid the favour by spying on his practices.

Switzer refined the wishbone and turned the ground attack aspect of it up to 11. Bryant went the opposite way and improved the passing attack. He first saw the wishbone in action when his Crimson Tide battled the Sooners to a 24-24 tie in the 1970 Bluebonnet Bowl.

Posted
2 hours ago, Zeus said:

Bring it back

Wingo and Baxter with Gibson at FB

 

2 hours ago, Hellraiser97 said:

The time to bring it back was 1996.  Rickey, Shon and Priest in the backfield with James Brown at QB.  

So you guys would like to go, dare I say, back to the bone?!?!

IYKYK

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Posted

Whew! Thought I was getting doxxed.

But seriously, would be kinda cool to perhaps run a “‘bone play” a couple of times a season. Even if it’s just to show something different.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Wishbone said:

Whew! Thought I was getting doxxed.

But seriously, would be kinda cool to perhaps run a “‘bone play” a couple of times a season. Even if it’s just to show something different.

Then throw it to new tight end Caleb bluett?

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Posted

The wishbone was only ever effective back in the days when fast, strong guys never played in the front 7 on defense. Those days are long, long gone….

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Posted
5 hours ago, Steamboat1874 said:

 

Formation was way to wide, and man in motion took it out of the wishbone.  And ran a play that DKR never would have done from the formation.

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Posted
10 hours ago, Bama Llama said:

 Texas whipped Bama in the 80 Cotton Bowl.  

It was the 82 cotton bowl (81 season) and I don't know if I'd call a come from behind 14-12 victory a whipping, but I'll take it.

Fun fact most  announcers of Baylor Texas games hardly ever mentioned- the winning touchdown was scored by a guy whose son was not offered by UT.

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Posted
On 6/30/2025 at 11:14 PM, landman said:

Formation was way to wide, and man in motion took it out of the wishbone.  And ran a play that DKR never would have done from the formation.

I get what your saying but that is still cool shit. As the game changed, it was something you never expected to see again. Growing up and hearing and watching replays of it, is forever embedded in it football, even for someone like me who misses it by a decade or so. I can imagine the fear it brought to the opposing team and fan base. As well as the confidence for us to have it and use it. For a brief moment just to see the formation in burnt orange to honor a legend is a nice touch. And for a moment we could all remember what once was for a second. To see it again and having it pop for 30+ yards was almost as poetic as Ricky's run. 

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Posted

Seeing video of Wilber Jackson in the wishbone wearing #80 is funny. Came to Alabama as a WR. Kept his #, moved to the backfield and was an All-American. 

First black scholarship player at Alabama in the early 70s. 

 

image.png.18d71673727e9cfcb5c4de722c1ff6c1.png

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Posted
13 hours ago, Frank Hammer said:

I get what your saying but that is still cool shit. As the game changed, it was something you never expected to see again. Growing up and hearing and watching replays of it, is forever embedded in it football, even for someone like me who misses it by a decade or so. I can imagine the fear it brought to the opposing team and fan base. As well as the confidence for us to have it and use it. For a brief moment just to see the formation in burnt orange to honor a legend is a nice touch. And for a moment we could all remember what once was for a second. To see it again and having it pop for 30+ yards was almost as poetic as Ricky's run. 

*you're 

Posted
On 6/30/2025 at 10:10 AM, Bama Llama said:

And rescued Alabama football - Bryant practiced the wishbone all summer and sprang it on USC in game 1 of 1971 after warming up in the same old pro set.  Halftime score 17-0 zip Bama.  Ole Bear true to form sat on the lead and the defense made it stand. Final 17-10.  After 6-win seasons in 69 and 70, Bama went through the 71 reg season undefeated but ended up being stomped by Johnny Rodgers, Rich Glover, Jerry Tagge and the Nebraska Corncobbers in the Orange Bowl, 38-6, and it wasn’t that close.

How do you sit on the lead in the wishbone?  Run one play instead of all three?

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Posted
I had forgotten how much I did not like this story of how we invented an offense to help OU, A&M, and Alabama.
 
 

I had no idea about that so I heard about it the first time last night.

I too was WTF are you thinking? Aggy AND ou?
Posted
17 minutes ago, markstanco said:


I had no idea about that so I heard about it the first time last night.

I too was WTF are you thinking? Aggy AND ou?

What makes you think coach royal would hate ou, or consider Aggy any kind of threat?

Posted
20 minutes ago, notre dame joe said:

Was there any mention of Ara Parseghian's 'wishbone defense' sometimes called the mirror defense?

Actually I think UCLA and Tommy Prothro ran that defense against Texas before Norte Dame did in 1970.

Posted

I was in high school listening to the UCLA game on the radio in 1970 and, like the rest of the free world, was blown away at UCLA’s ability to slow down the wishbone.  Eddie Phillips hit Cotton Speyrer on a 45 yd pass with 12 seconds left in the game (this was a Hail Mary before that term made its way into the lexicon) pulling out a 20-17 win.  People remember the late game TD pass, but Happy Feller made 48yd and 55yd field goals without which we were screwed.  The pass play begins at 2:29.

Posted

That was the first game that I saw in person at DKR.  That was the first year we had our season tickets, and we still have the same seats.  However, my mom turns 95 this year, so I'm not sure that we will be able to hang on to them much longer.

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Harrison Stafford said:

I was in high school listening to the UCLA game on the radio in 1970 and, like the rest of the free world, was blown away at UCLA’s ability to slow down the wishbone.  Eddie Phillips hit Cotton Speyrer on a 45 yd pass with 12 seconds left in the game (this was a Hail Mary before that term made its way into the lexicon) pulling out a 20-17 win.  People remember the late game TD pass, but Happy Feller made 48yd and 55yd field goals without which we were screwed.  The pass play begins at 2:29.

That was the play that caused my brother to be assaulted by a US Secret Service agent. 
Brother was standing in the crowded exit on the west side 50 yard line area when Phillips hit Spreyer, and the crowd went crazy. 
Brother (6’4”) started jumping up & down and slapped the tall dude wearing a suit in front of him on the back & shoulder. 
Immediately someone behind Brother bear-hugged him and pulled him away from the suit, who turned around pretty pissed off. 
That dude in the suit was Lyndon B. Johnson. 
Brother didn’t care…he shouted “We won Mr. President, we won!”. 
LBJ was then hustled away with his entourage before the SS agent released him. 
At least he didn’t get shot.

Edited by Armybrat
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