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1977 college football

1977 Ohio State Football: Key Losses Foreshadow The End Of An Era

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After going to four straight Rose Bowls from 1972-75, Woody Hayes’ program had slipped behind Bo Schembechler and Michigan in 1976. The Buckeyes continued the pattern in ‘77. They were good, but they lost all of their biggest games—including the only one that matters to fans in Columbus and Ann Arbor. The 1977 Ohio State football season was a harbinger for the end of Hayes’ legendary tenure.

Woody, as always, built his success around the running game. Ron Springs ran for almost 1,110 yards. Jeff Logan was a good complementary runner and an All-Big Ten fullback. The offensive line had an All-American in tackle Chris Ward. Tight end Jimmy Moore was All-Big Ten, and in this scheme, it certainly wasn’t about his ability to catch passes. Moore could block and the running game could muscle people. Ohio State quarterbacks, led by Rod Gerald, only completed 66 passes on the season.

The defense ranked fourth nationally in points allowed and had three All-Americans in the lineup—Aaron Brown up front, Tom Cousineau at linebacker, and Ray Griffin in the secondary. Kelton Dansler was all-conference at defensive tackle, while Mike Guess earned that same honor at defensive back.

Ohio State was ranked #5 in the preseason polls. An unimpressive tune up over a bad Miami team ended with a 10-0 win. The Buckeyes then had an early conference test against Minnesota. The Gophers were bowl-bound and would upset Michigan later in the season. But on this September afternoon in Columbus, Ohio State’s muscle was too much. Springs ran for 146 yards. Gerald added 64 more and threw a touchdown pass. The final was 38-7 and the Buckeyes moved up to #4.

The stage was set for a massive showdown against third-ranked Oklahoma. In a wild game, Ohio State fell behind 20-0 on their home field. They rallied and came back to lead 28-20. After the Sooners scored a late TD, the Buckeyes stopped the two-point play and appeared to have the game won. But they failed to cover the onside kick and were beaten on a last-play field goal. The 29-28 crusher was a blow to their national title hopes and pushed them down to #6 in the polls.

Ohio State closed the non-conference portion of their schedule by beating up a bad SMU team, 35-7 on the road. They came back home to play Purdue. The Boilermakers had a potent passing game, led by quarterback Mark Herrmann. Ohio State simply ran over them. Springs rolled up 151 yards. Freshman running back Joel Payton scored four touchdowns. The final was 46-zip.

That started a string of wins against sub-.500 Big Ten teams. The Buckeyes went to Iowa and won 27-6. They easily won at Northwestern, 35-15 Back-to-back shutouts followed, 42-0 over Wisconsin at home, and 35-0 against Illinois in Champaign.

Indiana finished the year 5-5-1 and was coached by Lee Corso, but the Buckeyes rolled the Hoosiers too, 35-7. They were back to #4 in the polls and the money part of the season had arrived.

Michigan was ranked #5 and the winner of the head-to-head battle would stay alive for the national championship in the Rose Bowl. Playing on the road, the Buckeyes were ready. Between the 20-yard lines they dominated play. But the red zone was problematic. The first three trips inside the Michigan 20-yard line produced two field goals and a lost fumble. The Wolverines’ two red zone trips ended in touchdowns. Ohio State trailed 14-6 late in the game.

There was no overtime in college football prior to 1996, so the best the Buckeyes could hope for was a tie when they began their last drive. But a tie, while killing national title hopes, would still put them in the Rose Bowl, thanks to Michigan’s loss to Minnesota.

Ohio State got in the red zone one more time. And one more time, they came up empty. Another lost fumble effectively ended the game at 14-6. An enraged Hayes knocked over an ABC sideline cameraman, an incident that was an ominous foreshadowing of when he would hit a Clemson player in the following season’s Gator Bowl and lose his job as a result.

There was still a chance at redemption. The Buckeyes’ 9-2 finish and #9 national ranking were enough to get a Sugar Bowl bid to play third-ranked Alabama. But the afternoon in New Orleans was an utter disaster. Even though the Tide fumbled the ball an astonishing ten times, Ohio State only recovered two of them. And they did nothing else well. The result was an embarrassing 35-6 loss and a final #11 finish in the polls.

The end of the Hayes era was drawing near. While the aforementioned Gator Bowl incident was the reason, there’s also no question Ohio State was starting to slip behind Michigan. 1977 was the last major bowl trip in the great head coach’s amazing career and a sign that the end was near.

1977 Michigan Football: A Second Straight Big Ten Title

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Bo Schembechler’s 1977 Michigan football team had high expectations. After a breakthrough year in 1976, where they ended a four-year absence from the Rose Bowl, the Wolverines were ranked #2 in the country. Michigan came close to meeting expectations—they returned to Pasadena and stayed in the national title race. But another Rose Bowl loss left a sour taste in their mouths.

The Wolverine defense was one of the nation’s best, anchored by All-American linebacker John Anderson. Ron Simpkins was a solid linebacker and made All-Big Ten. A lockdown secondary had three all-conference performers, including Derek Howard, Jim Pickens, and future San Francisco 49ers’ starter Dwight Hicks.

Schembecler’s offense, like most offenses in 1970s college football, were built on a heavy dose of the running game. And why not, when you have a pair of All-Americans on the offensive line? Center Walt Downing and guard Mark Donahue, along with all-conference tackle Mike Kenn, paved the way for Russell Davis to rush for 1,000 yards. Harlan Huckleby added over 700 more.

Rick Leach didn’t have to throw a lot, but he was competent when he did, and was the Big Ten’s all-conference quarterback. The Wolverine offense ranked a respectable 19th in the nation in points scored.

Michigan opened the season with a league game at lowly Illinois and got things started with a 37-9 win. When top-ranked Oklahoma struggled to get past Vanderbilt, the Wolverines were rewarded with the #1 spot in the polls.

What the voters had given, the voters would soon take away. Michigan played ho-hum games against mediocre teams in Duke and Navy. They won both, but the 21-9 and 14-7 results didn’t impress anyone, and the Wolverines were pushed back down to #3. It set the stage for a big home game with Texas A&M on October 1.

The Aggies were ranked fifth and would finish the season behind only undefeated Texas and Orange Bowl-bound Arkansas in the old Southwest Conference. Michigan took Texas A&M apart. Davis rushed for 110 yards and Leach had 216 all-purpose yards. Ron Simpkins was everywhere on defense, with 14 tackles and the linebacker helped punctuate the 41-3 win in the fourth quarter when he blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown.

Michigan then beat a pretty good Michigan State team 24-14. The Wolverines buried #14 Wisconsin 56-0, and the Badgers plummeted to a sub-.500 record. Michigan was back to the top of the polls and controlled their fate for a national title.

One year earlier, the Wolverines had been in this same situation, and they were upset by Purdue. This time it was Minnesota that did the deed. The Gophers, the only conference team besides Michigan and Ohio State to make a bowl game, pulled a 16-0 upset in the Twin Cities and the Wolverines fell to #6.

Schembecler’s team came back strong, rolling through Iowa, Northwestern and Purdue and scoring 63 points in each of the latter two games. Michigan was set to host Ohio State in the season-ending finale. The Buckeyes had a share of the conference crown already sewn up, but the Wolverines would take the other half and the tiebreaker with a win.

Michigan won with red-zone execution. In the first three quarters-plus, Ohio State got down inside the 20 three times, but came away with just two field goals. Michigan got touchdowns on its trips and led 14-6 when the Buckeyes launched one more drive. They had 1st-and-goal on the Michigan 8-yard line and the Wolverines needed one more red zone stop.

A tie was as good as a loss for Michigan, and Anderson came up with the big play. He forced a fumble, the Wolverines recovered, and the 14-6 win was secure. They had been outgained 352-196 but were going to the Rose Bowl ranked fourth in the nation.

By the time the traditional late-afternoon kickoff arrived, the national title picture had been thrown into chaos. Top-ranked Texas, the only unbeaten team in the country, had been crushed by Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. Michigan was a part of a group of one-loss teams that could stake a claim with a decisive win.

Moreover, Schembechler had yet to win a major bowl game in a tenure that began in 1969. The great head coach had lost three Rose Bowls and an Orange Bowl in that timeframe. With the opponent this year being a seemingly pedestrian four-loss Washington team, Bo appeared primed to get that breakthrough bowl victory.

But the Huskies were hot and their quarterback—a guy named Warren Moon—was better than anyone anticipated. Washington came out ready to play and Michigan did not. The Wolverines dug themselves a 27-7 hole in the fourth quarter.

They fought back, scoring twice and then driving inside the 10-yard line late in the game. But a turnover ended that drive and the next one. Michigan lost 27-20. They would end the season ranked #9 in the country.

1977 still marked a year where Michigan solidified what was turning into a consistent edge in their great rivalry with Ohio State. It was a trend that would continue in 1978 when the Wolverines won another Big Ten crown. But they had to wait until 1980 for Bo to get that elusive Rose Bowl victory.

1977 Washington Huskies: An Era Of Success Starts With A Rose Bowl Win

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Washington wasn’t on anyone’s radar when the 1977 season began. The Huskies had not reached the Rose Bowl since 1963 and James had gone 11-11 his first two years in Seattle. The way the 1977 Washington Huskies started the season wouldn’t have given anyone an indication that things had changed. But by the time the year was over, they were Rose Bowl champs and a new era of success had begun.

Warren Moon was at quarterback. The future NFL Hall of Famer won co-MVP honors in the Pac-8 Conference this season. Moon’s big play target was Spider Gaines, whose 30 catches went for over 22 yards a pop. Joe Steele was a good rusher, going for over 800 yards and his 25 catches were a nice total for a running back in this era.

Steele was joined in the backfield by Ron Gipson, who averaged nearly five yards per carry as a change of pace. They both ran behind a line that was anchored by a pair of all-conference players. There was Jeff Toews at guard. And center Blair Bush had a long NFL career ahead of him.

Defensively, Washington was led by All-Pac-8 players in linebacker Michael Jackson and defensive back Nesby Glasgow, another player with a pro career in his future. The Huskies were a well-balanced team and finished in the top 30 nationally for both scoring offense and scoring defense.

Those rankings are low for a major bowl winner, and the reason was an awful start in non-conference play. Washington was unranked to begin that year and the first four games showed why. They played three mediocre teams in Mississippi State, Syracuse, and Minnesota, all of whom hovered around the .500 mark. The Huskies lost all three games. In between, they managed to beat a bad San Jose State team, but were still 1-3 going into league play in October.

When the Pac-8 slate began it was like a switch flipped. A trip to play Oregon was the third straight road game, coming off the losses at Syracuse and Minnesota. While the Ducks were a terrible team, there was no reason to see the 54-0 beatdown coming.

Washington came back home to play Stanford. The Cardinal had a good offense. Their quarterback, Guy Benjamin, shared Pac-8 MVP honors with Moon. Running back Darrin Nelson would have a successful NFL run with the Minnesota Vikings. Wide receiver James Lofton went on to a Hall of Fame pro career. And Stanford had a rookie coach who turned out to be a pretty good—a guy by the name of Bill Walsh.

In the face of all that, the Huskies won easily, 45-21. They were back to .500 at 3-3.

The next two weeks were a little tougher. Washington played a ho-hum game in beating lowly Oregon State 14-6. Their trip to UCLA resulted in a 20-12 loss.

A strong November push was ahead. Cal’s season was the reverse of Washington’s—the Golden Bears did well in non-conference play and were still ranked #17 as a result. But Moon and the offense dropped 50 points and walked out Berkely with a 19-point win. Cal ended up sub-.500 in conference games.

At 4-1 in the conference, Washington was, quite improbably, in the hunt for the Rose Bowl with two games left. USC was coming to Seattle. The Trojans were the league’s perennial power and had been ranked #1 earlier in the season. But they were also fading. Even with the league’s top rusher, Charles White, that fade continued. Washington won 28-10.

That win finally got the Huskies ranked, at #19. They were tied for first in the Pac-8 but needed help. UCLA needed to lose to USC. In fact, Washington’s season finale didn’t matter at all for the Rose Bowl. If the Bruins lost, the Huskies would go to Pasadena.

Even so, this was still the Apple Cup rivalry game with Washington State and their own future NFL quarterback in Jack Thompson. Washington won it 35-15. They had to wait a week to find out their fate. But when they watched UCLA lose to USC, the Huskies were going to the Rose Bowl and their own victory meant they were outright conference champs.

The opponent was mighty Michigan, coming in at 10-1 and ranked #4 in the country. When top-ranked Texas lost the Cotton Bowl early in the day, the Wolverines were one of several one-loss teams that had a chance to stake a claim. But Moon and the Huskies got in the way.

Washington dominated the game for three quarters. Moon hit Gaines on a 28-yard touchdown pass. The defense stuffed Michigan on a 4th-and-1 from the three-yard line. To the astonishment of the national TV audience, the Huskies led 27-7 in the fourth quarter.

Michigan came roaring back, cutting the lead to 27-20 and then driving to the Washington 8-yard line with less than three minutes to play. It was Jackson who made the play of the game. A short pass to tailback Stanley Edwards resulted in Jackson simply wrestling the football away. A last-gasp Wolverine drive after that was ended by a Glasgow interception. Washington held on to win 27-20.

The surprise run through the conference and then the Rose Bowl itself, was a preview of things to come. Moon, after having to spend six years in the Canadian Football League, almost certainly due to the prejudice against black quarterbacks, eventually became one of the NFL’s signature QBs.

And the Washington program was just getting started. While USC returned to its dominating ways, the Huskies would get back to the Rose Bowl in both 1980 and 1981. They finished #2 in the country in 1984.  From 1990-92, they won three straight conference titles and took home a national championship in 1991. The success of the Don James era really got started with this 1977 season.

1977 Texas Football: Greatness Ends With Heartbreak

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Texas faced uncharacteristically low expectations when the 1977 season began. Legendary head coach Darrell Royal had retired, and the program was coming off a .500 season. They had not reached a major bowl game since 1973 and were clearly losing ground to archrival Oklahoma, who had won a pair of recent national titles.

Fred Akers was hired to replace Royal and changed the offense from the wishbone to a single-back I-formation. It proved to be a boon for Earl Campbell. The senior running back had struggled to fulfill his immense potential as the fullback in the option. As the single back in the I, Campbell ran for over 1,700 yards, won the Heisman Trophy, and became one of the truly great running backs of all time.

Texas had another big award-winner on defense, as defensive tackle Brad Shearer won the Outland Trophy. Russell Erxleben was an All-American punter and also one of the best kickers in the country.

It was the running game, defense and kicking game for Texas, which is a good thing, because they weren’t going to beat anyone throwing the football. Randy McEachern opened the season as the third-stringer and threw only 89 passes for the entire season.

The Longhorns began the season unranked, but it didn’t take long for that to change. They opened up at home by routing an average Boston College team 44-0. Texas blasted lowly Virginia 68-0. UT’s first conference game was against a terrible Rice team, and it produced a 72-15 annihilation. For those scoring at home, that’s 184 points in three games.

Pollsters noticed, and Texas was up to #8 by the time they played #2 Oklahoma in the annual Red River Rivalry game. Under the alignment of the time, this was a non-conference game, with the Sooners in the old Big Eight Conference and the Longhorns in the Southwest Conference.

Texas’ starting quarterback at the time was Mark McBath. Seven plays into the game he was injured and lost for the season. The backup was Jon Aune. Nine plays later he was injured and lost for the season. McEachern was up. He played well enough to win, which is to say he gave the ball to Campbell.

Earl ran for 124 yards against a great defense, and his 24-yard touchdown run broke a 3-3 tie and was the key play of the game. The second-biggest play came from Shearer. Texas held a 13-6 lead, but OU reached the five-yard line with four minutes left. On 4th-and-1, Shearer stuffed Sooner quarterback Thomas Lott. The Longhorns had won what would prove to be the regular season’s most significant game.

Texas moved to #2 in the country, behind only Michigan. The Longhorns had no time to worry about the polls because eighth-ranked Arkansas, their prime competition for the SWC championship—and its automatic bid to the Cotton Bowl—were up next.

Erxleben nailed field goals from 58 & 52 yards. His counterpart, Steve Little, who would get the nod for All-American, hit a 67-yarder for Arkansas and the Razorbacks eventually led 9-6. But Campbell was too much. He ran for 188 yards, and his running helped set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Ham Jones with four minutes left. Jones was one of three brothers on the Texas team who went by the nicknames of Ham, Lam, and Jam.

One week later, Michigan lost, and Texas moved to the top of the polls. They were in control of their own destiny.

The Longhorns took advantage of the opportunity. They handled subpar SMU on the road, 30-14. Texas came home to play a decent Texas Tech squad and hung a 26-0 shutout on the Red Raiders. Houston was the defending conference champion, but mediocre this season. The Longhorns beat the Cougars 35-21. Texas crushed lowly TCU 44-14. They hosted mediocre Baylor and won 29-7 to clinch a tie for the SWC crown and the Cotton Bowl bid.

There was still one game left, a chance to take the league title outright and—more important—hold the #1 ranking going into the Cotton Bowl. The finale was in College Station, for what was then an annual season-ending showdown with Texas A&M. The Aggies came in at 8-2 and ranked #12 in the country. The Longhorn offense exploded, won 57-28.

The Cotton Bowl needed to find an opponent. Oklahoma, with only the loss to Texas, had won the Big Eight and finished #2. But the Sooners were committed to the Orange Bowl. Alabama and Michigan were 3-4 and locked into the Sugar and Rose Bowls respectively. That left #5 Notre Dame. The Irish, with a quarterback by the name of Joe Montana, got the opportunity to play Texas.

New Year’s weekend was set to be a festive holiday time in the Lone Star State, The Dallas Cowboys had won the NFC Championship on New Year’s Day Sunday and would go on to win the Super Bowl. Now Texas had to follow suit. But no one, not even the biggest Notre Dame optimist, could have predicted what would happen next.

Texas had a nightmarish game, turning the ball over six times, with almost all the damage coming in the second quarter. Heavens and Vagas Ferguson combined for a huge day for Notre Dame, going over 200 yards rushing. The score was 28-10 by halftime and shockingly ended 38-10.

The Longhorns finished #4 in the final polls. Akers would have two more teams that finished in the national top 5—in 1981, and in 1983, when another crushing Cotton Bowl loss cost them a national title. But it’s fair to say that 1977 was his best team. The program’s search for a national title would go on until Vince Young ended the drought in 2005.

1977 Arkansas Football: A Historic Orange Bowl Win

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The 1977 Arkansas football season was the start of a new era in Razorback history. Frank Broyles retired after 19 program-defining seasons and moved upstairs to be the full-time athletic director and part-time ABC analyst, alongside Keith Jackson. Broyles’ replacement was Lou Holtz, a winner at N.C. State, and just off a less-than-successful fling with the NFL’s New York Jets. The ’77 Hogs had a big year and their dramatic Orange Bowl victory profoundly impacted the national championship race.

Arkansas was led by a defense that was third in the nation for points allowed. Jimmy Walker, an All-American defensive tackle, was the anchor. On the offensive side of the trenches was another All-American, guard Leotis Harris.

Harris led way for running back Ben Cowins, who rolled up nearly 1,200 yards. Quarterback Ron Calcagni ran for 546 yards himself. Calcagni didn’t throw a lot—only 137 passes on the season. But he was good for 8.4 yards-per-attempt, and he hit some big throws in big games before all was said and done. The Razorback offense ranked 13th nationally in points allowed.

Arkansas had gone a mediocre 5-5-1 in Broyles’ swan song, so expectations were muted. The Hogs were unranked to start the season. They tuned up with a 53-10 rout of New Mexico State.

Oklahoma State was ranked #15 and came in to provide what looked like a real test. Arkansas passed, with a decisive 28-6 win. In retrospect, the Cowboys would struggle to a four-win season. But in the moment, the win was impressive enough to launch the Razorbacks to the #16 spot in the polls. They quickly moved to #12 with a 37-3 blasting of Tulsa. And a 42-6 rout at lowly TCU to open Southwest Conference play got the Hogs into the national top 10.

Texas was ranked #2 in the nation and a home date with the Longhorns was next. Arkansas hung in there against a loaded team that included Heisman Trophy-winning running back Earl Campbell. But the Hogs took a 13-9 loss. The competitiveness of the game kept the Razorbacks in the top 10.

Houston was the defending SWC champs, although headed for a pedestrian 6-5 season this year. The Hogs blanked the Cougars 34-0. They blew out a bad Rice team 30-7, and then hammered mediocre Baylor 35-9. Even though Texas was cruising to the #1 ranking and the SWC’s automatic Cotton Bowl bid, Arkansas was squarely in the mix for a New Year’s Day invitation at 7-1.

A big road trip to College Station to play #11 Texas A&M was crucial to that goal. The Hogs and Aggies were tied 20-20 in the final two minutes. Calcagni rolled to his left. Throwing against his body, he found big-play target Robert Farrell down the left side line for a 58-yard touchdown pass. The extra point was blocked. That loomed large when A&M launched a last-ditch effort and got close enough to try a final pass into the end zone. But Patrick Martin came up with an interception and preserved Arkansas’ 26-20 win.

The Hogs came home and blew out a subpar SMU team 47-7 on November 19. There was a key game left at a pretty good Texas Tech team, but bowl bids had to be given out. At 9-1 and ranked #6, the Orange Bowl came calling and invited Arkansas.

Five days later, on Thanksgiving, the Hogs came out a little flat and trailed the Red Raiders 14-3 at halftime, scoring only on a 50-yard field goal by All-American kicker Steve Little. But in the second half, Calcagni again showed what he could do with his arm. He threw two touchdown passes, including a 59-yard strike to Bobby Duckworth with just over six minutes to play. Arkansas got out of Lubbock with a 17-14 triumph.

Oklahoma was the Orange Bowl opponent and ranked #2 in the nation. The Sooners were loaded and already favored by as many as 18 points. Then the suspensions came. Holtz suspended four offensive starters for the game. One of them was Cowins. Las Vegas responded by jumping the point spread to as high as 24 points.

The problems of Arkansas seemed even more pertinent by the events of early afternoon on January 1. Texas, with the national title in their grasp, was crushed by fifth-ranked Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. Now, Oklahoma needed only take care of its business in Miami to claim the title for their own. No one gave the Hogs a chance.

But Holtz had his team ready. They capitalized on an early turnover and scored right away for a 7-0 lead. Roland Sales, given the opportunity to play in light of Cowins’ suspension, ran wild and piled up 205 yards on the ground. Oklahoma, even with a future Heisman Trophy winner in Billy Sims and another future NFL back in Kenny King, couldn’t get anything going. Or when they did, the ball ended up on the ground.

Arkansas was up 24-0 at halftime and coasted home in the second half to win 31-6. In a shocking development, OU couldn’t have covered that 24-point Vegas spread even if it had been reversed.

 Given Holtz’s future coaching endeavors, it was no small coincidence that the ultimate result of the Orange Bowl win was to give Notre Dame the national championship. The Razorbacks would finish #3 in the final polls.

Holtz enjoyed a good seven-year run at Arkansas, including a trip to the Sugar Bowl in 1979. But 1977 was his best year as the Razorbacks’ boss. In fact, the Hogs have not matched that #3 finish since. 1977 was a special season in Arkansas football history.

The Road To The 1978 Sugar Bowl: Alabama & Ohio State

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Alabama came to the 1978 Sugar Bowl hoping that a combination of a win and the right confluence of events could lift them to a national championship. Ohio State came hoping to get to finally get a big win over a really good team. Neither team got what it really wanted, although ‘Bama certainly did everything in its power to make it happen.

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Bear Bryant’s Tide were looking to get back on top of the SEC when the 1977 college football season opened. After winning the conference outright from 1971-75, they had slipped behind Georgia in 1976 and failed to make a major bowl game. With a balanced running attack, and a good downfield passing game, keyed by quarterback Jeff Rutledge and All-American WR/TE Ozzie Newsome, the Tide were ranked #6 to start the season.

After a win over Ole Miss, disaster came on a trip to Nebraska. This wasn’t a great Cornhusker team–they would lose three games and be nowhere to find in the New Year’s Day bowl games, but in front of a national TV audience, Rutledge threw five interceptions in a 31-24 loss. Alabama fell to #10 in the polls.

Victories over Vanderbilt, and Georgia, who slipped under .500, set up an October 8 trip to top-ranked USC. The Tide trailed 3-0 at the half, but got two fourth-quarter rushing touchdowns from Tony Nathan and took a 21-6 lead. USC had one more rally in them. The scored a touchdown and converted the two-point conversion. Now leading 21-14, Alabama gave up another touchdown and USC head coach John Robinson decided to go for the win. This time, the Tide defense held and they escaped with a 21-20 win.

Alabama moved back to #4 in the polls and while USC kept sliding downward the rest of the way, ‘Bama was finally starting to roll. They were never tested the rest of the way, including a 24-3 smothering at eight-win LSU. As outright SEC champs again, Bryant’s team was locked in to the Sugar Bowl and they were ranked #3 in the country.

Ohio State opened the season in an analogous situation to Alabama. After winning the Big Ten and going to the Rose Bowl each year from 1972-75, the Buckeyes slipped behind Michigan in 1976. Woody Hayes’ team was ranked fifth to start the season.

Hayes, as always, built his success around the running game. Ron Springs ran for over 1,110 yards, while Jeff Logan and Paul Campbell were solid complementary runners. Chris Ward was an All-American at offensive tackle. There were All-Americans on the defensive side in linebackers Aaron Brown and Tom Cousineau, along with defensive back Ray Griffin.

After starting 2-0, Ohio State faced a big test when second-ranked Oklahoma came to Columbus. The Buckeyes had reason to hate the Sooners–Ohio State lost key games in 1974 and 1975, both of which opened the door to national titles for OU. The bad fortune continued as the Buckeyes fell behind 20-0.

But the offense, led by quarterback Rod Gerald, came back. They took a 28-20 lead and with the rain falling on the artificial turf that used to be on the field in Columbus, they looked in command. Oklahoma scored late, but Ohio State stopped the two-point play. All that was left was to cover the onside kick.

Only the Buckeyes didn’t take care of business on the onside attempt and OU got the ball back. The Sooners got the ball into position for kicker Uwe von Schamann to try a 41-yard field goal. During the time-out before the kick, the crowd chanted “Block that kick!” Ever confident, von Schamann stepped back, removed his helmet and “orchestrated” the crowd in their chant. Then he backed up and broke Ohio State’s heart with a field goal that won the game 29-28.

The Buckeyes only dropped to sixth in the polls, although there weren’t a lot of great opportunities to move up the next seven weeks. They ripped through what was then a soft Big Ten and the schedule didn’t include the conference’s third-best team in Michigan State. Ohio State was waiting for November 19 at Michigan.

Michigan had lost a conference game, so Hayes’ team had a share of the league title already clinched. But the Rose Bowl bid and supremacy were still at stake. Ohio State dominated the game between the 20-yard lines, but lost it in the red zone. Four trips inside the Michigan 20 resulted in two field goals and two lost fumbles.

The final lost fumble came when trailing 14-6 late in the game. Hayes, enraged, knocked over an ABC cameraman, an incident that was an ominous foreshadowing of when he would hit a Clemson player in the following season’s Gator Bowl and lose his job as a result.

Ohio State finished the regular season at #9, but for a program for whom great expectations where a way of life, the agonizing losses to Oklahoma and Michigan, left them looking for some redemption when they arrived in New Orleans to face Alabama.

The Sugar Bowl was played in the early afternoon time slot until 1981, alongside the Cotton Bowl. Alabama was hoping that #1-ranked Texas would lose the Cotton, meaning all teams would have one loss. Then, if #2 Oklahoma fell in the Orange Bowl that night, it would open the door to a national title for the Tide.

When you’re looking to win a big game, putting the ball on the ground ten times isn’t recommended. That’s what happened to Alabama. Amazingly, they only lost two of them. And they dominated Ohio State in every other facet of play. They ran for 280 yards. The Tide led 13-0 at half, 21-0 after three quarters and coasted to a 35-6 blowout win.

Meanwhile, Alabama was getting the breaks. Texas lost, as did Oklahoma. But it turns out Texas lost by a little too much–Notre Dame’s 38-10 dismantling of UT in the Cotton Bowl was so thorough that the Irish were lifted from #5 to #1 (fourth-ranked Michigan lost the Rose Bowl). Alabama’s #2 ranking is a subject that rankles Tide fans to this day, believing that only Notre Dame’s national popularity decided the vote.

1977 Sports: The Year Of The Jesuit Reign

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This is part of a series of sports history articles celebrating the best in 1977 sports. This piece asks the question of which geographic fan base had the best year in ’77.
The place to be in 1977 sports wasn’t necessarily geographic. There were fan bases that had good years, to be sure. The fan base of Dallas saw the Cowboys win the Super Bowl and the University of Texas get to within one victory of a national title in college football.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
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Fans in Philadelphia saw the 76ers make the NBA Finals and the Phillies reach the National League Championship Series. Boston fans watched the Bruins reach the Stanley Cup Finals and the Red Sox hang with the eventual champion New York Yankees to the final weekend of the regular season in baseball. But none of these fan bases closed the deal with multiple championships.
If we broaden our scope though, that were was one “fan base” that did, and it’s the Society of Jesus, a religious order of priests in the Catholic Church who are known among sports fans for having founded the vast majority of the Catholic colleges that play prominent big-time athletics (and as of 2013 known also for the papal election of one of their own in Pope Francis).
Basketball is what most of the Jesuit schools play and the 1977 Marquette basketball team won the national title at the Final Four in Atlanta. It was a particularly electric moment, with the announcement that the team’s colorful head coach, Al McGuire, was retiring at season’s end.
Then when fall came and football season started up, the 1977 Notre Dame football team got on a championship run, led by quarterback Joe Montana. The Fighting Irish did it with some further help from green jerseys and a dramatic sequence of events of New Year’s Day.
Notre Dame has won only one national title since, so 1977 sports marked a special year. It was the only time a pair of Jesuit colleges won both the Final Four and the college football national title. And it made ’77 a year where the place to be wasn’t a city or region, but a priestly order in Holy Mother Church.
Read more about the 1977 Marquette basketball team
Read more about the 1977 Notre Dame football team 

1977 Sports: The Year Of The Jesuit Reign

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1977 Sports: The Year Of The Jesuit Reign
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1977 Sports: The Year Of The Jesuit Reign

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