Glenn Dobbs

Charley Trippi

• 1941: Tulsa finished 7-2, including victories over Oklahoma A&M and Baylor. The losses were to TCU and Arkansas. The Golden Hurricanes beat Texas Tech 6-0 in the Sun Bowl in El Paso TX on January 1, 1942. TB Glenn Dobbs passed for 239y, including the game's only score, a 32y TD to E Saxon Judd.
• 1942: Frnka's second team went 10-0, defeating Oklahoma, Oklahoma A&M, Baylor, and Arkansas. They didn't allow a point until their seventh game and ended with seven shutouts. Tulsa led the nation in both scoring (42.7ppg) and scoring D (3.2ppg). They faced 8-1-1 Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl. Dobbs completed seven straight passes in Q2, the last a 9y TD to Cal Purdin to break a scoreless tie. The Vols came right back but missed the PAT to trail 7-6 at halftime. Early in Q3, a blocked punt resulted in a safety to give the Vols an 8-7 lead. An INT a short time later resulted in a 1y TD run and a 14-7 Tennessee victory.
• 1943: Frnka had only six returning members from the 1942 squad. 24 of the 40-man squad were classifed 4-F or had medical discharges. Another nine were 18 or younger. The team included one-armed G Ellis Jones, who made all-Missouri Valley Conference nonetheless, a player with only one lung, and another with only one kidney. HB Camp Wilson had to wear a special shoe because of a severed Achilles tendon. Playing an abbreviated wartime schedule, Tulsa finished 5-0-1, the tie coming to lowly Southwestern 6-6. The Sugar Bowl wanted to invite #2 Iowa Pre-Flight, but the Navy's 48-hour furlough limit made it impossible for the Seahawks to play in a bowl. So the committee invited the #15 Hurricanes again. This time the opponent was #18 Georgia Tech. This made Tech the first school to participate in all four major bowls (Rose, Orange, Cotton, and Sugar). A TD pass on a fake FG helped Tulsa take n 18-7 halftime lead. However, Tech rallied for two second half TDs to pull out a 20-18 victory, with successful PATs kicked by E Phil Tinsley providing the margin of victory.
• 1944: The 7-2 season, including victories over Kansas, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, Arkansas, and Miami (FL), led to a #17 ranking for the Hurricanes. Frnka's fourth team led the nation in total offense and passing. Their reward was a rematch with Georgia Tech, this time in the Orange Bowl. Tulsa took a 14-0 Q1 lead on two TDs by WB Ed Schelosky. A 65y pass-lateral from Perry Moss to Shedlosky to Barney White made the score 20-0 in Q3. This time Tech could not come back despite the heroics of future coach, AD, and TV commentator Frank Broyles, who passed for 304y. He threw a 51y TD pass to close the gap to 20-6. But Camp Wilson returned the ensuing kickoff 90y to seal the 26-12 victory.
• 1945: Frnka's last Tulsa team won 8 and lost 2 to once again finished 17th in the final AP poll. The vanquised included Texas Tech, Baylor, and Arkansas. The losses were road games at Indiana and Oklahoma A&M. This time they were invited to the brand new Oil Bowl in Houston to face #18 Georgia. The Bulldogs won an exciting game, 20-6. TB Charley Trippi scored on a 68y punt return and threw a 64y TD.

Frnka moved to Tulane after the 1945 season. There he compiled a 31-23-4 record through 1951. His 1948 team finished 9-1, the only defeat coming on the road at Georgia Tech, but did not go to a bowl. His '49 squad was upset by LSU in the finale, 21-0, to knock them out of the Sugar Bowl. Frnka retired after 1951 as the school's administration decided to deemphasize football.

Emlen Tunnell

Dan Towler

• During his career from 1948-1962 (the last three seasons with the Packers), Tunnell intercepted 79 passes, a record later broken by Paul Krause (1964-1979) by two.
  
  
• Undrafted out of Iowa, primarily because the league shunned most black players, he walked into the Giants' front office in 1948 and offered his services. He thus became the first African-American to play for the Giants.
  
  
• 6'1", 187 lb, "Em" redefined the S position in the NFL. The key "strut" in the Giants' famed "Umbrella Defense," he made the Pro Bowl nine times and was first team All-Pro four times.
  
  
• His first few seasons in New York, his fellow S was another future Hall of Famer (as a coach), Tom Landry, a Southerner from Texas. In the famous 1958 Championship Game against the Colts, Tunnell's S companion was Jimmy Patton, another Southerner from Ole Miss.
  
  
• Emlen was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1968.

• The 1958 Bulls won 8 of 9 games and received the Lambert Cup as the best small college football team in the East. The team received an invitation to face Florida State in the 13th annual Tangerine Bowl in Orlando FL.
• However, the team's elation was soon dampened when they found out that the Bulls' two African-American players, starting HB Willie Evans and reserve DE Mike Wilson, would not be allowed to participate in the game.
• The proviso came from the Orlando High School Athletic Association, owners of the stadium in which the game would be played. The Association's rules prohibited integrated contests. Despite protests from the Orlando Elks Lodge, sponsors of the Tangerine Bowl, the Association would not budge.
• Buffalo coach Dick Offenhamer let the team decide whether to play in the game. Even before ballots could be passed out at the meeting, the players unanimously rejected the Tangerine Bowl's invitation. "We weren't the same team without Willie and Mike," G Phil Bamford remembers. "Whether they were benchwarmers or stars, we wouldn't have been the same team."
  
• Florida State also pulled out of the Orlando game and played Oklahoma State in the Bluegrass Bowl in Louisville. OSU won 15-6 in the only Bluegrass Bowl every played.
• The 1958 Tangerine Bowl pitted East Texas State against Missouri Valley with ETSU prevailing 26-7.

Members of the 1958 Bulls returned to campus to be honored at homecoming 2008. Coach Turner Gill, who, like AD Warde Manuel (from New Orleans), is African-American, asked Willie Evans to speak to the current team. Evans says that, try as he might, he cannot remember the crucial meeting when his teammates to a man rallied around him and Wilson.

Reference: "All or Nothing," ESPN Outside the Lines

Willie Evans

Dick Offenhamer

• The formation takes advantage of a loophole in the high school rules when the offensive team lines up in "scrimmage-kick formation," which is traditionally used for punts and FGs. As long as the player receiving the snap is seven yards behind center, any teammate wearing the jersey of an eligible receiver (1-40, 80-89) may go downfield.
• Piedmont O coordinator Steve Humphries conceived the idea of passing and running out of the scrimmage-kick formation. He has also added the wrinkle of putting two QBs behind the C. Kurt Bryan, Piedmont's head coach, has written: "We borrowed some of the basic concepts of the Spread, added elements of the Run-n-Shoot, Navy's Triple Option, some steps and sight adjustment reads of the West Coast and other offenses similar to it, then we morphed it into a complete package."
• The formation requires every player to be able to catch, run and block and is therefore lauded for reversing the trend toward more and more specialization. The A-11 requires a different type of O lineman. Piedmont sends its big uglies to a martial arts coach to help prepare them.
• Piedmont got approval for the offense from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the California Interscholastic Federation. However, several states have banned the A-11, calling it deceptive and unsporting.
• Many wonder if the A-11 will graduate to college. Texas Tech's Mike Leach, the spread O guru, says, "They really have some good ideas that I think ought to be looked at." NCAA rules make the scrimmage-kick formation legal only when the D might reasonably expect a kick – whatever that means.
• Don't expect A-11 in the NFL any time soon. The formation violates the NFL's rule that there must be five ineligible players on the line wearing numbers between 50 and 79. There's no scrimmage kick exception.

A-11 Formation

Click here for a picture from the 2008 Florida-LSU game

Los Angeles Christmas Classic 1924

• Way back on January 1, 1921, the Fort Worth Classic matched Centre College (KY) against TCU. Centre walloped the home-standing Horned Frogs 63-7 behind sensational HB Bo McMillin. Despite a good crowd of 9,000, the "Classic" was never played again.
• Los Angeles, already blessed with the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, staged the Los Angeles Christmas Festival on December 25, 1924. 47,000 saw Southern Cal defeat Missouri 20-7 in the Coliseum, which had opened in 1923.
• The current Alamo Bowl in San Antonio had a predecessor on January 4, 1947, when Hardin-Simmons defeated Denver 20-0 before 3,730 in Alamo Stadium. The lack of attendance doomed the bowl to failure.
• On December 6, 1947, Kentucky defeated Villanova 24-14 in the Great Lakes Bowl at Cleveland. 14,908 were dwarfed in massive Municipal Stadium. The victorious Wildcat coach was none other than Bear Bryant. His QB was George Blanda.
• Little Rock AK hosted the Shrine Bowl on December 18, 1948, in War Memorial Stadium. 5,000 watched as Hardin-Simmons blasted Ouachita Baptist 40-12.
• Twelve days later, Hardin-Simmons walloped Wichita State 49-12 in the only incarnation of the Camellia Bowl in Lafayette LA on December 30, 1948 before 4,500 spectators.
• Texas A&M and Georgia competed for the Presidential Cup on December 9, 1950, at Byrd Stadium in College Park MD. The Aggies prevailed 40-20 in front of 12,245.
• The Bluegrass Bowl pitted Oklahoma State and Florida State on December 13, 1958 at Louisville's Fairgrounds Stadium. With both teams wearing sneakers on the icy field, OSU won 15-6 before an announced crowd of 7,000 but probably only about 3,000 in the sub-zero temperatures. ABC televised the game, but when the network announced it wasn't interested in doing it again, the bowl folded.
• Thanksgiving Day (November 23), 1961. Fresno State shellacked Bowling Green 36-6 in the Mercy Bowl in the LA Memorial Coliseum before 33,145. The game was organized with the support of comedian Bob Hope and the blessing of President John F. Kennedy to raise money for the families of the 22 members of the Cal Poly team who were killed in the crash of their plane in 1960. This "bowl" was never intended to be held more than once.