October 1, 1966 – San Jose State at Oregon

click to embiggenLen Casanova probably deserved better for his last season as Oregon head coach than a Bataan Death March of a schedule – only four home games, five of the last six on the road and an opener at Oklahoma. The slate was cobbled together in relative haste following the reunification of most of the old PCC teams into what would eventually become the Pac-8. Even with only four conference games, and without USC or UCLA on the schedule, Oregon’s cupboard was so barren of talent it was hard to see how the last campaign could amount to anything beyond an exercise in futility.

Only nine starters returned from the 1965 team, and that season ended with one win in seven games. Depth was such a concern that Cas announced to a group of incredulous touring Skywriters, in early September that at least ten players, including potential star backs Mike Barnes and Claxton Welch, would be groomed to play both sides of the ball – in the two-platoon era, a white flag if ever one was raised.

In his sixteenth season, Casanova, the lame-Duck dean of AAWU coaches – it didn’t officially become the Pac-8 until 1967 – did his best to stay on the sunny side. Acknowledging predictions of no better than a 7^th place finish were “justified,” Cas said “they’re sure as hell not a collection of stars, but they are a dedicated outfit.” But even Cas couldn’t sugar-coat this turd. Referring to the “Ugly Ducklings,” the 1957 second-string unit that contributed greatly to the Rose Bowl season ten years earlier, Cas said “these fellows remind me a lot of them, only these guys are the first string, that’s the trouble.”

Who says they don’t play football just for fun anymore? They seem to be at Oregon … It wasn’t planned to be, it just worked out that way.

This is supposed to be the day of high-pressure recruiting and specialized, two-platoon football. But [Casanova] … told tales of players ‘who just kind of wandered onto campus’ and of iron-man types who will go both ways. Maybe it doesn’t follow, but the Webfoots also don’t expect to have a very good football team.”

– Al Moss, San Francisco Chronicle

To make matters worse, the old “player’s coach” was dealing with player issues. Senior end Steve Bunker, who had set team records for receptions, yardage and touchdowns in 1965, reported to fall camp twenty pounds overweight and was put on a crash diet. Fullback Jim Evenson, a JC transfer from Boise who had performed well in spring ball, quit the team after learning he’d fallen behind Claxton Welch on the depth chart (he would return in 1967, played two seasons for Jerry Frei, and had a long career in the CFL). Senior halfback Scott Cress separated his shoulder in practice and was replaced for the Oklahoma opener by Roger Smith, still not fully recovered himself from a pulled hamstring. The only returning “stars” were Bunker, the nation’s leader in receptions, and DB Jim “Yazoo” Smith, both honorable mention all-conference in 1965.

Thus, it wasn’t unexpected that Oregon would arrive at week three of the 1966 season with a winless record. What was unexpected, by coaches and fans and media, was the poor performance of the team, especially against Utah.

There’s a difference between playing well and losing and playing badly and losing. That was the difference between the Oklahoma and Utah games. The best thing the Ducks did Saturday afternoon was convince most of the 16,500 fans who watched that it’s going to be a long, dreary season.”

– Jerry Uhrhammer, Eugene Register-Guard

The senior co-captain at quarterback, Mike Brundage, had been miserable at Oklahoma, and not much better against Utah. Cas announced on Monday that the signal caller position was “wide open,” and after neither senior Tom Trovato nor soph Eric Olson made a convincing case during practice, sophomore Mike Barnes was moved from defensive back to QB. There would be a four-man competition for the job.

Whoever the quarterback would be wouldn’t have a lot to work with. Welch and #2 wingback Roger Smith were still recovering from leg injuries. And there were was a freak injury to starting tight end Steve Reina, the leading receiver after two games, who was injured at his frat house (ATO) after the Utah game; somehow, a sliding glass door was involved, and Reina took a large gash to his right leg, which required eight stitches. He spent the week on crutches.

***

Thus was the scene set for week three, which brought pass-happy San Jose State to Hayward Field. If there was a get-well game for the Ducks in the early season, this appeared to be the one. Also winless, SJS – seven point underdogs to the Webfoots – had lost to Stanford and BYU and suffered seven season-ending injuries in the process. But they had the nation’s top passer in Danny Holman, all 6’2” and 160 pounds dripping wet of him.

Oregon’s defensive backs weren’t impressed. Omri Hildreth acknowledged that Holman was “good and deceptive, but he throws the ball a little too soft.” Tim Temple was licking his chops: “He’s a football player with a basketball pass.. It’s not a hard pass and it even wobbles … The movies showed he throws off-balance.” Les Palm was succinct: “I’m ready and anxious for Saturday.” Only the veteran Yazoo Smith was reserved, saying “He’s not a bad thrower, and it looks like he has a lot of finesse.”

So the game went, four Oregon quarterbacks against one. The Webfoots watched as Holman shredded their secondary for 308 yards and three touchdowns in a 21-7 humiliation at Hayward Field. Oregon led at the half, 7-6, and had run 48 plays to the Spartans’ 14 to that point, but had five possessions inside the Spartans’ ten yard line – including a first-and-goal at the one — and only managed one touchdown. Mike Barnes had earned the starting job at QB, and Oregon’s offense at last showed some life, with 353 yards, but repeated mistakes doomed the Ducks on an unseasonably hot day in early October.

Holman picked the Duck secondary apart in the second half, going 18-22-0 for 252 after the break. Yazoo Smith did his best to stem the tide, seemingly trying to play all four DB positions at once, and garnered two interceptions. But the rest of Oregon’s secondary was humiliated.

They were playing our ends too tight. You tell them that. They were working too hard to stop the short pass and got killed with the long ones. They were also trying to stop our roll-outs. That hurt them too.

I think they underestimated our quarterback.”

—- SJS safety Steve Saunders

Those who doubt that Oregon football has reached the crisis stage, based on … cold facts, are kidding themselves.”

– Don Fair, The Oregonian

***

The loss was Oregon’s sixth straight over two seasons. The last hurrah for Len Casanova would end with a whimper at 3-7. There would be just one more game at Hayward Field, in November hosting Washington State, and that too would be a loss, meaning the last victory by the Webfoots at Hayward Field was a three point triumph over Idaho in 1965.

The Oregon athletic department was faced with the daunting task of moving an unsuccessful team off campus into a stadium with almost three times the capacity of its old stomping grounds. Then, in January 1967, the dominoes toppled. Leo Harris, possibly tiring of the constant battles with his boss, announced his resignation as athletic director. Casanova hung up his clipboard and took over for Harris, and longtime assistant Jerry Frei was named head coach.

Program Notes –

• This program is a little more content-rich than its predecessors of the decade, but the 1966 issues are still Fifties programs, more than halfway through the Sixties. The covers remain generic and boring, and by now they don’t even carry artist credits; they’re just drawings of football players.
• No more cigarette advertising! Not even “public service” messages. This had to have been by policy and not legislation, as print tobacco advertising continued to be legal and common in the US media well into the 1980s. Someone at the UO made a commendable decision to eschew tobacco dollars, and hooray for whoever made the call.
• For years there was a consensus view that if you put too many games on television, attendance at local games would suffer. This theory couldn’t be tested with any accuracy, of course, but it seemed to make sense to those who stood to lose money, and as a result the broadcast of games was severely – absurdly – restricted. Even the advertising walked a tightrope (see page 2 – “When you can’t get out to a game, watch NCAA College Football on the ABC Television Network”), as if watch Linfield play Whitman in person was preferable to staying home and watching Notre Dame play anyone. This view held until the Supreme Court overturned the monopoly on broadcast rights in 1984, after which nobody ever attended a college football game again.
• There’s a feature on the Alpha Tau Omega house. “President of the local chapter is football quarterback Tom Trovato.” ATO was a “jock house” fixture at Oregon for decades, until around 1999, when the frat was among the first to take a no-alcohol pledge. Sometime between then and now, it ceased to exist.
• Advertised automobiles: sublime (Buick GS-400) and ridiculous (Oldsmobile Toronado, con matador! “Toronado” was a word GM made up, and had nothing to do with bullfighting).
• The proofreader must have been on sabbatical. (“Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass”… “schools of Achitecture and Allied Arts”)
• Center roster spread sponsored by Coke. Milk on the back cover. Who needs cigarettes?

October 15, 1955 – California at Oregon

By 1955, Len Casanova should have had the Ducks going his way. Coming off the team’s first winning season since 1948, Oregon had a solid roster of athletes, but a daunting schedule – opening with road contests at Utah and USC has never been easy – and an unusual degree of attrition, with just 36 players on the roster for the opening game, led to more uncertainty than any coach could handle comfortably.

But Cas liked the intelligence of the players he had. And there was some high football IQ on the ‘55 team:

• Guard Reanous Cochran would go on to coach at Thurston High in Springfield for decades.
• Halfbacks Dick James and Jack Morris both starred in NFL backfields, with Washington and the Rams respectively.
• Center Norm Chapman coached at Springfield High and was an assistant at Oregon under Jerry Frei.
• End Bill Tarrow was hired by Rich Brooks as an assistant coach and stayed for 20 years.
• John Robinson won a national championship at USC.
• Tackle “Captain” Lon Stiner’s father had coached at Oregon State for 14 years and won a Rose Bowl.
• Spike Hillstrom was a longtime assistant coach at Air Force (and interviewed for the Oregon job after Frei resigned).
• Guard Harry Mondale coached for years at Phoenix High in southern Oregon.
• And of the assistant coaches, John McKay would go on to some success.

So, there were three future members of the College Football Hall of Fame on Oregon’s sideline in 1955. None of this future football career trivia meant a lot in the autumn of 1955, of course, and by the middle of October, Cas was frustrated enough to call off a “Cal week” practice early, because the players showed little interest in concentrating on the task at hand. But by game time the players had pulled it together, and under the lights at Multnomah Stadium – California’s first night game ever – the Ducks beat Pappy Waldorf’s Bears soundly, 21-0. The team that couldn’t make it through a full practice held Cal to 145 yards.

In Berkeley, students with a short memory – they’d been to three straight Rose Bowls recently – hung Coach Waldorf in effigy. His administration gave him a vote of confidence, but his teams would win just four more games through 1956, when he finally retired.

Oregon’s victory stopped a three-game losing streak. The Webfoots would go on to win five of their last six games, including a 28-0 stomping of Oregon State in the Civil War.

Program Notes:

• Another nice Howard Brodie cover; this one takes the same concept of the Gillies 1945 OSC cover, only here the player is autographing a program for a boy, and the program has on its cover an image of a player autographing a program for a boy, etc.
• Page 5 has the requisite opponent’s outlook, usually provided by the other team’s athletic department, but this year it’s uncredited, merely titled “The Bears are coming”. But there is some classic filler included. The Bears “played a thrilling 20-20 standoff with the Washington State Cougars. Thus, while the Californians have yet to taste the fruits of a PCC victory, they also have not met defeat in league competition.”
• Also without a byline is an odd piece on the inside cover, concerning the importance of the alumni to the University. “No man was placed on earth to be a pure parasite…” OK.
• As usual, the only color outside the cover is cigarette advertising, including the center roster spread (“Only Chesterfield is made the Modern way – with AccuRay”, whatever that meant). But there’s a great DeSoto ad on page 6 (“the only car in its price class with the exciting Forward Look.. the newest idea in automotive styling… giving DeSoto its lithe look of power and motion even when standing still.” Uhh, yeah.)
• The last player photo included for Cal is of one Remo Jacuzzi. Yes, he’s from that Jacuzzi family, who invented what we now know as the hot tub. Remo was president of Jacuzzi for a while and now is president of spa manufacturer Jason International. “Jason” is a portmanteau of “Jacuzzi” and “son”.. clever, eh?
• A tribute to the NCAA, on the occasion of the association’s 50^th anniversary, includes a photo montage of head shots of the Tall Firs, Oregon’s 1939 national champion basketball squad. Laddie Gale bears a resemblance to John Travolta, Bob Hardy and Christian Slater could have been separated at birth, and the part of Slim Wintermute was played by Al Pacino.

 

 

November 4, 1950: WSC at Oregon

click to embiggen

1950. The Fifties hadn’t really started yet. The baby boomers were just becoming babies. Car companies were still grinding out models based on pre-war designs. The Cold War began in earnest after Russia announced a successful atomic bomb test, and McCarthy had just begun his rampage against the commies in the State Department. In November, the Korean War reached a tipping point, as UN troops, in their first meaningful action, proved remarkably ineffective.

And in Eugene, Oregon, a football coach was in the middle of what would become – and remains – the worst football season in Duck history.

Jim Aiken’s descent from hero status was as sudden as his emergence four years earlier. Having taken a team of veterans – literally, vets, WW2 style – and guided them to a conference championship and Cotton Bowl berth in 1948, he was the toast of the town. But the vets graduated, and Aiken started doing what everyone else had been doing in the conference.. recruiting on the edge, and providing under-the-table benefits, in an effort to get and keep good players.

At one point, after the Colorado game in mid-1949, Aiken’s Ducks had won 19 of 22 games. From that weekend forward, his teams went 1-15. In a few years scandals throughout the conference would blow up the old PCC and send Oregon into independence for a few years, but by 1950, all his non-compliance had earned Aiken was a team full of undersized underachievers.  And it showed on the field. Only guard Chet Daniels would earn as much as honorable mention on the All-Coast team for 1950.

By the 1950 Homecoming game, against Washington State, Aiken’s Webfoots had slogged their way to a 1-5 record, with the only win against Montana; they had just lost in LA to one the worst USC teams in history, 30-21, and the normally gruff coach had changed his preparation tactics. He gave the team the week off from full-contact practice, no pads, hoping the rest would do them some good. Not much else had worked; by game seven, senior QB Earl Stelle was 34-79 for 427 yards, two TDs and 10 interceptions, and the backfield by committee – Tommy Edwards, Don Sloan, Ron Lyman and Carl Ervin – was averaging under 100 yards a game.

The week off didn’t help, as the Cougars overcame a halftime deficit with two TDs in the last 10 minutes for a 21-13 road victory.  And so went the rest of the season. A 14-2 Civil War loss put Oregon’s record at 1-9, statistically the worst in school history, then and now (as of 2010). Even the Register-Guard, which at the time could hardly be called a critical judge of the team, laid into them.. in a matter of speaking:

Wait until next year! That’s a crock of buttermilk, and a saying that has been worn to shreds. But there is no doubt that 1950 has been a “building year” for University of Oregon football. And we don’t mean character building, either, although some attention might be given to intellect.. When September arrives, the nine regulars and 25 other veterans should give Oregon the nucleus for a fair-to-middlin’ grid team – providing the boys aren’t more worried about their ‘pay checks’ than blocking, tackling and point-production.. You can’t expect too much help from the freshman squad.”

– Dick Strite, Eugene Register-Guard

Aiken was sacked the following June under bizarre circumstances, replaced by Len Casanova.

Thus, the highlight of the weekend wasn’t at Hayward Field, but down 13^th a few blocks; the brand new Erb Memorial Union was dedicated the day before the game, and the $2.1 million complex received rave reviews from students and alumni. The game program this week features a three-page photo spread on the new EMU.  “For the first time, unaffiliated students can get a warm meal on campus.” (How many of our readers know that it took 27 years for the EMU to go from concept to completion? I didn’t.)

Program Note: Some new advertisers appear — KUGN, longtime voice of the Ducks, all 1000 watts of her; and West Coast Airlines, “a government certificated, regularly-scheduled airline.” The future has, at last, arrived.

click to embiggen