Thank you for this fantastic, fantastic movie, YouTube user James Schrumpf, who writes, "It's 1969, and Oh. My. God is it 1969. The hair! The clothes! Lester Maddox? ... sit back and enjoy some good WVU football, and don't miss the short speech at the end by their new head coach -- Bobby Bowden."
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
What's On TV Tonight (1969)?
It's the second-annual Peach Bowl on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 1969 ...
Thank you for this fantastic, fantastic movie, YouTube user James Schrumpf, who writes, "It's 1969, and Oh. My. God is it 1969. The hair! The clothes! Lester Maddox? ... sit back and enjoy some good WVU football, and don't miss the short speech at the end by their new head coach -- Bobby Bowden."
Thank you for this fantastic, fantastic movie, YouTube user James Schrumpf, who writes, "It's 1969, and Oh. My. God is it 1969. The hair! The clothes! Lester Maddox? ... sit back and enjoy some good WVU football, and don't miss the short speech at the end by their new head coach -- Bobby Bowden."
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"This is it. This is the payoff. All the hard work, sweat and tears of a tough football season at West Virginia University will culminate in Atlanta, Georgia, home of the second-annual Peach Bowl."
ReplyDeleteReal me saw some great movies in 2015, but I enjoyed none of them any more than I did this 28-minute thing produced by the WVU athletics department after the 1969 football season.
I hope the family of the pilot who flew the team down to Atlanta at the start of the picture got together and watched this thing on a big flat screen on Christmas evening this year and enjoyed seeing Grandpa again.
ReplyDeleteThat's Lester Maddox on the hood of the car in the Peach Bowl parade. We are on track to see Gov. Maddox again about a year from now on Dick Cavett's new show.
ReplyDeleteAmong the Mountaineers who are out doing some after-Christmas-sales, window shopping for shoes along Peachtree Street include Carl Crennel, an eventual two-time CFL champion with the Montreal Alouettes and younger brother of ex-Fort Knox (Kentucky) High and WKU star Romeo Crennel.
ReplyDeleteHere's Billy Joe Royal.
ReplyDeleteAnd here are the Classics IV. (Rest in peace, Dennis Yost.)
ReplyDeleteI would've had the steak.
ReplyDeleteOK, back to Monongalia County for a bit to tour the WVU campus ... the Mountainlair looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThis place opened in 1968. It's fun to think about Romeo Crennel visiting his baby brother at WVU and maybe going bowling with him at the Mountainlair, and then, two years later, Romeo's back on campus at WKU as a graduate-assistant coach with the football team, and Downing University Center opens with pretty much the same decor.
ReplyDeleteThat's Jim Braxton on the phone in the dorm at WVU. I freaking loved Jim Braxton. I loved his football cards with the Bills; I was thrilled when he finished his career with the Dolphins, and I was genuinely sad when he died in 1986. I think quite a bit how the world might've been different and better had he lived longer. Rest in peace, Jim Braxton.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Jim Braxton was a kicker until seeing this movie.
ReplyDeleteI freaking loved Jim Braxton. Loved him.
Here's Bob Gresham.
ReplyDeleteFrom WVUSports.com: Gresham came to WVU from the southern West Virginia coalfields in McDowell County. Before the mines began to close and the region sustained a massive population exodus that area was producing college football players on par with any place in the state.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in the East, one of my favorite ways to drive back to western Kentucky when I wasn't in any sort of hurry was through McDowell County on U.S. 52.
ReplyDeleteWest Virginia is coming into the Peach Bowl at 8-1. The only loss came on Oct. 11 at fellow independent Penn State, 28-0. The Mountaineers were ranked 17th in the country at the time; the also-unbeaten Nittany Lions, fifth. West Virginia's split end was injured minutes before kickoff and missed the game, and Coach Jim Carlen quickly revised his game plan to more heavily emphasize the running game. Penn State rolled in front of 52,072 in Beaver Stadium in Harrisonburg and went on to a 10-0 campaign. (Now No. 2 Penn State faces No. 6 Missouri in the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.)
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, Jim Carlen, native of Cookeville, Tennessee, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes pioneer.
ReplyDeleteWest Virginia had already accepted the Peach Bowl invitation when it went to Syracuse for its final game of the regular season. At frigid Archbold Stadium, the Mountaineers fell behind, 10-0, at the half ...
ReplyDeleteWest Virginia ended up winning, 13-10, scoring touchdowns on a fourth-and-goal pass and then a long run by Braxton after a lateral from the quarterback several yards beyond scrimmage.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it was on to rain-soaked Grant Field for the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
ReplyDeletePer Wikipedia: "Grant Field is the oldest continuously used on-campus site for college football in the Southern United States, and the oldest in the FBS."
ReplyDeleteSouth Carolina came into the game with just a 6-4 record, but all six of the victories had come in the Gamecocks' six Atlantic Coast Conference games. That easily won the ACC. (Second-place North Carolina State went 3-6-1 overall but 3-2-1 in the conference.)
ReplyDeleteWest Virginia introduced a wishbone formation in the Peach Bowl, and that puts a third running back, Eddie Williams, into the starting lineup along with Braxton and Gresham for the first time all season. The ploy worked--Williams ran for 208 yards on 35 carries and earned offensive MVP for the game.
The Mountaineers jumped ahead, 7-0, on a Gresham run with 9:24 to go in the first quarter (as seen on the Grant Field scoreboard filmed here). South Carolina closed to within, 7-3, in the second quarter, and then neither team scored in the third.
ReplyDeleteIn the fourth, the Gamecocks threaten to seize the lead, driving to about the West Virginia 20. But, at the 7, the Mountaineers intercept a pass that ricochets away from a South Carolina back.
ReplyDeleteIn the final moments, Braxton closes out the scoring with a touchdown run to produce the 14-3 margin.
ReplyDeleteAnd that'll do it for Jim Carlen at West Virginia. He's moving on to head coach at Texas Tech, and West Virginia is going to promote one of his assistant coaches, Bobby Bowden, to the top job.
ReplyDeleteSo, in the bowls involving ranked teams so far, we've had:
ReplyDelete-- No. 14 Nebraska beat Georgia, 14-6, in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 20;
-- No. 20 Toledo beat Davidson, the Southern Conference champion, 56-33, in the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 26, and
-- No. 15 Florida beat No. 11 Tennessee, 14-13, in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, on Dec. 27.
It was a hard ending to the season for the Vols.
ReplyDeleteRanked third in the country on Nov. 15, Tennessee lost at Ole Miss, 38-0. Wikipedia: "More affectionately known as, 'The Mule Game' or 'The Jackson Massacre', the Rebels faced off against the Tennessee Volunteers in Jackson MS for a crisp mid-November affair. Prior to the game, Tennessee's Steve Kiner was interviewed by Sports Illustrated. When asked about the Rebels and all their horses in the backfield, Kiner replied, '...more like a bunch of mules.' When asked specifically about Archie Manning, he responded, 'Archie who?' This inspired the Johnny Rebs and propelled them to a 38–0 shellacking of the Vols. This win would push the Rebels into the 1970 Sugar Bowl where they defeated the Arkansas Razorbacks to cap off the season."
This is one of the most Tennessee stories of all time.
DeleteThe Vols still ended up as Southeastern Conference champion, but then came the loss in the Gator Bowl, in which Tennessee was stopped at the Florida 1 late in the game with the opportunity to win. Again, (indispensable) Wikipedia: "The game, which marked the Gator Bowl's silver anniversary had added drama because two days before kickoff word leaked out that Volunteers head coach Doug Dickey, the SEC Coach of the Year, would return to Florida, his alma mater, after the game.
ReplyDeleteThis is another one of the most Tennessee stories of all time.
DeleteHere's Tennessee's new coach, Bill Battle, trialing his earnest recruiting pitch against a Mason Williams-ish acoustic-guitar solo.
DeleteThat leaves the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, No. 12 Auburn vs. No. 17 Houston, tomorrow, Dec. 31, 1969, in Houston and then the four big New Year's games:
ReplyDelete-- No. 1 Texas vs. No. 9 Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas,
-- No. 2 Penn State vs. No. 6 Missouri in the Orange Bowl in Miami,
-- No. 13 Mississippi vs. No. 3 Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and
-- No. 5 Southern California vs. No. 7 Michigan in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Three Top 10 teams failed to qualify for bowls: No. 4 Ohio State, No. 8 Louisiana State and No. 10 California-Los Angeles.
ReplyDelete