Cowboys Trounce Frogs, 34-0, in Cotton Bowl Tilt
All-America Ace Flashes for 37,500
1/2/1945
Combining those prime requisites, speed and power, into a well co-ordinated and versatile attack, the Oklahoma Aggies trampled the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, 34 to 0, before 37,500 howling fans here Monday afternoon for the most decisive victory ever accomplished in the Cotton Bowl football classic. It was the ninth annual game and it was played in an ideal setting – crisp weather tempered by a bright sun.
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It was Oklahoma's day to howl. In addition to the triumph here by Jim Lookabaugh's Cowboys, fans from north of the Red River cheered announcements that Henry Frnka's Golden Hurricane of Tulsa University was manhandling Georgia Tech, 26 to 12, in the Orange Bowl at Miami and they had taken the measure of the best basketball teams the Southwest and Missouri Valley sector had to offer in the annual all-college tournament in Oklahoma City.
Even the aegis of their horny hide was no protection for Dutch Meyer's battered Frogs in combat with this mongoose, whose role was taken by the young, tough and lightning-fast Cowpokes. They took command from the outset, drove fifty-nine yards for a touchdown from the initial kickoff, scored twice each in the first and fourth periods, once in the third, and never let the Christians inside their own 35-yard line.
With All-America Bob Fenimore, as fine a back as ever has been seen roaming the Cotton Bowl greensward, performing everything but magic with the football, and stoutly aided and abetted by Jim Spatival, a terrific fullback, Cecil Hankins, Jim Watson and others, the Cowboys refused to be stopped. There were an aggregation that might have beaten any collegiate eleven in the country Monday. With big Ralph Foster turning in what would be an All-America job at tackle in anybody's book and stoutly supported by Ends Neil Armstrong and Glenn Moore, Guard Jake Colhouer and others, the Pokes threw up an impenetrable defense. At least it was too tough to crack with any degree of consistency.
Fenimore was terrific. His running was positively amazing. He powered his 188 pounds over the Christians when he had to dig in to drive straight ahead and he displayed a dazzling change of pace that left would-be tacklers stretched in his wake when he had breathing room to exhibit his elusiveness. He punted with accuracy and intelligence and his passes were red hot bullets that banged straight to the button with little chance of interception regardless how near Purple defenders seemed to be. He completed peg after peg against what normally would be considered a well-organized precaution against air raids but in the all-round sensation the Christians were not confronted with an ordinary situation. Coupling his offensive wizardry with is fine all-round defensive play, he proved to the satisfaction of a vast majority in the stands that he was the outstanding star they've seen to date in the Cotton Bowl Classic.
Fenimore scored two of the Aggies' five touchdowns himself on drives from inside the 10-yard line after running and passing had been collaborated with the devastating power drives of Spavital to carry the leather deep into TCU territory. Spavital ran over the Frogs like a ten-ton tank to travel fifty-two yards for another score and the other two were recorded by Joe Thomas and Mack Creager with reserves on the field in the fourth period.
Coach Lookabaugh played every one of the forty-one players he brought on the trip, some of them seeing their first real game action of the season. At the close his third team and Ragknots, who had spent their time during the training period giving the first and second strings a look at the formations they'd have to combat in the bowl, and who never had been out to the trouble to learn their own offense, were going at the Frogs with the latter's own play.
The Aggies unleashed a tricky and bewildering offense that originated from three separate formations and, in addition, provided a puzzling combination of straight-ahead power plays, crackling cross bucks, wide sweeps and overhead fireworks. They ran from the T, the double wing and the single wing. Their most effective passing was off the latter.
TCU stayed mainly with its flanker-back or inverted T, made most of its headway on the ground on wide reverses with Bob Ruff and Jesse Mason lugging the leather.
Throughout, the Cowboys relied on a 6-2-2-1 defense to smother the Christian attack, which, due to circumstances, was confined to the ground the greater part of the game. Except in the third quarter and on the last two plays of the game, the Frogs didn't have possession of the ball across the midfield stripe. Opportunities were not presented for them to uncork their usually dangerous passing attack.
While the Frogs were expected to attempt to confuse their opponents' blockers with a weird and ever-changing defensive set-up, they stuck almost religiously to a seven-diamond formation throughout. Obviously they were unwilling to risk the danger of a serious backfire in the face of such blinding speed and terrific power as they had to encounter in the persons of Fenimore, Hankins and Spavital — a trio of huskies possessed of crushing power and as fleet as jack rabbits. Up front most of the time there also was Watson, a blocking mine-sweeper who consistently knifed open adequate holes for his ball carriers.
Long before many of the fans were in their seats for the 1:15 p.m. kick-off the Cowboys gave a strong hint what might be expected of them by moving fifty-nine yards on seven plays from their own 41, where Spavital had returned Jim Cooper's opening kick-off. Fenimore exploded immediately for three yards through the Purple right tackle, then flung a forward to End Glenn Moore for seventeen and two line smashes by Spavital, sandwiched around a two-yard gain by Hankins had nudged the ball up to the 26. Set back to the TCU 44 by a roughing penalty, Fenimore took to the airlanes again and heaved twenty-three yards to Hankins, who ran seventeen more before Randy Rogers brought him down inside the final yard. Fenimore barged through the middle for the touchdown and the game was less than three minutes old.
After the next kickoff the Christians ran into ill luck when Ransom Johnson fumbled a low pass back from center on fourth down and could no nothing safer than a fall on the ball. It gave the Cowboys possession on the TCU 41 and an exchange of punts, thanks to a beautiful forty-seven-yard wallop out of bounds by Jackson, moved the Pokes back to their 39, where they started their next scoring march. Distance meant nothing to this outfit, however. It was Fenimore cutting inside the TCU left tackle for four, Spavital on a reverse and slash at the same vulnerable spot for five, then Spavital again on a power drive at the middle. A line-backer bounced off the bull-shouldered Cowboy fullback and, suddenly finding himself in the clear through the entire secondary, he straightened up an started turning on the speed. The game was just eleven minutes old when he crossed the last stripe at the end of this fifty-two-yard smash.
From this point the Christian defense stiffened and the Frogs seemed to take a new lease on life. Determined defensive play enabled them to go to their half-time rest with no worse than this fourteen-point deficit. Shortly before the close of the first period, the Frogs held for downs on their 3-yard line and the stopped another offensive carried over into the second quarter. However, they were kept bottled up in their own territory through this stanza.
Just past the midway stage of the second frame, a twenty-three-yard sprint by Hankins, running off a single wing that varied the attack from the T-formation the Pokes had been using up until that time, made a first down for the Oklahomans on the Purple 4-yard stripe, but a holding penalty followed and probably prevented another touchdown. The Frogs took over on downs at their 9 and had driven out to their 44 with three successive first downs before Fenimore intercepted a pass by Johnny Hadaway with only seconds left in the half. The final play was a thirty-seven-yard gain to the TCU 18 on a rifle pass from Fenimore to Hankins.
The third quarter was the only one in which the Christians' offense was able to cause the opponent any serious concern.. End Henry Mullins intercepted a Fenimore pass soon after it started to put the ball on the Pokes' 35 but Captain Foster and his hard-charging line mates immediately sent the Purple offense into reverse and it was never so close to a score the rest of the day.
Late in this frame, Fenimore returned a Jesse Mason punt twenty-one yards to his 38 and from that point the Cowhands rolled sixty-two yards on seven plays for their third touchdown. It was Fenimore inside left end for eight, Spavital down the middle for nineteen, Spavital and Hankins two apiece, Fenimore wide off left end for five, Hankins sweeping the right side for fourteen, Spavital over center for two, and Fenimore the last eight yards skirting the TCU left wing to score.
A fumble by Mason recovered by End Moore gave Oklahoma A. & M. the ball again on the TCU 40 as the third quarter closed and from there it was another unbroken march for the fourth marker. At this juncture, Coach Lookabaugh began shooting in his reserves and two youngsters named Joe Thomas and Mack Creager took up the cudgel. They needed nine plays to complete the drive, Thomas finally going over from half a yard out.
After the next kickoff and punt-out when TCU could not sustain its attack, the Poke reserves swept sixty-six yards on ten plays for their final marker. This offensive featured a forty-yard gain on a pass from Creager to Thomas. The score was made by Creager on an off-tackle slant from one yard out.
Creager, who had converted on four previous tries for extra points from placement, shot wide on the fifth try, giving him a record of thirteen out of seventeen since he first began assuming this specialist role after the Tulsa game.
TCU had two more chances to escape a shutout before the final gun. The first was thwarted when Bill Bradford intercepted a pass and ran it back thirty yards. The, in the last minute of play, after getting the ball on their twenty by a touchback, the Frogs accounted for one of the prettiest plays of the day. Ransom Jackson, streaking down the sideline, made a hair-raising diving catch of a long pass from Hadaway for a thirty-four yard gain to carry the ball into the Aggies' side of the field. James Busby picked up six yards at left end as the game ended.
Although TCU was badly beaten it was not without its shining lights. Jim Cooper, the star center who had spent most of last week in the infirmary, was outstanding in the line and Substitute Guard Lee Gallagher came into prominence several times with crisp tackling.
Capt. Clyde Flowers also turned in a fine game at tackle for the Frogs until he retired in the last period, shortly after an ankle injury. Fans in the stands thought he had gone down from a right cross to the jaw by Hankins. There was plenty of arm swinging during the melee, in which the Pokes seemed especially rough. Some of the Frogs complained that their opponents employed much more rugged tactics than those to which they were accustomed but four officials on the field evidently didn't see anything too far out of line.
Jackson's great kicking was comparable with the best that has been seen in the Cotton Bowl but, through no fault of his, it simply meant the Pokes had a little farther to march for their scores.
Statistics were overwhelmingly on the Aggie side. twenty first downs to five, three of the latter coming in succession in the third quarter; 295 yards to seventy-four rushing and 199 to thirty-one passing.
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