Prancing Mustangs Trip Oregon Webfoots, 21-13
Walker, Rote Sparkle In Battle of Offenses
1/2/1949
On the scroll of Cotton Bowl immortals, deep and indelible, are the names of Doak Walker and Kyle Rote.
The all-American and the sophomore who worships him fronted a great gang of football talent as Southern Methodist's Mustangs galloped to their first bowl victory.
SMU 21, Oregon 13.
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That was the score. A difference of one touchdown. At times it seemed that the Dallas team would run away from the cochampions of the Pacific Coast. But Oregon was a constant threat and roared back in the fourth period after being down 0 to 14 to make the game a brilliant offensive struggle.
Doak Walker's performance at times bordered on the fantastic.
He called the perfect game: Oregon was baffled by the weird and efective assortment of fake handoffs, double and triple reverses and intricate pass plays.
He made only 9 yards in his longest dash of the day, but he carried the ball sixteen times and averaged just under 5 yards every time.
He blocked like a 2-ton truck and played a shining defensive game. He quick-kicked once for 80 yards, and he completed six passes for 79.
Doak Walker was twenty-two years old on News Year's Day and no man ever had a bigger birthday celebration.
But right up there with the Doaker was Kyle Rote, the hard-muscled kid from San Antonio. Rote was magnificent. He gathered in 93 yards with his locomotive run: one of them went for 36 yards and a touchdown. He proved himself to be a great pass receiver and he, too, punted as though his right foot were a Big Bertha cannon. He averaged 63.5 yards with his kicking.
SMU wound up with a phenomenal punting average of 68.7 yards, catching Oregon flat-footed twice on surprise kicks.
SMU scored eleven plays after the opening kickoff, driving 59 yards passing and running. The Mustangs rolled up another touchdown in the third period, but Oregon came alive to set off a scroing spree as the fourth period opened.
The Webfoots crossed pay dirt twice in their last-gasp surges, but the Mustangs were not unduly distressed. If they were, they did not show it.They scored, too, in the final wild quarter.
Norman Van Brocklin, Oregon's vaunted passer, proved his mettle. He completed eight out of nineteen passes but butter-fingered receivers dropped some of the hard shots — passes which might have meant a considerable difference in the game.
The Oregon line, whose size and record have impressed many observers sufficiently to make the Webfoots the favorites, did not prove too tough for the Mustangs. The lines were about on a par and in the final analysis, it was the versatility and finesse of the SMU attack which brought the victory.
Seventy thousand fans roared ecstatically as the game, billed as the most sepctacular offensive show of all the Bowl contests, quickly proved the guessers right.
Big Dick Wilkins, whose pass-catching merited his all-coast rating, kicked off to SMU's Paul Page to start the contest. Page got from the Methodist 37 to the 41, and then the fun began.
The entire backfield took turns at feeling out the Oregon line and swept down to the Oregon 25 as the fans began to breathe faster.
On fourth down, with four yards to go, Walker cooly called a pass. Dick McKissack, SMU fullback, gathered it in and made a first down on the Webfoots' 13.
With Walker giving him a great block on Oregon's Halfback Woodley Lewis. Rote roared around right end to the two-yard line. Doak squeezed into right guard but was inches short. On the next try, he bored into a mass of Oregonians on the right side of the SMU line. It looked as though he might be stopped but suddenly his body shot through the pile and over the goal line. Doak landed on his stomach, sending up a cloud of one as he hit the end zone.
Walker kicked the extra point.
The next time the Mustangs had the ball they moved to the Oregon 28, but a pass interception halted them and Oregon kicked out of trouble.
Again, as soon as they had possession, the Mustangs threw a fright into the invaders. Walker, on second down, backed up deep from the 20-yard scrimmage line and quick-kicked. The ball sailed on the wind to the Oregon 35-yard line and began bouncing diagonally. It went out of bounds on the Webfoots' 6-inch line as the massive throng screamed.
But Van Brocklin, standing in his end zone, proved his daring. He promptly called for a pass instead of a punt. It almost worked. Watkins had the ball, then dropped it.
That was the sort of heart-shaking business that went on all afternoon.
Before the half was over, Kyle Rote quick-kicked for 84 yards to the Oregon 12.
SMU collected its second touchdown as the third quarter began, moving 80 yards. Rote, McKissack and Page riddled the Oregon line and swept the ends on reverses down in the Oregon 36. Then Kyle the killer burst through right tackle. Two tacklers bounced off him like rubber balls, and he sped for a touchdown as Back George Bell made a futile, flying lunge at him. Again, the Doaker converted.
The score was 14-to-0.
Oregon retaliated instantly, sweeping 61 yards to SMU's 6-yard line. On the ground all the way. Lewis, Fullback Bob Sanders and Bell shot through the Mustang line like projectiles. But when they came into real scoring distance, the Mustang line rose wrathfully, and on fourth down, Van Brocklin tried a pass. He was rushed and the ball fell harmlessly far in the rear of End Dan Garza, the former San Antonio high school star.
If there was any doubt before, the final period made every customer know he had received his money's worth.
Oregon, two touchdowns behind, rushed back into the game. From the Oregon 28, Van Brocklin resumed his deadly passing. Shafts to Ends Darrell Robinson and Wilkins, mixed with a few line bucks, carried to the SMU 24.
The Oregon quarterback then fired a high, hard one to Wilkins in the end zone. Guard Chet Daniels failed to convert. It was 14-to-6 then.
Right back came the Mustangs with a 56-yard scoring attack. Walker's passes to End Raleigh Blakely and Rote helped get the ball to the 2 but a backfield-in-motion penalty put it on the 7.
Little Gene Roberts, who moves faster than a bank teller hiding a Racing Form, burned twoard right end and moved right through a screen of Oregon tacklers for the touchdown.
Doak Walker then demonstrated the sportsmanship for which he is famed. Conscious of the fact that Co-Capt. Joe Etheridge, tackle, was playing his last game, Walker hastened to the sidelines and asked Coach Matty Bell to let Etheridge try for the point.
Bell agreed and Ethridge, playing his last game of a notable career, booted the ball high and true and over the uprights.
Walker had been kidding Ethridge all season because the big tackle worked so dilligently in practice on his placekicking. Saturday Doak made up for his ribbing with his considerate gesture.
Tewnty-one to six, stood the score.
But the Webfoots still were not ducked.
After the kickoff, they hustled 67 yards for a touchdown. It was a Van Brocklin pass which did the most damage. He shot one to Robinson good for 40 yards. Sub Back Jimmie Kendrick made a shoestring tackle to stop Robinson on the Mustang 9, but it did no good. Three plays later, Oregon scored when Sanders burrowed through center. This time, Daniels made his kick good.
Twenty-one to thirteen.
That's the way it ended, but SMU had one more scare to offer the visitors. The Southwest Conference champions rushed and passed, with Gil Johnson sharing hurling honors with Walker, for 51 yards, winding up on the Oregon 16 before a fourth-down pass from Johnson to Roberts went over the halfback's head.
It would be hard to single out Mustang stars in the line. All of them played far better than they were given pregame credit for. Besides Walker and Rote, David Moon played his usual tremendous line-backing game, and Paul Page closed out his college career in impeccable fashion, both on offense and defense.
Oregon's line was capped by the fine play of Brad Ecklund, the giant blond who started his ninety-first football game. The Rock was right Saturday, but he had a hard time outdoing a 6-foot senior guard named Jim Berwick.
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