Georgia Tech Tips Arkansas in Cotton Bowl
Yellow Jackets Dominate Second Half, Win 14 to 6
1/2/1955
For football's Cinderella – the Arkansas Razorbacks – curfew sounded in the middle of the afternoon Saturday.
The grand and great story of the 1954 Arkansas team came to an anticlimax in the Cotton Bowl game, as Georgia Tech defeated the Razorbacks, 14-6.
On a glittery, cool day before a jammed house of 75,504 fans and countless millions of television viewers and radio listeners – Tech and Arkansas battled like a couple of crafty, professional boxers.
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It was Tech's mechanical skill, perhaps, which spelled the difference. Arkansas, which had fought its was to the Southwest Conference championship by capitalizing on other team's mistakes, was given no real opportunity to employ this reverse-type strategy.
Georgia Tech fumbled once, but recovered the ball. None of the Yellow Jackets' passes were intercepted. They made no serious mistakes in their thinking, or the execution of their plays.
Meanwhile, they were dominating the contest throughout the crucial second half. In the first half, Arkansas built up a 6-0 lead on an 80-yard drive capped by Tailback George Walker's 1-foot leap through the air in the right guard-tackle region. Tech's offense was sputtering; the Yellow Jackets missed two good opportunities in the first half, getting to the 5-yard line before an errant try at a field goal, and moving another time to the eight.
But in the second portion of the game, Tech finally began moving with total success. Each touchdown came on long, sustained attacks, one for 58 yards and another for 44. The scores were made on short line bolts by Paul Rotenberry and Quarterback Wade Mitchell.
Georgia Tech also failed to count once in the second half when they were stopped after getting to the enemy 15 on the second play of the final period.
Selected as the outstanding players in the contest were Bud Brooks, the All-American guard of Arkansas, and Tech's George Humphreys, a fullback who led the day's groundgainers with 99 yards. The Porkers' Henry Moore, an All-Conference player who still has a season to go, was next with 86.
Arkansas' chances were damaged heavily by the early departure from the game of their star blocking back, Preston Carpenter. The youngster suffered a chest injury and went out early in the second period. However, his replacement, Bobby Proctor, played with distinction and whether Carpenter's absence was a critical factor is strictly conjectural.
The victory preserved a perfect bowl record for Bobby Dodd, the canny coach of the Jackets. He now has the scalps of five bowl victims.
For Bowden Wyatt, the brilliant young Arkansas coach whose ears are listing in the direction of the his alma mater, Tennessee, the defeat came in his first coaching job in a major bowl.
Georgia Tech took the opening kickoff and appeared to be demonstrating what a football game would be like if only one team ever had the ball. Tech kept the thing for 9 minutes and 19 seconds, plugging steadily upfield until it got to the Arkansas five, on second down.
A line play lost a yard and a pass failed, so Quarterback Mitchell called for a field goal, which he himself tried to kick from the 11-yard line. A high snapback from Center Larry Morris upset the timing, however, and Mitchell's boot went astray. (Later, he was to kick both extra points.)
Arkansas, looking a great deal like the team which stormed through the rugged conference race, promptly surged 80 yards for its touchdown. Moore raced for 18 yards on the draw play to get things going. He assisted with 15 more yards on assorted thrusts at the line, and Tailback George Walker contributed a key maneuver by getting off a 22-yard pass to Wingback Joe Thomason despite the fact that his entire body, save for his right arm, appeared to be neatly encased by a pair of Georgia Tech players.
Finally, on the first play of the second period and with the ball about a foot from the scoring zone, Walker made his football player's version of the high jump, at right tackle, and got the touchdown. Then, he missed the conversion attempt.
Later in the same quarter, Georgia Tech made another threat, going from its own 20 to the Arkansas 8 before it was halted.
Thus, the Razorbacks had a slim, 6-0 lead at intermission time, but it later developed that their scoring was done for the day. In the second half, they never got into Tech territory.
Tech's first score came in the third period. Humphreys, Rotenberry and little Scooter Thompson, the 150-pound mighty mite, moved the ball from the Tech 42 to the 3. Rotenberry then took out around left end where he found his way blocked by the figure of Thomason. But he lowered his head like a miffed Brahma bull, butted Thomason out of the way, and scored. On Mitchell's first conversion, Tech went in front, 7-6.
Early in the final period, the Jackets took advantage of a weak Arkansas punt and put on a 44-yard scoring drive with Mitchell executing a smooth sneak through right guard for one yard and a touchdown, the last of the day.
When the game ended, Georgia Tech had the ball around midfield, and substitutes were eagerly but vainly trying to score again.
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