Navy's Big Guns Bag Rice Owls, 20 to 7
Forrestal Directs Easy Win
1/2/1958
The Navy steamed into the Cotton Bowl Wednesday and promptly shot down the proud Rice Owls, 20-7.
Under the command of a gambling, brilliant, passing quarterback – Tom Forrestal – the Midshipmen dominated the Cotton Bowl game except for a too-little-and-too-late comeback by Rice in the second half.
A capacity crowd of 75,504, sitting in perfect weather, had come to the colorful classic expecting to see a close, tense duel.
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It turned out to be far different. Navy, the nation's No. 5 team, took charge from the first kickoff, built up a 20-0 lead and actually coasted to the victory.
Forrestal outshone his more celebrated counterpart, King Hill. The Rice All-American and bonus choice of professional football had an off day. In the second half, Coach Jess Neely replaced him on the first team with Frank Ryan, who led the Owls to their only score and barely missed another touchdown at the game's end.
Navy displayed a swift set of backs and a fiercely-charging line which was spotlighted in the rugged tackling and blocking of Guard Tony Stremic. Coach Eddie Erdelatz said three days earlier it would be a miracle if Stremic recovered from a shin bruise and a twisted ankle. Miracle or not, Stremic played. He played well enough to be chosen the game's outstanding lineman in press box balloting.
Forrestal won honors as the top back, with virtually no competition. He compiled 51 of 54 votes cast.
The black-haired little Irishman completed thirteen passes out of twenty-four attempts, for 153 yards. He had only one interception but that one was costly, because it opened the way to Rice's touchdown in the third period.
Rice never could seem to get going against the greatest team the Naval Academy has produced. Fumbles, which were about the game's only drawback – apart from its one-sided aspect – gave Navy two of the scoring opportunities on which it capitalized.
Just before the fourth period opened Hill misjudged a Navy punt, and the ball went over his head and finally stopped dead on the Rice four. The Owls never really recovered. They had to halt Navy on the Rice 3-yard line in the final quarter and from that point, Ryan tried desperately to lead them to a touchdown which wouldn't yank the game out of the fire but which would soften the shock of defeat.
He almost pulled it off, whit a dazzling exhibition of running and passing against the Navy reserves. As the seconds ticked off during the last minute, Ryan's passes to end Buddy Dial, and his own running, put the ball on the two-and-a-half-yard line of the enemy. Ryan tried to circle left end for the touchdown but couldn't quite make it. He was piled up on the two just as the final gun sounded.
It was an afternoon of almost total frustration for Rice. On top of everything else, the Navy wouldn't take the game seriously.
At least, End Pete Jokanovich, one of Forrestal's favorite targets, didn't. In the third period, during a Navy huddle, Jokanovich reached into his uniform and pulled out a Cotton Bowl ticket.
"Anybody want a ticket?" he asked. "Got some on the 50-yard line!"
Then, after a scrimmage play, he offered a Cotton Bowl ticket to Rice End Gene Jones.
"Hey, want a ticket to the game?" he asked.
The whole afternoon was disconcerting to the Owls.
In the first half, Rice was so badly outplayed that it scored only one first down to the Midshipmen's twelve and gained fifty-three yards to Navy's 232.
The final figures, thanks to Ryan's work, showed considerable improvement for the Owls, if that is any consolation to them. Navy had 21 first downs to Rice's fourteen and outgained the Owls, 375 yards to 301.
The defeat was the first loss ever suffered by Rice in five bowl appearances. And the victory kept intact Navy's record of never having been beaten in a bowl contest: the Academy record now is two victories and a tie.
Navy didn't use its famed "jitterbug" defense, in which the players jump in and out, up and down, right and left. Rice was snapping the ball on a quick count and Coach Erdelatz deployed his men in orthodox defenses.
There was one serious casualty from the contest. Wayne McKee, second-string right end for the Navy, suffered a broken left arm in the third period and was taken to Parkland Hospital, where the limb was put into a cast.
Rice's mark of fourteen completed passes equaled the Cotton Bowl record set by Texas A&M in 1942 against Alabama. The Owls threw twenty-seven. Ryan hit the bull's eye on thirteen of twenty-two for 15-yards and one touchdown, and Hill completed one of five for thirteen yards.
Ryan, with sixty-nine yards on seventeen carries, was the leading rusher of the day.
Besides its touchdowns, in the first, second and third quarters, Navy threatened three other times, missing two field goal attempts – from the Rice thirty-six and twenty-yard lines – and being held on fourth down at the Rice three.
The Owls got as far as the Navy eighteen in the third period, the Navy twenty-seven in the first quarter, and then moved to within stepping distance of the goal line at game's end.
Navy had a bit of trouble getting up a head of steam in the early portion of the game, losing the ball on fumbles the first two times it had possession.
But midway of the opening period, Ryan turned the other cheek, losing the ball on the Rice 33.
Navy's second stringers were on the field then and they swept to the first touchdown in eight plays. All but the last four yards were made against the Owls' second team and Neely rushed in the regulars when Navy had fourth down and two yards to make.
The regulars couldn't hold the rampant Middie reserves. Fullback Al Swanson, who is captain of the basketball team and now can join the roundballers, barged through left guard to the one-yard line, creating a first down situation. Two plays later, quarterback Joe Tranchini, a sophomore who shows the promise of greatness, slammed through the opposite guard for the touchdown.
The reserves' convincing movement against the Rice first-stringers was the tipoff to the fact that Navy was going to take this bowl game which may be its last.
Halfback Roland Brandquist missed the try for extra point.
In the second quarter, Navy sailed sixty-six yards for its next touchdown. Forrestal mixed running plays with passes to ends Jokanovich and John Ruth and fullback Ray Wellborn – who once played on the Rice freshman football team with the seniors of the current Owl squad. Halfback Harry Hurst made the touchdown when he took a pitchout, dashed around left end and slid two tacklers on a thirteen-yard sprint.
Capt. Ned Oldham, halfback, kicked the conversion. Navy led, 13-0.
The last Navy touchdown came in the third period, after a Rice fumble was recovered by Ruth on the Rice 20-yard line.
Wellborn made one yard and then Oldham grabbed a pitchout and took off around right end. He eluded the grasping hands of guard Cliff McCraw and Ryan, leaving them sprawled as he sped across the goal line. He then kicked the final Navy point.
Later in the same period, the Owls finally managed to get their touchdown, after intercepting a Forrestal pass.
The handsome youngster, who has no hesitancy in throwing the football from any part of the field, passed to Jokanovich from Navy's thirty-six yard line. The ball bounced off the end's arm and was grabbed in midair by Rice halfback Bobby Williams, who got it back to almost the identical spot on the same scrimmage line.
A penalty for delay of the game, against Navy, put the ball on the thirty-one. Ryan threw three quick passes – and the ball was on the eight-yard line.
Another pass, this one, also, to Ken Williams, brought the score. Ryan hit Williams just short of the goal line and the halfback ducked his head and dove into the end zone before he could be stopped.
Hill came in to kick the extra point and end the scoring for the day.
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