Longhorns Explode Navy Myth, 28-6
Carlisle's Passes Befuddle Middies
1/2/1964
It already had been crowned king of the 1963 college football season, but a magnificent University of Texas team chose New Year's Day, 1964, to brandish its crown before the football world and a good but bewildered Navy opponent.
The score was Texas 28, Navy 6 in this 28th Cotton Bowl Classic that had been billed as possibly the bowl "dream" match of all time.
Indeed, it turned out to be just that. For few among the packed Cotton Bowl house of 75,504 or the millions of viewers who made up possibly the largest television audience in college football history dreamed it would happen the way it did on a crisp, bright, blue afternoon.
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The staggering, sometimes chilling efficiency with which the Texas defense ended the legend of a Navy offense based on Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach's scrambling tactics might have been suspicioned in the depths of a prolific imagination.
But to have predicted that 28 Texas points would be fashioned principally on passing would have invited a sanity examination.
Nonetheless, it was the stunning air game which Longhorn quarterback Duke Carlisle flaunted before his disbelieving audience, combined with a brutal steer defense, that forged this victory which must stand as one of the most prominent ever achieved by a Southwest Conference football team.
Carlisle, who late was given an overwhelming vote by writers as the game's outstanding back, completed 7 of 19 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns.
Those two touchdowns came on long-range missiles, almost unheard of in the Longhorn arsenal, and both were to wingback Phil Harris, for 58 yards before the game was three minutes old and for 63 yards less than midway of the second quarter.
And then, virtually to seal the amazing victory before the expected battle to the death was half over, Carlisle waltzed nine yards on a splendidly-executed roll-out option for the third Texas touchdown with 2:39 remaining in the second period.
After seeing one 80-yard march fizzle on Tony Crosby's missed field goal attempt from the 12-yard line midway of the third quarter, the Longhorns ran the count to 28-0 with 2:40 left in the third when fullback Harold Philipp slammed across from the 2.
But it was another pass, a 21-yarder to Soph George Sauer from Tommy Wade, the man who was supposed to be the passing specialist in Texas' renowned ground-power attack, which set up the score at the Navy 5.
Texas was deprived a fifth touchdown by a matter of inches and a racing clock. With reserves deep from the bench in the game for the chance at some shavings of the glory, Texas ripped to the Navy 6-inch line, largely on three huge smashes by Tom Stockton. But a desperation lunge on fourth down by Hix Green was barely short as time ran out.
It was not until the early moments of the final quarter that Navy finally pushed 74 yards to put its six points on the scoreboard.
And it was not until Staubach abandoned his scrambling tactics to rely on his marvelous throwing arm that the Middies were able to do that.
Staubach passed for 57 of those yards and scored the touchdown himself on a roll out option from the 2.
Obviously, it was much too late for Navy, the champions of the East which had pledged itself to prove its dynasty should be the college football world.
But those dreams of supremacy by the Middies were crushed before the first quarter was half gone, crushed beneath the grinding muscle of Steer ends Knox Nunnally and Pete Lammons as they nearly rushed Staubach and a fleeing official from the very stadium.
Navy had just intercepted a Carlisle pass on its own 40, and on first down Staubach turned to retreat, scatter the enemy defenses in his favorite fashion and then strike terror in their hearts with his usually incredible escape tactics. But he didn't even have time to glance over his shoulder to see where the thunder of stampeding feet was coming from.
Neither did referee David Buchanan of Scarsdale, N.Y. He leaped for his life from the path just before Nunnally and Lammons buried Staubach for a 22-yard loss.
This play is important in the scheme of things that were to come only in that it set the pattern of the first half in which that furious Texas rush and Carlisle's surprising pass offensive stashed away victory.
Time after bruising time All-America tackle Scott Appleton, who was to be chosen the game's outstanding lineman by a wide margin, guard George Brucks, linebacker Tom Nobis, ends House, Nunnally and Charles Talbert, or any number of orange-shirted demons, would flood through to thwart Staubach at every turn.
In the second half, Staubach contented himself with dropping straight back and firing quickly, obviously the only way the Middies were to be able to move against the furious challenge of the Texas defense.
It was too late for the good judgment to overcome the Longhorns. But it was in time for Staubach to write his name in the Cotton Bowl record book. He finished the day with 21 completions in 31 passing attempts for 228 yards, both record-setting performances.
But Staubach lost 47 yards fleeing for his life while attempting those first-half throws, allowing Carlisle to emerge as the new record holder for total offense in a Cotton Bowl game with 267 yards, 213 passing and 54 rushing.
In fact, Carlisle briefly also owned the passing yardage record. He retired from the game late in the third quarter, completely unworried about such trivial things as individual records. For Duke and the 'Horns he had directed so masterfully through the grand, 11-victory season, long before had accomplished what they determinedly set out to do.
Had not Carlisle grabbed such a huge share of the glory in this one for Texas, a No. 1 hero candidate might well have been Harris, the sophomore wingback from San Antonio. He made a great fake to leave Navy safetyman Robert Sutton lying helplessly on his face on his first touchdown catch from Carlisle. And he made a great catch on the second one after Middie defender Pat Donnelly slapped the ball and even appeared for a moment to have intercepted it. But Harris clutched it to his chest at the Navy 35, got a clearing block from Talbert at the 25 and romped across untouched.
Ironically, the final score was virtually the same as that by which Texas defeated Oklahoma on this same Cotton Bowl field the afternoon of Oct. 12 and became claimant to the title of the nation's No. 1 team.
That was the day the fabled story of perhaps the finest football team the Southwest Conference ever has known really began. But New Year's Day, 1964, is the one which will perpetuate it.
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