Novel Lions A Mystery To UT, 30-6
1/2/1972
At the Cotton Bowl Ball on New Year's Eve, Penn State coach Joe Paterno strolled through the crowded room clutching a copy of his book, "Football My Way." He was asked if he was trying to sell a few more before midnight. He just laughed and vanished into the mob.
In view of what followed the next afternoon, you wonder if Joe sought out Darrell Royal at the party and made him a special present of it. If Royal hasn't already read it, he may spend a few long winter nights studying it now.
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As all the Cotton Bowl spectators who braved Saturday's moist weather and the national TV audience which watched from the comfort of their homes know so well. Paterno's Nittany Lions really threw the book at Royal's Texas team.
Penn State, playing the second half like it was a brand new ball game, stormed through, over and around the Longhorns for a resounding 30-6 victory. When it was over, not a soul was making jokes about the so-called Eastern style football which the Lions supposedly play.
Actually what they played in the 36th New Year's Day classic here was very solid football, well planned and well executed by all those outstanding athletes Royal had been careful to compliment earlier in the week. Rarely, if ever, has a good Royal team, supposedly operating at normal strength, been subjected to such a licking.
This was, simply, a black day for the Orange. And for the Penn State loyalists who made the long trip to wave their blue and white pom-poms in the stands, there was great cause for celebration far into the night.
Royal, who has a knack for making the right comment in nearly any situation, had the right one for this one.
"They deserved to win," said the Longhorn coach, "in every respect."
Royal did note, however, that safety Mike Bayer "was out of his head, out on his feet" early in the third quarter when Lion quarterback John Hufnagel completed two big passes on him which thrust Penn State into command of the game. Bayer, Royal reported, was dazed in the first half and lost a third of his vision but no one was aware of it until he was victimized on those big plays in the third quarter.
Considering how Penn State played the entire second half, you can only wonder how much difference a normal Bayer in the deep secondary might have made during those minutes when the game swung around. There was no wondering, however, about penn State's ability to beat plenty of good teams Saturday.
The Lions, aching for redemption after a 31-11 loss to Tennessee denied them an 11-0 regular season and lofty national ranking four weeks ago, went out and earned this win. They had skidded from fifth to 10th on the Big Chart when they reached Dallas, but they'll surely leave town Sunday morning feeling considerably higher.
So thorough was Penn State's domination that the Longhorns failed to score a touchdown for the first time in 80 games. Like that 6-3 victory over Rice in October '64, they scored all their points on two field goals. But this time, of course, those weren't nearly enough.
Much had been made of Texas' quarterback situation before the game. Royal had two dandies available but chose to start Eddie Phillips, who was brilliant all of 1970 and early this year and now finally was recovered from injuries which sidelined him most of his senior season. This left Donnie Wigginton, the Southwest Conference's most valuable player with a lot of voters, on the bench but ready to go.
Either way, it looked fine for the Longhorns. But it didn't work out that way. Neither Phillips nor Wigginton, who relieved him late in the third quarter facing a 20-6 deficit, could fire up the consistent attack which has become the trademark of Texas' usually thriving Wishbone offense.
On this gloomy day, with Penn State's big, agile defenders ranging everywhere and hawking frequent loose balls, the Wishbone incident looked more like the Wishbone Accident. And the way the Lions played, most of the Longhorns looked like hit-and-run victims when it was over.
Paterno's guys had everything they needed to win this one; a sharp, clever quarterback in Hufnagel; a strong running game led by all-America halfback Lydell Mitchell, voted the game's outstanding offensive player; a sturdy offensive line headed by tackle Dave Joyner and tight end Bob Parsons; and an alert, lusty defense filled with heroes like backs Buddy Ellis, Gregg Ducatte and Chuck Mesko, linebackers Tom Hall and Gary Gray and end Bruce Bannon, a guy who seemed to wind up on top of everything, including the voting for the game's outstanding defender.
Strange as it seems now, Texas actually led twice in the first 30 minutes and at halftime the Longhorns appeared slightly stronger.
The Longhorns took a 6-3 lead to the locker room, thanks to their abruptly turning the momentum around in the final minute, which easily were the most exciting 60 seconds of an otherwise ho-hum half.
Hufnagel had driven the Lions from their 47 to the Texas 32 and Penn State clearly hoped to at least break the 3-3 tie with a field goal when linebacker Glenn Gaspard made a great 1-handed interception of a pass and raced 17 yards to the Texas 40 with 19 seconds left.
Phillips, who had failed to connect on his previous three passes, twice hit Pat Kelly for 19 yards and Texas was on the Lion 22 with three seconds left. Then Steve Valek, who had been successful on only one of six field goal attempts before Saturday hurried in and kicked his second 3-pointer of the half as time expired.
No one realized it then, but that's exactly when the Longhorns' scoring punch expired for the day, too.
Texas fumbled five times during the game and lost three, which didn't threaten its Cotton Bowl record set in a 24-11 loss to Notre Dame a year earlier, but the Lions converted each recovery to points – field goals in the second and third quarters and a telling touchdown in between.
Phillips had a mild threat in the works after the second half kickoff, moving the Longhorns to the Penn State 47 before losing the ball a couple of steps after the snap and seeing it kicked far behind him by a defender. Linebacker Charlie Zapiec fell on it at the Texas 41 and five plays later Penn State had a TD and started pulling away.
Mitchell's 19-yard escape and Hufnagel's 19-yard strike to Parsons angling across the Steer secondary were the key plays to the 1, where Mitchell crashed over the right side behind Joyner's big block
It was 10-6. Penn State and now Paterno was seeing his side play football his way.
The Lions soon had the ball again after a punt and they needed only two plays to move 68 yards to make it 17-6. The payoff was a 65-yard Hufnagel-to-Scott Skarzynski pass play. Hufnagel rolled far to his right and found Skarzynski all alone on the Texas 35, with the dazed Bayer the nearest defender 20 yards away.
Next Phillips saw his pitch-out knocked astray by Bannon and recovered by Ducatte on the Texas 43. The Lions converted this to the second field goal by Italian-born soccer kicker Alberto Vitiello, who was 3-for-3 Saturday, and it was 20-6 by the time Wigginton entered with 2:12 left in the third quarter.
Super runt couldn't achieve anything big in all that chaos. Instead, Penn State controlled the ball most of the remaining time, methodically driving to another field goal and touchdown against the weary Texas defense in the fourth quarter.
So great was Penn State's dominance at the finish that Texas held the ball only 2:21 of the final 15 minutes. During the last two quarters, Penn State made 12 first downs to Texas' 5 and managed 273 yards total offense to 85 for the Longhorns. And, of course, 27 points to zero.
At the end, Mitchell, who ran 27 times for 146 yards, was moving around like the game had just begun. And the Longhorns were looking like they wished it never had.
This indeed, was a New Year's hangover Texas will be a long time forgetting.
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