I Hit The Jackpot!

island eagle · December 30, 2006

My wife was trying to think of what to get me for Christmas. She finally settled on the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia, a 1,600 plus page compendium of just about anything you could want to know about college football history, facts and trivia. It includes pages on every team ever in 1-A football (or the NCAA, prior to the split of 1-A and !-AA), complete bowl histories back to the beginning, including bowls that are now defunct (such as the Salad Bowl), team stat leaders by years, All-American teams by years, WEEKLY polls (AP and UPI) back to the time they first started, etc, etc.

Among some of the trivia I picked up already from this volume:

1. The highest North Texas has ever been "legitimately" ranked (I'll explain later) was in 1959 on November 2nd, when they reached 20th in the AP poll and November 9th, when they were ranked 17th in AP and 19th in UPI. Unfortunately, they lost to Tulsa 6-17 that week and dropped out of the polls; Ironically, TCU was 18th in AP and tied with us at 19th in UPI that later week;

2 Speaking of 1959, and our Sun Bowl loss to New Mexico State, we were evenly matched statistically, though we lost 28-8. We had 20 first downs to NMSU's 15 and 334 total yards to their 342. But, we lost 6 fumbles and I guess that doomed us. Also in 1959, Abner Haynes was ranked 7th nationally in total rushing yards. Pervis Adkins of NMSU was ranked 1st. We were ranked 2nd nationally in rushing yards that year, just behind Syracuse, 4th in total offense and 10th in total defense.

3. In 1977, we were ranked 18th in the UPI poll on 10/10, 16th on 10/17, 16th on 10/24, 20th on 10/31 (after losing to #20 ranked Florida State 35-14), 18th on 11/7, 14th on 11/14, 13th on 11/21, 17th on 11/28th and 16th on the final January poll. We were not ranked in the AP poll at any time that year. Fry was casting top 5 votes for us in the AP poll, which kept us ranked high.....so you might say the 1959 rankings were the true highest rankings we've ever received.

4.When we beat Florida in 1947, the Seminoles went 4-5-1 that year., beating North Carolina State, Furman, Miami and Kansas State and tying Tulane. They lost to Mississippi 6-14 the week before we beat them 12-20. They lost, 14-20 to Auburn the week after we beat them.

5.12,500 fans were on hand to see us lose to Nevada in the Salad Bowl on January 1, 1948 in Phoenix, Arizona.

6.There was a bowl game in Havana, Cuba one year: The Bacardi Bowl.12,000 fans showed up on January 1, 1937 to see Auburn and Villanova battle to a 7-7 tie.

7.Steve Ramsey was 5th nationally in passing in 1968. Barry Moore was 5th in receiving (Chuck Hixson of SMU was ranked 1st in passing and Jerry Levias was 2nd in receiving). In 1969, Ramsey was 7th in passing and Moore was 4th in receiving.

8.In 1967, North Texas was ranked 7th nationally in total defense.

9.In 1975, when we beat Tennessee, the Vols had lost to Alabama the week before, 7-20, but beat Colorado State the week following our victory, 28-7.

10. In 1939, Tennessee led the nation in scoring defense with 0 points scored against them in 10 games. Bet that record will never be duplicated!

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CorinthEagle · December 30, 2006

I got this a couple of years ago and it never leaves the table next to my recliner during football season!

PlummMeanGreen · December 31, 2006

3. In 1977, we were ranked 18th in the UPI poll on 10/10, 16th on 10/17, 16th on 10/24, 20th on 10/31 (after losing to #20 ranked Florida State 35-14), 18th on 11/7, 14th on 11/14, 13th on 11/21, 17th on 11/28th and 16th on the final January poll. We were not ranked in the AP poll at any time that year. Fry was casting top 5 votes for us in the AP poll, which kept us ranked high.....so you might say the 1959 rankings were the true highest rankings we've ever received.
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I know Fry was popular and certainly had connections, but how could one coach single-handedly get his school in any Top 20 poll?
I had heard rumors about those votes from Fry, but still no poll system would be seem viable if one man could get his school in the Top 20 with his votes alone, right? Actually, I heard that FSU's Bobby Bowden had been voting for Fry's North Texas team as well as Maxie Lambright (sp?) of La Tech, too; so Fry could not have pulled all this off by himself. Sounds to me more like one of those Denton-produced Hayden Fry urban tales put out by a hardy handful of some of the boys downtown of which a few lost their local lofty status when Hayden Fry came to town in December of 1972.
Nevertheless, what Fry did in Denton landed him a Big 10 HFC's job where he went on to continue to prove himself with a few Rose Bowl appearances by his Hawkeyes and all this no matter what the boys downtown thought. And last I read concerning NT athletic history, I don't think that feat has been duplicated from any other HFC in Mean Green Country since; that is, where one of our HFC's left UNT and became a success (how about an induction into the College Football Hall of Fame for starters) at a higher profile HFC's job.

Edited December 31, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

island eagle · December 31, 2006

The Dallas Morning News ran a story about it at the time in which Fry admitted voting for his team. Based upon the number of votes, they were able to determine that he had to be putting them 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th. It was common knowledge.

Ole Green Guts · December 31, 2006

Island Eagle, I was just telling FFR about this book. My brother gave it to me and it has EVERYTHING about college football. I dont have it with me but I was telling him the story about Mean Joe getting a ride at UNT. I thought that was a pretty good story.

SUMG · December 31, 2006

3. In 1977, we were ranked 18th in the UPI poll on 10/10, 16th on 10/17, 16th on 10/24, 20th on 10/31 (after losing to #20 ranked Florida State 35-14), 18th on 11/7, 14th on 11/14, 13th on 11/21, 17th on 11/28th and 16th on the final January poll. We were not ranked in the AP poll at any time that year. Fry was casting top 5 votes for us in the AP poll, which kept us ranked high.....so you might say the 1959 rankings were the true highest rankings we've ever received.

I never got to watch Coach Fry fill out his poll rankings that year, so I'm not sure how he voted. But, I do know if Hayden did vote for us, to help put us in the UPI poll that year....toward the end of the year, other coaches were voting for us, as well. The reason I know that is that one week (maybe more), we had more votes than Hayden could have possibly given us on his own.

Coach Fry, had to do whatever he could to garner attention for our Independent team back then. There were in '77.....what 12-14 bowls, at the most? Maybe a few more. But there sure weren't the 32 that there are now.

So, even though I'm glad that we were ranked in 1959...your post seems to totally downplay the accomplishments of the 1977 team, IMHO. And to me, that '77 should have been ranked...and was bowl worthy.

Edited December 31, 2006 by SUMG

VideoEagle · January 1, 2007

I don't remember when the Morning News ran the article, but they did the research and NT would not have been ranked if Hayden had not ranked NT in the top 3. He couldn't vote us number 1 as that would show up, but he could rank us number 2 or 3. There were far fewer coaches voting back then, so votes carried more weight. They added more voters a couple of years later.

It's well documented that Hayden's votes got up the initital rankings. Now, after you are in the poll, if you win other coaches will tend to vote for teams to at least keep their ranking. So, yes, other coaches did vote for NT. But Hayden's vote got it us in!