A dedicated and jubilant Kansas University football team emerged from its Bluebonnet Bowl trip in scintillating fashion after the junket was inaugurated with doubt in many minds and after adversity had plagued the Jayhawk entourage week before Saturday’s Houston meeting with Rice.
In throwing off the effects of a weather-restricted practice schedule and beating Rice 33-7, the KU team:
1. Closed the 7-3-1 season on a high note of victory before a national television audience and got a good running start toward a successful 1962.
2. Wiped away some of the burning disappointment of the 10-7 upset by Missouri in the regular-season finale.
3. Abolished the notion that it couldn’t beat a club with better than a .500 record (Rice entered the game at 7-3).
4. Allowed an excellent senior crop to finish up their college careers with a win in a major bowl game, such as they had been working toward for four years.
In the final analysis it was fear of humiliation and the desperate effort that this fear motivated that told the story. KU won because it wouldn’t be beaten.
When the Jayhawk squad voted Nov. 27 to accept the Friday through Sunday trip to Houstona trip curtailed because of an administrative emphasis on gradesthere were some squadmen who were openly in disagreement about the trip. They wanted more time for “fun in the sun”more of a reward (though Houston had no sun all week).
Then in the ensuing period, the squad attitude did not appear to be compatible to the type of all out effort it would take to beat Riceone of the best teams KU had on its schedule. This was followed by a final week of weather that forced the Jays to do virtually all their work in confining Allen Fieldhouse.
The first real good drill session the Jays had all week was late Friday afternoon in Houston, and that was hampered by the wet, foggy, dreary weather that prevailed throughout the jaunt to Texas.
So by Friday night and Saturday morning, the frequent comment around the Shamrock Hilton Hotel headquarters was: “Boy, they look like anything to me but a team that is playing a tough opponent in a major bowl game.”
Looks can be terribly deceiving, and this was the case with this KU team Saturday. The Jayhawks were razor-sharp from the outset, particularly in the line where Missouri had sprung such rude and overpowering surprises. With backs Ken Coleman, John Hadl, Curtis McClinton and Rodger McFarland putting on their best all-around show of the year, the Jays beat off a fierce second-quarter bid by Rice, led 12-7 at the half and then made a rout of the classic in the third period.
A crowd that intermittently was soaked with rain totaled about 52,000, but 61,000 tickets had been sold. KU’s guarantee will be something like $96,000. Rice Stadium would have had a 70,000 sellout if it hadn’t been for damp, chilly weather all week. Houston natives swore this was the first bad weekend they’ve had in a long, long time.
But while the weather generally kept the KU trip form being quite as “bright as it might have been. KU fans felt it couldn’t have been a more beautiful day Saturday afternoon if there had been blue skies and readings in the 80s. To say that coach Jack Mitchell, his staff and the players were overjoyed is as needless as saying Missouri savored its win over KU.
KU lost three games and tied another the past year for want of offensive consistency and a “big play” or two. The Jays remedied both these problems in brilliant fashion Saturday.
First off, they drove 59, 64, 50, 36 and 69 yards for their five scores. They repeatedly came up with big playsthe biggest being All-American Hadl’s 41-yard ad lib run in a punting situation that set up a score that pushed KU ahead 12-7 with only 1:16 to go in the second quarter.
Rice was leading 7-6 at the time and KU was on its own 40, with a fourth down and five-yard situation. What happened was not called by coach Mitchell, who later said that in such a crisis “we would have been foolish to try to gamble.”
But the alert Hadl saw the Rice defense shift just enough, figured he could whip the situation and proceeded to jitterbug 41 yards to the Rice 19 before desperate little Butch Blume of the Owls barely kept him from going the route. Then KU fullback star Coleman, voted the game’s outstanding back, bolted 18 yards and then another to give KU a lead that crunched the Owl’s back.
Everyone agreed that Hadl’s punting, his 7-for-10 passing and his big play and field generalship were big factors in the game. But still top back honors were deserved by the quiet, bashful Coleman who rushed for 107 yards and two touchdowns and never failed to do what he had to to keep KU safe. His performance was the best by a KU back this year. The previous rushing high was 98 yards by McClinton in the Colorado loss.
KU got brilliant play from both lines. Especially fierce on blocking and mean on defense were tackles Stan Kirshman and Larry Lousch, guards Jim Mills and Elvin Basham and center Kent Staabwho played after being miserably ill all night from the flu. Most of Coleman’s yardage was gained over the middle where these linemen were wedging out the bigger Rice forwards in great fashion.
Basham was voted the game’s best lineman and nobody earned this more. He not only blocked like a madman but played fanatically effective defense.
In addition to Coleman’s two touchdowns, the ever-valuable and versatile McFarland scored two on double-reverse plays and McClinton drove four Rice men over the goal-line with him to get six points.
Coleman’s scores came on dives of 1 yard each. McClinton gored the Owls for six yards and McFarland danced 12 and 13 yardsand could have gone 1,200 or 1,200, so effectively did his teammates block and so well were the Owls fooled. Usually it’s teammate Tony Leiker, the speed boy, who gets the call on this play. But McFarland did as well Saturday as even the dashing Leiker ever has. Following the game, Hadl and McClinton signed professional contracts en route to the dressing room. And when they halted to put their monkiers on dotted lines, that was about the only time they were stopped all day on the field. This was ruly a Jayhawk afternoon, and one that the rebounding teamparticularly the proud and able seniorswill long remember.
It would be hard to wind up a career on a more positive note.
Word is that McClinton may have received as much as $110,000 for signing with the Dallas Texans of the AFL$100,000 for a three-year pact and a $10,000 bonus for signing. McClinton, who also was wanted by the NFL Los Angeles Rams, will say only that “I got a good deal, and great security.”
Hadl signed with the San Diego Charges of the AFL primarily because he’ll get to play quarterbackthe position he likeswith the club. There is a rumor he got a four-year, no-cut contract for $145,000. Charger talent scout Don Klosterman who signed John won’t say one way or another, but he does admit that Hadl over a period of three years could make as much money as any quarterback the pro leagues have ever had.
“Hadl has everything it takes to be another Otto Graham,” Klosterman said confidently. “He’s a great athlete, a smart athlete, is a fierce competitor who produces under pressurehe has all the tools for greatness and in two years he could be the finest quarterback in football.”
Indications are that the ferocious Basham may sign a contract with Oakland of the AFL. Raider personnel were due to meet with him over the weekend.
