A SEASON ON THE BRINK FROM INSIDE THE HUDDLE PT 2

Part 2 in a series with a first hand view from inside the huddle on the1955 football team that played under head coach Blanton Collier in his second year at Ky.

The 55 team did not have a “special teams coach” as such, several coaches coached the various special teams. We had kick off and punt teams usually the same team unless some one was injured. We had return teams for both kick offs and punts the same team. We had a team that ran the field goal and extra points the same team.

This team is vital. I just saw where UK was ranked #8 in special teams last year. I remember when Guy Morris had a very good special teams coach. Very good and “special teams”go together don’t they???

Successful play calling by the quarterback and successful defensive signal calling by the MLB is a very complicated process and goes far beyond just one player getting out in front of 10 of his teammates on the field and through the use of numbers, letters and signs in an effort to get his team mates to join him in a common effort against the day’s opponent on the next play don’t guarantee success. It’s complicated, it involves hours an hours of work by the coaching staff scouting teams, watching game film and preparing a game plan. It involves meetings, practice, game input from the sideline coaches and the coaching box upstairs. It involves the situation at hand, line of scrimmage, first down marker, and down marker as well as present score especially if it’s late in the game. And yes it demands confidence. Confidence that the next play//signal you call will be the right one for the play coming up. All this churns around the play clock and if it’s late in the game the time clock. Tough task and not a lot of players can handle this job.

When Bob Hardy was in at quarterback he called about 60% of the plays on the field, no cheat sheets. The other 40% of the calls came from the sideline by substitutes, timeouts, or signals. With back up qb’s in more calls were made from the sideline.

When Dave Kuhn was in at mlb he called about 60% of the defensive signals from the field I don’t recall any cheat sheets.About 40% came from the sideline by subs, timeouts, and signals–with backups in that number called from the sidelines went up.

The 54 team struggled with the play calling process, a new staff, a new offense and defense and everything was slow which resulted in.

#1–Delay of game penalty’s which killed a lot of drives and ended up losing possession of the ball.
#2–Wasted timeouts to prevent delay of game penalty’s.
#3–Poor selection by the signal caller due to being rushed
#4—More play//signal calling

After the problems in 54 with play and signal calling asst. coach Ermal Allen created a process, a strategy, a system that gave the person on the field and the coaches up stairs a 12 second earlier notice over what they had received in the past. This cut back on

#1–Delay of game penalty’s
#2–wasted use of valuable timeouts to prevent delay of game penalty’s
#3–rushing of the signal callers and coaches upstairs to make calls in order to beat the play clock–
#4—In 55 i don’t know if 2 way radios were around I couldn’t afford one anyway. I don’t exact know when cell phones came in or text messaging and now twitter.

I don’t know what is being used out there today to transmit information quicker and more reliable and after all that’s part of the play and signal calling process to find out what the line of scrimmage is and how much more to go for a first down or td isn’t it??? There has to be a way to give me and my team that 5 second edge on play calling every down.

Take a stop watch when the guy with the ball goes down start the clock, when the ball is marked and the down marker/line of scrimmage stick is moved stop the clock. How much time did you get??? That’s what you’re working with–saving 5 seconds off that dead time is money in the bank–

It worked for us but wasn’t widely known or discussed. Ii don’t think anyone ever picked it up after coach Allen left for the Cowboys. I am not sure what system was used though coach Bradshaw did talk to me once about it but i wasn’t around much in those days.

Play calling today is even far more complicated than it was in 55. The expanded use of the “spread offense” and use of changing defenses to defend them makes it a new crap shoot entirely. Coach Collier brought the Cleveland browns offense to Ky in 54. It was on the edges of the “spread offense” with wide outs and slot backs and splitting the ends out.

Sid Gilman, head coach at Cincinnati had created a offense that later became known as the “west coast offense” and many people have been credited with it’s invention including the Forty Niner’s coach who won a couple of super bowls with Joe Montana using it, but it was Sid Gilman who created it and it was a beginning strain of “the spread offense”.

Multi Sport Atheletes

In days past it was not unusual for athletes at college to play more than one sport. There was more time available, they played fewer games and each individual sport was less demanding than today.

So lets try to name some of the multi-sport athletes at UK.

#1–Has to be Ermal Allen. Was all conference in football, basketball, track, and golf. Later played for the Browns backing up Otto Graham. Then was asst. coach at UK for several years. Then asst. head coach for the Cowboys. This will be hard to top.

#2–Wah Wah Jones. All conference end in football. All American in basketball and baseball (all conference in both) played for the Indianapolis Olympians in the NBA.

#3–Al Bruno. played football and basketball on both national championship teams in 1950 (only player to accomplish that) played and coached football in the Canadian league for some 40 years–

#4–Frank Ramsey. Played basketball and baseball. All American basketball in basketball and played for Celtics for years. Was the original 6th man in NBA–

#5–Bill Evans. Played basketball and tennis at UK. Played on the great 53-54 team with Ramsey and Hagan. Played on the 54-55 and 55-56 teams with Bob Burrows and was captain of the 56 Olympic team that won the gold. Was all SEC and SEC men’s champion in tennis.

#6–Lou Michaels. Two time All American football player. Played in the NFL for years. In the college football hall of fame. Played some baseball and threw the shot put in college (very good).

#7–Allen Feldhouse–played basketball and baseball at UK.

#8–Dom Fucci. Played both football and baseball at UK and was All American in both. Played several years for the Lions (kicker). Played pro baseball (catcher) in triple AAA. ) Couldn’t hit the hook. Was an asst coach at UK.

#9–Ralph Beard. Played basketball and baseball. Was Mr. Basketball in 1961.

#10–Randy Embry. Played basketball and baseball. Randy also won a state title in baseball at Davies Co. and is the only Mr. Basketball to coach a Mr Basketball (Branden Davenport 1997).

#11–Cotton Nash. Played Basketball and baseball. Three time All American in basketball and all SEC three times. Played basketball for the Lakers, SF Warriors and the Colonels in the ABA. Played minor league for the White Sox and Twins.