And Still Champs

The first time they got their hands on the ball, the Oklahoma Sooners sent Pittsburgh's Panthers sprawling after a perfectly executed quick kick. From then on, starting the 1957 football season against the nation's No. 1 team, the Panthers, rated high among Eastern teams, were outmaneuvered, outrushed. outdefended, outkicked, outpassed.

The illusion that the Sooners had taken a dreadful chance in scheduling a tough first-game opponent had been nourished in Pittsburgh for weeks. The last team even to tie Oklahoma (42 games ago in 1953), the Panthers were said to have the stuff that makes for upsets. But even before the kickoff in Pitt Stadium, Pitt knew better. Sportswriters watched Oklahoma at practice, raced to their typewriters and passed the word. Wrote the Sun-Telegraph's George Kiseda: "The Sooners ran through everything as though they were qualifying for the Olympic 100-meter-dash final. On straight-T pitchouts, their quarterbacks did not just flip the ball to loping halfbacks as ordinary mortals do. Rather, they fired high-speed guided missiles at halfbacks who all seemed to resemble Bobby Morrow."

Such pre-game gamesmanship recalled the New York Yankees of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who pumped batting-practice home runs into the stands like grapeshot before the first World Series game of 1932. Demoralized by the sight, the goggle-eyed Chicago Cubs faded in four straight games. Similarly unnerved by news about the Sooners, the overrated Panthers never got started.

Alternating four powerful teams, any one of which seemed capable of handling Pitt, Oklahoma's Coach Bud Wilkinson saw his boys roll for 310 yds. on the ground, connect for three touchdown passes and top off the scoring with a 13-yd. touchdown dash by Right Half Clendon Thomas. "We have a heck of a lot of polishing to do," said modest Oklahoma Co-Captain Don Stiller, just as if he had not noticed the final 26-0 score. The remark made almost as much sense as Coach Wilkinson's pre-game prediction: "Frankly, we don't expect to win at all." P: Bogged down by a driving rainstorm, Texas A. & M. needed every one of three versatile quarterbacks to salvage a tough game from Maryland. 21-13.

P: Georgia Tech's underrated and inexperienced Engineers took a long step toward the Southeastern Conference championship by holding down Kentucky, 13-0.

P: Virginia's Mountaineers barely staved off an embarrassing upset by rushing Virginia's Iranian Prince. Jim Bakhtiar, making him miss an extra-point kick and saving a 6-6 tie. P: Navy, just about the only big-time team besides Oklahoma to find it had a first-game breather, sailed past Boston College. 46-6.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.