Glory Years, Part I
From TributeToTroy
Not only did he restore USC to its elite status, but he also had more influence on the way offensive football is played at the college level than any other coach in his time.
It was McKay who modernized the I-formation with the tailback standing up in the backfield some seven yards deep, with the vision to scan the defense and with the potential to strike at almost any point along the line.
When you talk about tailbacks, you’re talking about USC—such glamour runners as Heisman Trophy winners Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson, Charles White and Marcus Allen, plus Clarence Davis, Anthony Davis and Ricky Bell.
McKay was innovative, but more important than that, he was a winner.
He won four national championships (1962, 1967, 1972, 1974) during his 16 years at USC (1960-75). His teams won nine Pacific-8 titles and finished in the nation’s top l0 on nine occasions. He had a career record of 127-40-8 (.749), putting him in the same class with Howard Jones (.750).
The Rose Bowl became almost USC’s second home during McKay’s tenure. His teams made eight New Year’s Day appearances in Pasadena, winning five and losing three.
There was an exciting quality about McKay’s teams and some of the most memorable games in USC history were played in the 60s and 70s: The 42-37 victory over Wisconsin in the 1963 Rose Bowl. The 20-17 win over Notre Dame in 1964, the game that deprived the Irish of the national championship.
The 21-20 squeaker over UCLA in 1967 with Simpson sprinting 64 yards for the clinching touchdown. A final-minute 14-12 conquest of the Bruins and 26-24 over Stanford, both in 1969, and again over Stanford in 1973, 27-26.
The amazing 55-24 rout of Notre Dame in 1974 after the Trojans trailed, 24-6, at halftime. The late, 18-17 victory over Ohio State in the 1975 Rose Bowl.
USC is identified with its tailbacks but rival coaches say it was the strength and mobility of McKay’s offensive lines that enabled Simpson & Company to run to daylight.
USC had more than its share of All-Americans and talented players during the McKay era: wide receivers Hal Bedsole, Lynn Swann and Bob Chandler; tight end Charles Young; linebackers Damon Bame, Adrian Young, Charles Weaver, Jimmy Gunn, Willie Hall and Richard Wood; defensive end Tim Rossovich; offensive tackles Ron Yary, Marvin Powell, Sid Smith and Pete Adams; defensive backs Mike Battle and Artimus Parker; quarterbacks Mike Rae, Jimmy Jones and Pat Haden; and fullbacks Sam (Bam) Cunningham and Ben Wilson.
During the 40s and 50s, the USC-Notre Dame series had become one-sided, distinctly favoring the Irish. But McKay, after a tentative start, turned things around. He was shut out by the Irish his first two seasons, 1960 and 1961, and in 1966 Notre Dame embarrassed USC, 51-0, the worst defeat in Trojan history. McKay lost only once to Notre Dame the next nine seasons
(two ties). When he left USC for Tampa Bay of the NFL after the 1975 season, he had established an 8-6-2 record against the Irish.
McKay played freshman football at Purdue in 1946, then transferred to Oregon the next year, where he was an All-Coast halfback. He stayed on as an assistant at Oregon, but when an opening developed on Don Clark’s staff in 1959, Clark hired McKay. It was the most fortuitous decision of McKay’s career. Clark resigned after the 1959 season and he recommended McKay for
the USC job.
Now USC football was in the hands of a virtually unknown assistant coach and his debut was hardly auspicious. He lost his 1960 opener to Oregon State, 14-0, and struggled through a 4-6 season. Injuries, graduation losses and an inordinate number of slow-footed backs hindered the Trojans.
Alumni were already grumbling about McKay when the new USC coach upset UCLA, 17-6, near the end of the season. The record was not much better in 1961, 4-5-1, but McKay was already experimenting with the I-formation. He moved Willie Brown, a flanker, to tailback, and Brown responded with a 93-yard touchdown run to beat SMU.
Then, the following week against Iowa, USC had its first explosive offensive game under McKay. After trailing, 21-0, the Trojans rallied for 34 points.
They lost in the final minute, 35-34, when McKay, not willing to settle for a tie, opted for the two-pointer and failed. He would lose other games by going for two points, but he would also win a Rose Bowl game and a share of the national championship with a successful two-point try. McKay saw no sense in ties; he played only to win.
In 1962 it all came together for McKay. He had benefited from recruiting, refined the “I” and borrowed the Arkansas defense from Frank Broyles. USC had speed on both offense and defense, two fine quarterbacks in Pete Beathard and Bill Nelsen, the versatile Willie Brown at tailback, strong Ben Wilson at fullback and wide receiver Hal Bedsole, a big man (6-5, 220), who could fly.
The 1962 team had a perfect 11-0 record to win the 1962 national championship. In its 10 regular season games, USC outscored the opposition, 219-55, and held eight opponents to seven points or less.
The best and most thrilling aspect of the season was the 1963 Rose Bowl game with Wisconsin. The Trojans built what seemed an almost insurmountable lead, 42-14. They almost lost the game when Wisconsin quarterback Ron VanderKelen completed 18 of 22 passes in the fourth quarter. 33 of 48 in the game for 401 yards, in a remarkable near-comeback. Final score: USC 42, Wisconsin 37.
The 1963 season is notable for the debut of the first of McKay’s great tailbacks—Mike Garrett, a runner with speed and power who became USC’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 1965. McKay said it’s a shame that Garrett never got an opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl during his three seasons at USC. The Trojans had respectable records—7-3 in 1963 and again in 1964 and 7-2-1 in 1965—but losses to Washington and UCLA kept them from Pasadena.
USC just missed getting to the Rose Bowl in the mid-60s, but there was that shining moment in 1964 when the Trojans shocked Notre Dame right out of a national championship. The unbeaten Irish were on their way to a title, leading the Trojans, 17-0, at halftime. But the Trojans rallied to win, 20-17, on quarterback Craig Fertig’s touchdown pass to wide receiver Rod Sherman.
USC got to the Rose Bowl in 1966, but McKay doesn’t have pleasant memories of that season. The Trojans lost their final three games—UCLA, 14-7; Notre Dame, 51-0; and Purdue in the Rose Bowl, 14-13, when McKay lost another two-point gamble.
The next year, 1967, became significant for two reasons: one, a junior college transfer from San Francisco named Orenthal James Simpson was the new tailback. Two, the Trojans were on their way to three winning years in which they would have a combined 29-2-2 record, win the national championship and finish second and third in wire service rankings, and make three straight visits to the Rose Bowl.
When USC won its first national title under McKay in 1962, it was accomplished under one-platoon rules. In 1967 the two-platoon system was back and USC was even stronger. The incomparable Simpson averaged 154 yards a game rushing, including a single game high of 235 yards. McKay had one of his best defensive units, which allowed only 87 points.
And 1967 was the year that the team broke the South Bend jinx. Notre Dame hadn’t lost to USC at home since 1939 but Simpson’s running and a ball-hawking defense that included seven interceptions retired some old ghosts, 24-7.
There was also the showdown game with crosstown rival UCLA. The Bruins were the nation’s top-ranked team at the time. The Trojans had held the No.1 position earlier, but had slipped to third the previous week after being upset by Oregon State, 3-0, on a muddy field at Corvallis. The lead changed hands four times. UCLA spurted ahead, 20-14, in the fourth quarter behind Gary Beban, the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. Then Simpson found daylight and sprinted 64 yards to a touchdown and a national championship.
After that, even the 1968 Rose Bowl was anticlimactic. Indiana was dominated by USC, 14-3.
The next two years, USC got another nickname—the Cardiac Kids; the team won or tied 12 times with fourth-quarter comebacks.
In 1968, Simpson carried the ball 383 times, an average of 35 carries a game, and gained 1,880 yards, an average of 4.9 yards a carry, on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy. USC came into the Rose Bowl against Ohio State that season with a 9-0-1 record. Despite an 80-yard touchdown run by Simpson, the Buckeyes took advantage of Trojan turnovers to win, 27-16.
The 1969 team had a 10-0-1 record, climaxing the season with a 10-3 victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl. But the second edition of the Cardiac Kids was often maligned because they didn’t win by impressive margins. The fabulous Juice was gone and the Trojans had new personalities—sophomore quarterback Jimmy Jones, tailback Clarence Davis and a defensive line known as the Wild Bunch.
Jones could misfire on eight straight passes and then become accurate in the final minutes. Davis is now known as the “forgotten” USC tailback because his career followed those of Garrett and Simpson. Davis led the Trojans in rushing in 1969 and 1970, gaining 1,351 and 972 yards.
The name, Wild Bunch, was inspired by the current movie of the same name. The group was composed of ends Jimmy Gunn and Charles Weaver, tackles Al Cowlings and Tody Smith, and middle guard Bubba Scott. Gunn and Cowlings were All-Americans in 1969. Weaver was so honored in 1970.
The Cardiac Kids were at their heart-stopping best in a 26-24 victory over Stanford. Late in the game, USC surged back behind Jones’ passing and Davis’ running to set up Ron Ayala’s 34-yard field goal with no time remaining.
The 1969 USC-UCLA game is considered one of the most dramatic of the series. Both teams were unbeaten with 8-0-1 records. The Wild Bunch gave UCLA quarterback Dennis Dummit a beating, but UCLA took the lead, 12-7 with 5 minutes left. Then, Jones, 0 of 9 passing in the first half, began to hit his receivers. A pass interference penalty against UCLA on an apparent fourth-down incompletion gave Jones a reprieve. He fired a 32-yard touchdown pass to Sam Dickerson deep in the end zone—and USC had pulled it out, 14-12, with 1:32 to play.
USC was 6-4-1 in 1970 and matched that in 1971. Winning years in some books, but not at USC. McKay became conscious in 1970 that he needed faster and more talented players. By 1972 he had the right blend of experience and youth.
He also had one of the greatest teams in the history of college football. This was a team without an apparent weakness. It had a 12-0 record, scored 467 points, averaged 432 yards a game, never trailed in the second half, restricted opponents to an average of only 2.5 yards per rush and didn’t permit a run longer than 29 yards.
McKay had two quality quarterbacks, senior Mike Rae and sophomore Pat Haden; an outstanding sophomore tailback, Anthony Davis, who became a starter at midseason; a high diving, excellent blocking fullback, Sam (Bam) Cunningham; tight end Charles Young and offensive tackle Pete Adams, both All-Americans; skilled defensive players like tackles John Grant and Jeff Winans and Richard (Batman) Wood, a sophomore All-American linebacker who could run the 40 in 4.5 seconds, and three fine wide receivers, Lynn Swann, Edesel Garrison and J.K. McKay, the coach’s son.
The Trojans breezed through their schedule until the regular-season ending game with Notre Dame at the Coliseum. The Irish made a game of it, and closed to within two points, 25-23, late in the third quarter. Then Anthony Davis returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown. He had earlier scored on a 97-yard kickoff return. The momentum belonged to the Trojans and they won, 45-23. Davis scored six touchdowns against Notre Dame that day, the most ever by a Trojan.
To underscore that the team was clearly the best in the country, USC destroyed Woody Hayes’ Ohio State team, 42-17, in the 1973 Rose Bowl.
Cunningham sky-dived for four touchdowns, Rae completed 18 of 25 passes for 229 yards with no interceptions and Davis slashed for 157 yards, including a 20-yard TD run that broke the game open.
The Trojans were undisputed as No. 1. For the first time in collegiate history, USC got every first-place ballot in the final AP and UPI polls.
McKay had lost 12 regulars from his 1972 team when the 1973 season opened. Still, the Trojans responded with a 9-2-1 record and another appearance in the 1974 Rose Bowl (Ohio State won, 42-21).
McKay believed that he had one of the strongest teams in the country at the outset of the 1974 season. Haden and Davis were both seniors. The team was generally experienced.
The Trojans were shocked by Arkansas, 22-7, in the opener at Little Rock, and weren’t impressive at times, especially at mid-season when they were tied by California, 15-15. But then they got rolling, leading to one of the most remarkable games ever played. The Trojans, apparently beaten by Notre Dame and trailing, 24-0, in the first half, rallied for 35 points in the third quarter, scored more in the fourth quarter and won, 55-24. Anthony Davis returned the second-half kickoff 102 yards for a touchdown to get the roll started, the sixth of his career, breaking the existing NCAA record.
The Trojans, with a flair for the dramatic, had not run out of comebacks.
In the 1975 Rose Bowl game, USC trailed Ohio State, 17-10, with minutes left to play. Haden teamed with J.K. McKay on a 38-yard touchdown pass. Coach McKay went for the two-point conversion try. Pat Haden threw a low, accurate pass to Shelton Diggs for an 18-17 victory. The pass was the biggest play of the year because Alabama had lost to Notre Dame on New Year’s night in the Orange Bowl and USC was elevated to the No.1 spot in the final UPI poll.
In 1975, USC won its first seven games. But Troy wasn’t as formidable as its record indicated—and there was something else. McKay announced before his team was to play at California in game eight that he would be leaving USC at the end of the season to coach the NFL expansion team in Tampa Bay.
McKay was in the dual role of athletic director and football coach. He had become weary of the politics of college athletics and the recruiting grind after 16 years. And there was precious little more that he could accomplish at the college level. The most compelling reason to leave USC, however, was the lifetime security of the Tampa Bay offer.
McKay’s decision had an immediate adverse effect on his team, which lost four straight conference games. Although USC had a disappointing 7-4 regular season record and was out of the Rose Bowl race even before the UCLA game, McKay still went out as a winner. The Trojans played in the 1975 Liberty Bowl in Memphis and pulled off a mild upset by defeating Texas A&M, 20-0.
TROJAN TIMELINE
- Early Years (1888-1924)
- Thundering Herd (1925-1940)
- Forties & Fifties (1941-1959)
- Glory Years, Part I (1960-1975)
- Glory Years, Part II (1976-1982)
- Wilderness Years (1983-2001)
- Return to Glory (2002-present)
(Much of the material on the page is adapted from Mal Florence's 1980 book about USC’s football history, “The Trojan Heritage.”)
