Tech's second bowl game: a long day in Baton Rouge

          (This was written for the Louisiana Tech sports information department as part of its bowl package)
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      To start, two significant factors about Louisiana Tech's second football bowl game: (1) It was Terry Bradshaw's final college game; (2) he was sacked 12 times for 143 yards.

      That should tell you something about how the game went. It was a long Saturday afternoon for the 1969 Tech Bulldogs.

     Oh, there were similarities with Tech's first bowl game, played 364 days earlier:

      -- It was still called the Grantland Rice Bowl, although the site had changed ... from Murfreesboro, Tenn., to Baton Rouge, La.

      -- It again was the NCAA College Division Mideast Regional game (no playoffs beyond that, though).

      -- It was another powerful Tech team (8-1 regular-season record, with an excruciating one-point loss), even better than the year before (8-2, with a six-game winning streak).

      -- And Bradshaw was still the Tech quarterback, the star attraction.

      He was the College Division All-America QB (an honor announced the previous week), and considered by many the best at his position in the country, regardless of classification. And that included the NFL talent scouts who saw him as a potential high first-round draft pick.   

      The most notable similarity: The final result was a 20-point margin. But this time Tech -- a 33-13 winner against the University of Akron on Dec. 14, 1968 -- was a 34-14 loser.

      Because, in a significant difference, this opponent -- East Tennessee State -- obviously was much stronger, an unbeaten, once-tied team that had won the Ohio Valley Conference championship. 

      Didn't matter that the "experts" -- primarily the Dunkel Power Index -- had Tech as a 14-point favorite coming in. ETSU had won games by 2, 4, 6 and 2 points; Tech had only one narrow escape (a 1-point victory). Results against two common opponents made Tech appear as the much stronger team.

      Prediction fiction.

      No, ETSU had a heralded, ball-hawking defense which had held seven opponents to no more than seven points. (More on that unit in a moment.)

      Turned out it had no fear of a Tech team that had averaged 35.2 points a game -- a school record that stood for 29 years -- and was boosted by one 77-point game. ETSU's speed and aggressiveness proved too much for the Bulldogs, and even Bradshaw.

      From almost start (Bradshaw was sacked for a 19-yard loss on his first play) to finish (Terry sacked on his final three  plays, for 9, 14 and 14 yards), not much went right for Tech.

      Maybe Bradshaw had tougher days in a 14-year NFL career and was treated more roughly -- such as 1976 when Cleveland defensive end Joe "Turkey" Jones slammed him on his head and neck, causing a concussion and sidelining him for a few weeks. He was sacked 307 times in the pros, but likely never more in one game than this one.

      Still, despite all the harassment and some mistakes, he stood in and showed his talent, completing 20 of 39 passes for 299 yards and the Bulldogs' only two TDs, and -- briefly in the third quarter -- leading a Tech comeback and hopes for a victory.

      Bill McIntyre, The Shreveport Times sports editor/lead columnist, reflected Terry's status in his postgame column.
      The second paragraph read: "You get a Terry Bradshaw every three or four decades, maybe. You don't get one very often. A Y.A. Tittle comes wheeling through Louisiana football in the '40s and you get a Terry Bradshaw in the late '60s. Probably a Joe Ferguson in the early '70s, but you don't get one very often."

      He went on to write about Bradshaw's travails that afternoon, including an injured leg near the end of the game.
      And, in his game story, McIntyre turned to a cliche'-filled paragraph to describe the scene: "Bradshaw, the finest passer ever produced in Louisiana, was the boy caught on the burning deck as the Pirates climbed aboard. He was the kid with his finger in the dike and the water swirling around his shoulders."

      Actually, ETSU was the Buccaneers; its defensive players -- the "Hardrock Club" -- were rewarded for good deeds with skull and crossbones decals (the pirate theme) on their helmets. In this game, they could have used an extra supply.

      (Both teams' helmets also included a "100" logo, emblematic that season of college football's 100th anniversary.)

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      Not only was it Bradshaw's finale, but so, too, for his fellow seniors who had helped resurrect Tech's program in the 1968 season after a couple of down years.

      The group included split end Tommy Spinks (Bradshaw's teammate and close friend since junior high in Shreveport), tight end Larry Brewer, offensive tackle Butch Williams and defensive tackle Johnny Richard -- all all-conference selections -- plus others such as fullback Buster Herren, center John Harper (a team tri-captain with Bradshaw and Spinks), speedy wide receiver Robbie Albright, safety Ricky Taylor, running back  Dwain Istre and punter Butch Troegel.

      But there were rumors ...

      In the game's aftermath, and maybe beforehand, word was that Tech's players -- after a long, hard season -- voted to refuse the bowl bid. Head coach Maxie Lambright, his program fully functional in his third season at Tech, wasn't having that. 

      Another factor: the site of the game. Baton Rouge perhaps wasn't the players' idea of an ideal bowl trip.

      For its first five years, the Grantland Rice Bowl had been played in Murfreesboro, hometown of America's most famous sportswriter. The bowl was named for him. 

      But as Tech's team and fans well knew, the weather in Murfreesboro the day of the game in 1968 had been brutal (snow flurries and a wind that brought the chill to near 0 degrees) and the attendance at Middle Tennessee State University's old stadium had been estimated at 600.

      So when Baton Rouge and its downtown Lions Club bid for the game, the NCAA was happy to move it. (Why it remained the Grantland Rice Bowl at the new site is hard to explain, but it remained that way through 1977 and two more host cities -- Fargo, N.D., and Anniston, Ala.) 

      Now the site was Memorial Stadium, Baton Rouge's best high school stadium, a no-frills facility just off downtown in the long shadow of the majestic Louisiana State Capitol building. It seated 22,000 -- and this game, on a beautiful mid-50 degrees afternoon for football, drew 16,101 paid spectators.

      But that stadium ...

      "Some of the players, and even some of the coaches, were not enthused about a bowl game in Baton Rouge," remembered Tech offensive backfield coach Mickey Slaughter, Bradshaw's coaching mentor in 1967-69. "We knew what Memorial Stadium was like, and playing there didn't seem the preferable place to end a very good season."

      And, as Slaughter recalled, "They had had a circus there the week or two before that game, and the smell was still just awful."

      About a circus and the smell, that was a fit for Tech football that day.

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      It was 13-0 at halftime. A zero for a Tech team that had scored no fewer than 23 points in any game.

      The Bulldogs never caught up, although they closed to 13-7 and later 20-14. At the end of the third quarter, they were on the ETSU 34 with a chance to take the lead.

      Typical of the day: On the first play of the fourth quarter, Bradshaw was blitzed and tackled for an 18-yard loss. Tech ended up punting, and then its defense sank.

      The omen, though, came on Tech's first offensive play and series.

      ETSU defensive end Ron Mendheim (No. 89) introduced himself right away, closing on Bradshaw as he dropped back to pass and then retreated on his scramble ... and Mendheim chased him down from behind. So second-and-29, and it got worse.

      Terry completed two passes in a row to Istre, for 13 yards (nullified by a motion penalty) and then a 35-yard gain (brought back by a clipping penalty). On Tech's fifth play, Mendheim was back, blindsiding Bradshaw and causing him to fumble. ETSU recovered at Tech's 17, and soon scored.

      By halftime, Mendheim had five sacks, and Bradshaw had avoided another sack (and a 24-yard loss) with a desperate throw. Intercepted.

      Another pass, deflected, was picked off, too. So was a third one.

      But, considering ETSU's 34 interceptions in the regular season, it fit a pattern. The Bucs' defense was known as "Bennett's Bandits" in honor of secondary coach Buddy Bennett.

      "We made that guy famous nationally," Slaughter recently recalled, laughing. "Well, if not nationally, maybe just in the deep South."

      Indeed. The next year Bennett was the secondary coach for the Tennessee Vols and first-year head coach Bill Battle. An unheralded secondary improved rapidly, intercepted 36 passes (eight against Alabama) -- the "Bennett's Bandits" nickname had moved to Knoxville -- and then four more in a 34-13 Sugar Bowl victory against Air Force, capping an 11-1 season. And the following season, 1971, Bennett became defensive coordinator for Frank Broyles at Arkansas.

     More early offensive misery for Tech: After the Bulldogs recovered an ETSU fumble on a punt at the 30, Herren caught a flare pass from Bradshaw, but fumbled the ball away at the ETSU 10. (Buster later did go in for Tech's first TD on an 8-yard pass.)

      Meanwhile, ETSU broke two significant offensive plays -- a 37-yard halfback option pass that completely fooled Tech's defense for the game's second TD, and just after the Bulldogs' first score, a 61-yard run (longest in NCAA College Division bowl history then) by Jerry Daughtry to the Tech 1. 

      "When No. 44 (Daughtry) broke loose on that simple little dive play," Bradshaw said after the game, "and ran all the way to the 1-yard line, that mentally broke us."

      Except it didn't; Terry misfired on that recall. Because he rallied Tech again for its second score on a 19-yard pass to old buddy Spinks late in the third quarter. 

      Tech's top receivers -- who had totaled 94 catches for 1,854 yards in the regular season (Spinks 46 for 995, Brewer 30 for 357, and Albright 18 for 502) -- had decent days vs. ETSU: Brewer five catches for 111 yards, Spinks five for 76, and Albright four for 72. Didn't matter.

      The last quarter was all ETSU, drives of 88 and 44 yards, capped with touchdown passes by Larry Grantham for 33 and 18 yards. Ballgame.

      Proof that Tech made a lot of little plays: It led in first downs, 17-15. But the Bucs' total-yardage edge was big (419-256) and their 245 rushing yards was 14 short of the then-NCAA College Division bowl record.

     Tech assistant coach Pat Collins, then the linebackers coach and later the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame/national championship head coach at Northeast Louisiana, summed up the game in his usual direct, salty manner:

      "They just flat beat the hell out of us," he told an Alexandria Town Talk reporter covering the game. Slaughter, standing nearby, nodded in agreement.  

      Lambright was more low-key, as was his media manner.

      "East Tennessee State was the best team out there today," he said. "They are a fine, fine team. ... I didn't think anybody could get to Terry as many times as they did." 

      He specified ETSU's third-down success as a key. "They made their big plays, and we didn't," he said. "It was as simple as that."

      That, and a dozen sacks, three interceptions and two lost fumbles, and a leaky defense.

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    Bradshaw afterward was disheveled, battered and bruised -- red welts were evident -- as he shed his grass-stained white jersey in the quiet Tech dressing room. He appeared to have been on the losing end of a fight.

     Moments after speaking with general manager Don Klosterman of the Houston Oilers, he faced the surrounding media.

      "Most of the time they blitzed on second down," he said of the ETSU defense. "I thought I had picked up a key, but the way they were jumping around, it was hard to tell what they were going to do."

      Then he reflected on the past four years.

      "I've had a great career at Tech," he said. "I just hate to lose the last game. I hate to lose any game."

      But the game proved -- if there was doubt -- that Terry could take a beating and keep playing, and Klosterman voiced what NFL teams were thinking.

      "We want him," he said. "We think he is one of the greatest pro prospects to ever come along. We just hope we get a chance to draft him." 

      Picking 14th, they had no chance. A little more than six weeks later, after Bradshaw had played in a couple of all-star games (one with Spinks and Brewer as teammates), the Pittsburgh Steelers made him the No. 1 overall pick. 

      Terry would go through two difficult losing seasons in the NFL, but by his third year the Steelers were in the playoffs and soon winning four Super Bowls in six seasons, and he was on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

      Louisiana Tech football would sink badly in 1970, then hit its greatest era -- 44-4, three national championships -- from 1971 to '74. (That included a 12-0 record in 1972 and another Grantland Rice Bowl at, yes, Memorial Stadium in Baton Rouge, and a 35-0 victory against Tennessee Tech. That one didn't smell.)

      For East Tennessee State, it never before or since had a season like 1969 -- its only season without a loss. Under respected coach John Robert Bell, the Bucs were very good again the next year (7-1-2), but winless in 1971. After that, only once in 35 seasons did they win more than seven games, and interest in the program waned so badly that the university dropped football after the 2003 season. 

      After 11 dormant years, ETSU fielded a team again in 2015; its head coach until Dec. 8 this year was Carl Torbush, a Louisiana Tech assistant in the early 1980s, then head coach for one year (1987).

      But on one December 1969 afternoon in Baton Rouge, ETSU had its finest football hours. And Louisiana Tech -- in Terry Bradshaw's last stand -- had a game to forget. If only we could. 

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      Note: From 1965 to spring 1969, I was student assistant in Louisiana Tech's sports information office. The fall of 1969 was my first fulltime football season at The Shreveport Times.

      Photos copied from Alexandria Daily Town Talk, Dec. 14, 1969.