Football Gazette's Small College Football Blog

Don Hansen's Football Gazette Blog of information, comments, notes, and tidebits on Small College Football. NCAA 1-AA & Mid Major, Division II & Mid Major, Division III, NAIA, and NCCAA

Sunday, November 27, 2005

THIS WEEK IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL HISTORY: NOV. 28 - DEC. 4

MORRISTOWN, N.J., November 23, 2005 – As part of an ongoing series throughout the fall, This Week in College Football History takes a look back at some of college football’s landmark moments over the last 137 years.
Throughout the season, many of these items are depicted in a changing exhibit at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.

*If you choose to use this content in whole or in part, as a courtesy, please credit The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame.


Featured Moment:

A Coaching Icon Says Goodbye

Nov. 29, 1997: The 64,000 fans who packed the Louisiana Superdome the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1997 didn’t just see another chapter in the traditional Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern. They witnessed the end of an era, the final game in Eddie Robinson’s long and storied career as head coach at Grambling State University. Although the 30-7 defeat wasn’t quite the perfect sendoff, the crowd, the teams and a nationwide television audience paid special tribute to the man who meant as much to college football as any other over the last half decade.

Robinson’s accomplishments place him among the elite in all of American
sports: 408 career coaching victories, 27 consecutive winning seasons and nine Black College National Championships. He coached Grambling in games played in the LA Coliseum, Yankee Stadium, the Meadowlands, the Houston Astrodome, Soldier Field, and even overseas in Tokyo. Robinson surpassed Bear Bryant in 1985 as college football’s all-time winningest coach, a record due in no small part to his players like Buck Buchanon, Charlie Joiner, Tank Younger and Doug Williams. Never will college football experience another Eddie Robinson.


Other notable moments to occur This Week in College Football History:


Nov. 28, 1942: Unranked Holy Cross stuns #1 Boston College, 55-12. The 43-point margin represents the largest by which an unranked team has ever defeated a #1-ranked team.

Nov. 30, 1935: Undefeated and #2 SMU knocks off 10-0 and #1 TCU, 20-14, as Bobby Wilson hauls in a 37-yard touchdown pass on fourth down late in the fourth quarter to earn SMU the victory and the Rose Bowl berth.

Dec. 1, 1973: Wittenberg blanks Juniata 41-0 in Phenix City, Alabama, in the first NCAA Division III Championship Game.

Dec. 2, 1972: On the brink of playing for a national championship, undefeated Alabama loses to 8-1 Auburn 17-16 in the annual Iron Bowl, as the Tigers return two blocked punts for touchdowns late in the fourth quarter.

Dec. 2, 1990: Houston’s David Klinger completes 41 passes for 716 yards and in the process sets an all-divisions record with 732 yards of total offense as the Cougars defeat Arizona State, 62-45, in Tokyo, Japan.

Dec. 4, 1999: Mt. Union beats Ohio Northern, 56-31, in the Division III playoffs, the last of its 54 consecutive victories, a national record. The streak spans four seasons and eclipses Oklahoma’s 47-game highwater mark that ended in 1957.



With 119 chapters and over 12,000 members nationwide, The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, a non-profit educational organization, runs programs designed to use the power of amateur football in developing scholarship, citizenship and athletic achievement in America’s young people.
NFF programs include the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., Play It Smart, The NFF Center for Youth Development Through Sport at Springfield College (Mass.), the NFL-NFF Coaching Academy, and annual scholarships of nearly $1 million for college and high school scholar-athletes.


###


NFF Contact
Chris Caputo.......Communications Assistant
22 Maple Ave.
Morristown, NJ 07960
973.829.1933
973.829.1737 (fax)
www.footballfoundation.org

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home