One Old Dawg on a Big Ten Win and Barbecued Chicken

The Bulldogs face South Carolina this Saturday, but in 1965, South Carolina was not on the UGA schedule and not even in the SEC. For the third game of the season, they faced Michigan. Anyone who knows One Old Dawg can testify to his story-telling prowess. And at times, he can embellish with the best of them, but the tale of how the 1965 University of Georgia football team beat Michigan, one of the Big Ten, on their home turf in Ann Arbor needs no embellishment. It is the stuff of legend.

 

Here’s One Old Dawg’s story told as only he can tell it:

“After dispatching Vanderbilt 24-10 we were to travel to Ann Arbor to play mighty Michigan in the Big House. Michigan’s stadium seated over 100,000, the largest in the country and still one the largest sports venues in the world. We were excited only because we were too young or too dumb to be intimidated. In 1964, they had won the Big Ten Championship, The Rose Bowl and were ranked number four in the nation.

 

“I was reading an account of the game that stated Michigan outweighed us fifteen pounds per man. I don’t know what scale that writer was using but every player but one on their starting offensive outweighed me by at least 25 pounds, many of them by 40 pounds.

 

“My biggest hope was their All-American tailback, -----, who was 6’ 2” and weighed 220 lbs, would not recover from his knee injury in time to play in the game. When he was in there, they liked to run the power sweep, which routes right over the defensive end position. He didn’t start the game but he came in the middle of the first quarter. Sure enough, it was pro-set to my side, which meant the power sweep my way. The quarterback pitched the ball to that big tailback who was led by the fullback, a pulling guard and the quarterback. That was over 900 pounds of human flesh about to attack my puny 185-pound frame. I felt like I was trapped in an old west cattle stampede. God bless Dickie Phillips and or the late Jimmy Cooley.

One of them shot through the hole left by that pulling guard and cut down that tailback to stop the play before one person hit me. Whew! Close call, I thought I was about to meet my Maker.

 

"We hung in there with those big guys and came home a 15-7 winner. We were really riding high! The most amazing thing happened later that evening.

 

“We flew back to Athens right after the game. I was dozing in my seat when I heard someone tell me to look out the window as we going over downtown Athens.  We thought it strange that at such a late hour, we could see car lights lined up for miles on one of the roads leading out of Athens. We were worried that it might have been a bad wreck that backed up traffic. Upon landing, we learned the truth.

 

“So many people had come to the airport to welcome us home the parking lot filled and backed up traffic all the all the way to downtown Athens. Over ten thousand people were there, cheering like crazy. I don’t think my feet touched the ground; two guys picked me up on their shoulders and carried me to the bus. You would have thought we had won the national championship; it was quite a day.”

 

News accounts laud kicker Bob Etter (Atlanta Falcons, Memphis Southmen) for three field goals, as well as offensive players, Preston Ridlehuber (Atlanta Falcons, Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, New York Jets) , Bob Taylor, Ron Jenkins, Pat Hodgson (All SEC, Washington Redskins, Coach at San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets) , and safety Lynn Hughes (All SEC, All American).


Outstanding defenders were noted as George Patton (All SEC, All American, Atlanta Falcons) , Jiggy Smaha (BC Lions, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, Jacksonville Sharks) , Doug McFalls (All SEC, Chicago Bears) , and Tommy Lawhorne.

One Old Dawg ponders the greater implications of this story. “I was again living a spiritual truth I wouldn’t realize until much later. Isaiah 40:6 says, ‘A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.”’  All of us are pretty much on the same footing. As my high school coach, Wright Bazemore used to tell us when we were playing a highly favored opponent: “They put their britches on just like you do, one leg at the time.” The glory of mighty Michigan wilted that fateful day in 1965; they were just like us, mortal men who sometimes fail.”

 

As for the matchup between the Dogs and the Gamecocks this Saturday between the hedges, well, everyone at One Old Dawg’s house pauses a moment in front of the picture in the den of him sacking then Florida quarterback Steve Spurrier. It’s always an encouragement.

One Old Dawg prognosticates, “From all appearances, they do not have as good a team as in past years; but they’ve only played two games. They won a close one against a very respectable North Carolina team and lost to Kentucky last week.

"The bottom line is the Gamecocks are licking their wounds and working up a good mad. They lost their tussle with the Cats and they will be trying to take it out on the Dawgs. Regardless of what kind of team Spurrier has, they always seem to play their best game against us. Spurrier really hates Georgia, because of how we treated him when he was a player at Florida, but more about that in October and next season.

 

“The Gamecocks will give us fits as they usually do, but at the end of the day the Dawgs will have a mouth full of feathers, barbecued chicken for supper, and another W on their schedule.  Sick ‘em Dawgs.”

And that wraps it up for this week’s One Old Dawg.  Be sure, you can always count on us here for “mostly true Bulldog lore.”