Emory Ballard, Inventor of the Wishbone, Passes Away...

[Sabanball]

Thanks at least in part to this man, our two programs had pretty dang good, earth-chewing offenses back in the '70's and '80's....

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6108520

[101sooner]

"The Longhorns rode Bellard's modification to a national championship in 1969, and Oklahoma made the offense nearly unstoppable in the 1980s."

Sort of skipped a decade of "nearly unstoppable", although the above statement is technically true.

[Mike Stoops]

and hastened the career of Darrell Royal in the process. The irony was Royal had Bellard help Switzer install the offense.

[Sabanball]

"The Longhorns rode Bellard's modification to a national championship in 1969, and Oklahoma made the offense nearly unstoppable in the 1980s."

Sort of skipped a decade of "nearly unstoppable", although the above statement is technically true.

My thought as well. The '70s, much more so than the '80s, was really the hey day for the 'bone. The early '70's Bama/OU teams were much more 'unstoppable' than their '80's counterparts(definitely Bama, where we stopped running it after the '82 season), and don't even think you guys ran it from '81-'83, and '89.

The '80s saw a brief resurgence, mainly with you guys('85-'87 especially), Air Force, and Colorado under Bill McCartney. It appeared to slowly disappear after that, except with some of the service academies. But it was fun to watch until the defenses finally figured it out....

[texaspokieokie]

and hastened the career of Darrell Royal in the process. The irony was Royal sent Bellard to his alma mater to help Switzer install the offense.

i'd never heard this. can't imagine Royal doing anything to help Switzer.

[Mike Stoops]

i'd never heard this. can't imagine Royal doing anything to help Switzer.

If you want greater detail read Blood Sweat and Chalk by SI's Tim Layden. It's in Chapter five: Option Fever. It was in 1970. Chuck Fairbanks was still the coach and Switzer was an assistant. Basically, Fairbanks was about to lose his job and called Royal for help with the offense. Royal, being an OU alum felt sorry for him and told Bellard to call Switzer and tell him everything he wanted to know about the offense.

[texaspokieokie]

i stand corrected !!

it is ironic.

[stoopified]

RIP Boner

[Sabanball]

This is similar to how Bama started running it. We were in a bad funk from '67-'70, and thanks to the Bear's good relationship with DKR, he was able to fly out to Texas and learn about it in the summer of 1971 directly from Ballard, and we installed it right before our '71 opener against Southern Cal out in Los Angeles. We upset the Trojans that night 17-10, in great part because of the surprise of the triple option ran by our qb Terry Davis. It was a watershed event in the history of our program and helped us win two AP National championships('78, '79).

[47straight]

<:texan: >But, but, but, I thought that DKR invented it? </:texan: >

[Leroy Lizard]

A Texas Assistant inventing the wishbone is like the British inventing the Dreadnought. When you're one of the powers that be, you don't want to invent the equalizer.

[texaspokieokie]

and hastened the career of Darrell Royal in the process. The irony was Royal had Bellard help Switzer install the offense.

Strange part is (to me) Switzer installed the wishbone in the 2 weeks (had opendate) before the OU/tx game. doesn't seem likely to me that Royal or Bellard would want to help their next opponent.
JMHO
(of course, for that one game, it didn't really help)

[King Crimson]

sorry Bama fan, the best team in America in 78 was Oklahoma.

[XingTheRubicon]

by a mile

[MyT Oklahoma]

Rest In Peace.

[Sabanball]

sorry Bama fan, the best team in America in 78 was Oklahoma.

Yes, you were...until Nov. 11, 1978. That all changed when Billy Sims fumbled 6 times in Lincoln.;)

I'll concede, though, had you not choked in that game, you guys would have more than likely won the NC in 1978.

[bluedogok]

"The Longhorns rode Bellard's modification to a national championship in 1969, and Oklahoma made the offense nearly unstoppable in the 1980s."

Sort of skipped a decade of "nearly unstoppable", although the above statement is technically true.
The article that I read said 1970's and 80's.

[ashley]

You guys need to know the whole story. This is a little of it.. Bill Yoeman came up with the split back veer. Coach Bellard liked it and wanted to install it at tu. He had three stud backs comming back so he came up with the way to run it with theee backs and not two. Of course, this is just the short version of the veer or triple option offense and how it came about.
I got to know Coach Bellard because he was a frien of my dads. He was a true gentleman.

[texaspokieokie]

Yes, you were...until Nov. 11, 1978. That all changed when Billy Sims fumbled 6 times in Lincoln.;)

I'll concede, though, had you not choked in that game, you guys would have more than likely won the NC in 1978.

i didn't choke in that game.

[Collier11]

I thought Jack Mildren was the Godfather of the wishbone?

[boomermagic]

and hastened the career of Darrell Royal in the process. The irony was Royal had Bellard help Switzer install the offense.

I have never heard that anywhere else are you sure ?

[Judge Smails]

Dana Holgorson and Mike Gundy invented the wishbone.

[picasso]

I thought Jack Mildren was the Godfather of the wishbone?

He was. Nobody had ever run it like him at the time.

[Leroy Lizard]

Mildren was the Field Marshall of the wishbone.

[boomermagic]

Strange part is (to me) Switzer installed the wishbone in the 2 weeks (had opendate) before the OU/tx game. doesn't seem likely to me that Royal or Bellard would want to help their next opponent.
JMHO
(of course, for that one game, it didn't really help)


EXACTLY !!

[SunnySooner]

Jamelle--born to run the 'bone.

So much fun to watch, thanks for the memories, RIP, Coach.

[swardboy]

You all know that Paul Bear Bryant invented the wishbone...












And the T-bone...












And the Boney Maroney.

[picasso]

You all know that Paul Bear Bryant invented the wishbone...












And the T-bone...














I thought George Costanza was the original T-Bone?

[boomermagic]

My thought as well. The '70s, much more so than the '80s, was really the hey day for the 'bone. The early '70's Bama/OU teams were much more 'unstoppable' than their '80's counterparts(definitely Bama, where we stopped running it after the '82 season), and don't even think you guys ran it from '81-'83, and '89.

The '80s saw a brief resurgence, mainly with you guys('85-'87 especially), Air Force, and Colorado under Bill McCartney. It appeared to slowly disappear after that, except with some of the service academies. But it was fun to watch until the defenses finally figured it out....

Bear installed the bone after playing OU in THe Astro Blubonnet Bowl In the Dome in 70 i believe.. They tied at 24 but he loved the triple option OU was running and knew he could do the same thing at Bama.. OU and Bama both recruited the same type of players and still do.. BUT, It wasn't that defenses finally figured it out hell they knew what it took to slow down the bone {ATHLETES/SPEED} most teams didn't have better athletes Miami did and after they beat OU a few times { Hell, we were beating about everyone but Miami} People started saying defenses were catching up with the Wishbone but I guarantee OU or Alabama would be successful TODAY running the bone.. There is NO DOUBT..

[Soonerson1975]

I wonder if his tombstone will read "Inventor of the Bone"

[boomermagic]

Jamelle--born to run the 'bone.

So much fun to watch, thanks for the memories, RIP, Coach.

Jamelle and Jack were wizards.. RIP coach Ballard..

[picasso]

Bear installed the bone after playing OU in THe Astro Blubonnet Bowl In the Dome in 70 i believe.. They tied at 24 but he loved the triple option OU was running and knew he could do the same thing at Bama.. OU and Bama both recruited the same type of players and still do.. BUT, It wasn't that defenses finally figured it out hell they knew what it took to slow down the bone {ATHLETES/SPEED} most teams didn't have better athletes Miami did and after they beat OU a few times { Hell, we were beating about everyone but Miami} People started saying defenses were catching up with the Wishbone but I guarantee OU or Alabama would be successful TODAY running the bone.. There is NO DOUBT..

Teams started putting better athletes with speed on defense.

I've always said that Nebraska had Switzer to thank for their powerhouse teams of the 90's. He made them get better.

[boomermagic]

I'm not sure Teams put better/faster players on defense like I said we were beating everyone but Miami they just had better athletes than anyone including us.. Teams didn't catch up with or SUDDENLY just figure out the wishbone.. The wishbone was STILL a great offense even after Miami beat OU a few times..

Nebraska had Barry to think because Barry resigned and wasn't coaching OU when Nebraska won their NC's Had Barry have been at OU he would have recruited a bunch of the players that went to Nebraska but he wasn't so they played for Tom.. Barry was the best recruiter and would have gotten the best just like he did before he left he almost always got the best in the big 8 and sometimes the best in the country.. Also, Keep in mind Barry's teams had a 12 - 5 record against Tom's Nebraska teams he didn't always have the best team when he won.. Barry was a hellova coach folks..

[Leroy Lizard]

Teams started putting better athletes with speed on defense.

Myth.

[Mike Stoops]

College football became a farm system for the NFL and everyone started passing. That why the wishbone died.

[Octavian]

RIP Emory Bellard.


His contributions with the Wishbone will never be forgotten as long as college football exists.

[texaspokieokie]

You guys need to know the whole story. This is a little of it.. Bill Yoeman came up with the split back veer. Coach Bellard liked it and wanted to install it at tu. He had three stud backs comming back so he came up with the way to run it with theee backs and not two. Of course, this is just the short version of the veer or triple option offense and how it came about.
I got to know Coach Bellard because he was a frien of my dads. He was a true gentleman.

in "Bootlegger's Boy", Switzer said the actual invention of the wishbone was by some hi-school coach in fort worth.

[picasso]

Myth.

You are so right. Just go back and watch film from the 80's and 70's. Most teams had slow white boys playing defense.

Switzer? He'd take a high school QB with speed and put him at safety.

You not being a troll is what's a myth.

[King Crimson]

McCartney only ran the wishbone a couple years. his 89 and 90 teams ran the option out of the I, a la Nebraska. then he switched to a more conventional play action I O with Kordell Stewart.

[Sabanball]

in "Bootlegger's Boy", Switzer said the actual invention of the wishbone was by some hi-school coach in fort worth.

That's my understanding too, it wasn't actually his brainchild, though EB was the one that introduced it to the college game and thus he's generally given the most credit for it's original development. It's kinda like Bill Gates--he gets credit for inventing the windows operating system, when in actuality he bought the original idea from some unknown guy in Georgia.

Suffice it to say that, without Emory Ballard, we might never have seen the 'bone in major college football.

[Leroy Lizard]

You are so right. Just go back and watch film from the 80's and 70's. Most teams had slow white boys playing defense.

Switzer? He'd take a high school QB with speed and put him at safety.

You not being a troll is what's a myth.

The idea that the wishbone died because defenses started putting fast players on D is a total bull**** myth.

Air Force ran up 458 yards on us, and I suppose we have slow defense. :rolleyes:

[boomermagic]

They sure did and we sure don't..

[boomermagic]

in "Bootlegger's Boy", Switzer said the actual invention of the wishbone was by some hi-school coach in fort worth.

Was that not Ballard ? Was he not hired by tx. after he invented the bone ?

[Mike Stoops]

That's my understanding too, it wasn't actually his brainchild, though EB was the one that introduced it to the college game and thus he's generally given the most credit for it's original development. It's kinda like Bill Gates--he gets credit for inventing the windows operating system, when in actuality he bought the original idea from some unknown guy in Georgia.

Suffice it to say that, without Emory Ballard, we might never have seen the 'bone in major college football.

Not to get off the subject here but I thought Steve Jobs stole the idea from Xerox, created MAC and then Gates modified MAC and called it Windows.

[texaspokieokie]

Was that not Ballard ? Was he not hired by tx. after he invented the bone ?

no, it was not EB.

[texaspokieokie]

Charles "Spud" Cason, a Jr. Hi coach in Fort Worth.

this IMHO does not contradict the fact that EB is known as the originator. EB
got it started @ texas.

to me, the reason OU was so much better @ running it in 1971 was OU had terrific speed in both Pruitt & Wylie. of course, Mildren was very good,but
so was James Street. Crosswhite was an excellent fullback, as was Steve Worster. as i said before, halfback speed was the difference. Switzer said Wylie could run a 9.5 & everyone knows Pruitt (Mr. 9.36) was a blur.
Wylie missed some games & Roy Bell was an able back-up.

[boomermagic]

Thanks TPO.. I do remember hearing of Spud Cason It's been a while back. lol

[boomermagic]

HistoryWhile the record books commonly refer to Emory Bellard developing the wishbone formation in 1968 as offensive coordinator at Texas,[4] the wishbone's roots can be traced back to the 1950s. According to Barry Switzer, it was Charles “Spud” Cason, football coach at William Monnig Junior High School of Fort Worth, Texas, who first modified the classic T formation in order “to get a slow fullback into the play quicker.”[5] Cason called the formation “Monnig T”. Bellard learned about Cason's tactics while coaching at Breckenridge High School, a small community west of Fort Worth.

Earlier in his career Bellard saw a similar approach implemented by former Detroit Lions guard Ox Emerson, then head coach at Alice High School near Corpus Christi, Texas. Trying to avoid the frequent pounding of his offensive line, Emerson moved one of the starting guards into the backfield, enabling him to get a running start at the opposing defensive line. Bellard served as Emerson's assistant at that time. During his high school coaching career in the late '50s and early '60s, Bellard adopted the basic approaches of both Cason and Emerson, as he won two 3A Texas state championships Breckenridge in 1958 and 1959 and a 4A state title at San Angelo Central High School in 1966, using a wishbone-like option offense.

In 1967 Bellard was hired by Darrell Royal and became offensive coordinator a year later. The Texas Longhorns only scored 18.6 points per game in a 6–4 season in 1967. After watching Texas A&M—running Gene Stallings' option offense—beat Bear Bryant's Alabama team in the 1968 Cotton Bowl Classic, Royal instructed Bellard to design a new three-man back-field triple option offense. Bellard tried to merge his old high school tactics with Stallings' triple option out of the Slot-I formation and Homer Rice's variations of the Veer, an offensive formation created by Bill Yeoman.

Introducing the new offensive scheme at the beginning of the 1968 season, Houston Chronicle sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz stated it looked like a “pulley bone”, while Royal agreed but changed the name to “wishbone”.[6] Royal quickly embraced the idea of the wishbone, which proved to be a wise choice: Texas tied its first game running the new offense, lost the second, and then won the next thirty straight games, leading to two National Championships using the formation.[7]

Bellard later left Texas and – using the wishbone – guided Texas A&M and Mississippi State to bowl game appearances in the late 1970s. At Mississippi State Bellard “broke the bone” and introduced the “wing-bone”, moving one of the halfbacks up to a wing formation and frequently sending him in motion. Another variation of the wishbone formation is called the flexbone.

Bear Bryant at Alabama began to use the wishbone option after visiting Darrell Royal in 1971.

Ironically, the longest running wishbone offense was run not by Texas but by their arch-rivals, the University of Oklahoma, who ran variations of the wishbone well into the mid 1990s. Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer has been credited by some for having “perfected” the use of the wishbone offense and former OU quarterback Jack Mildren is often referred to as "the Godfather of the wishbone" throughout College Football lore[citation needed]. The Oklahoma Sooners wishbone offense set the all-time NCAA rushing average in 1971 of 472.4 yds per game, a record which still stands to this day [8].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_formation

[rwryne]

Not to get off the subject here but I thought Steve Jobs stole the idea from Xerox, created MAC and then Gates modified MAC and called it Windows.

Steve Jobs "stole" (they gave it to him willingly) the graphical user interface (e.g. the mouse) from Xerox. Gates then "stole" it from Steve Jobs/Apple. He did not "modify" Apple's OS, just stole the concept of the GUI/other things.

What the person you were quoting was referring to was that Bill Gates bought an OS from some guy and turned it into MS-DOS, selling it to IBM for much more than he paid. I don't see this in a negative light...

[Mike Stoops]

Steve Jobs "stole" (they gave it to him willingly) the graphical user interface (e.g. the mouse) from Xerox. Gates then "stole" it from Steve Jobs/Apple. He did not "modify" Apple's OS, just stole the concept of the GUI/other things.

What the person you were quoting was referring to was that Bill Gates bought an OS from some guy and turned it into MS-DOS, selling it to IBM for much more than he paid. I don't see this in a negative light...

That sounds right. It's been years since I read the story so the details were kinda fuzzy.

[rwryne]

That sounds right. It's been years since I read the story so the details were kinda fuzzy.

Check out Pirates of Silicon Valley (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/), a decent movie despite the nerdy topic showing rise of Apple/MS !

[Mike Stoops]

Check out Pirates of Silicon Valley (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/), a decent movie despite the nerdy topic showing rise of Apple/MS !

LOL I was thinking of that movie actually. I remember when it came on the TNT channel in 1999. Noah Wyle was a pretty good Steve Jobs and the Brat Pack nerd as Gates.

[picasso]

The idea that the wishbone died because defenses started putting fast players on D is a total bull**** myth.

Air Force ran up 458 yards on us, and I suppose we have slow defense. :rolleyes:

And who won the game again? Please show me where Air Force has dominated college football. Show me anyone in big time ball running that offense these days.

Doosh person.

[Leroy Lizard]

And who won the game again? Please show me where Air Force has dominated college football. Show me anyone in big time ball running that offense these days.

Doosh person.

You have employed the self-fulfilling prophecy:

1. Why doesn't anyone run the wishbone?
2. Because defenses are too fast.
3. How do you know this is the reason?
4. Because no one runs the wishbone anymore.

EDIT: Circular argument, not self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Partial Qualifier]

Lizard this is a very weak attempt at contrarianism, even by your standards

[Leroy Lizard]

Lizard this is a very weak attempt at contrarianism, even by your standards

If you couldn't spot the obvious logical fallacy in his argument then you need to take some college courses.

[picasso]

How old are you Leroy? Have you forgotten the last years of the Switzer wishbone? They struggled to score points when matched with equal talent on defense.

Why don't teams just line up and run down your throat these days? 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Doesn't happen any more.

Perhaps there's a correlation there that you're missing.

[Leroy Lizard]

How old are you Leroy? Have you forgotten the last years of the Switzer wishbone? They struggled to score points when matched with equal talent on defense.

Now you beg the question.

Maybe OU struggled on offense in (say) 1987, but you have to establish that it was because of defensive speed. You haven't. (Although I thought we ran the ball very effectively that year. Wasn't Nebraska a top-10 defense that year?)

We have struggled on offense in some of Stoops' years, but that didn't relegate the offensive set we were using to obsolete.


Perhaps there's a correlation there that you're missing.

I think you have let the results of a very small number of games slant your thinking. OU was very successful in 1987, only one year removed from the dumping of the wishbone.

EDIT: Here is our scoring output for 1987:

69, 28, 65, 56, 44, 59, 24, 71, 29*, 17*, 17*, 14*.

* Played with our backup QB.

[bluedogok]

Steve Jobs "stole" (they gave it to him willingly) the graphical user interface (e.g. the mouse) from Xerox. Gates then "stole" it from Steve Jobs/Apple. He did not "modify" Apple's OS, just stole the concept of the GUI/other things.

What the person you were quoting was referring to was that Bill Gates bought an OS from some guy and turned it into MS-DOS, selling it to IBM for much more than he paid. I don't see this in a negative light...
Gates did even better, IBM had no desire to own the software so he worked out a licensing agreement where IBM paid him a license fee per computer, turned out well for him. IBM thought all the money was in hardware and not software, just like their large computer business.

Yes, Jobs got the idea for the GUI from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). The documentary below goes into a lot of detail about how the industry came up.


Check out Pirates of Silicon Valley (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/), a decent movie despite the nerdy topic showing rise of Apple/MS !
Triumph of the Nerds (http://www.pbs.org/nerds/) is a well done documentary on the beginnings of the personal computer industry.

[picasso]

Now you beg the question.

Maybe OU struggled on offense in (say) 1987, but you have to establish that it was because of defensive speed. You haven't. (Although I thought we ran the ball very effectively that year. Wasn't Nebraska a top-10 defense that year?)

We have struggled on offense in some of Stoops' years, but that didn't relegate the offensive set we were using to obsolete.



I think you have let the results of a very small number of games slant your thinking. OU was very successful in 1987, only one year removed from the dumping of the wishbone.

EDIT: Here is our scoring output for 1987:

69, 28, 65, 56, 44, 59, 24, 71, 29*, 17*, 17*, 14*.

* Played with our backup QB.

I'm not really trying to debate you. You could sit there with your ego and your other troll handles and do that all day.

Go back and look up our scores against equal talent on defense. Check out our production vs. the likes of Arizona and Clemson.

I'll stop now due to your vast football knowledge.

[Leroy Lizard]

I'm not really trying to debate you. You could sit there with your ego and your other troll handles and do that all day.

Go back and look up our scores against equal talent on defense. Check out our production vs. the likes of Arizona and Clemson.

I'll stop now due to your vast football knowledge.

In 1988 we ran up 352 yards and 28 points on Arizona. I mean, WTF?

[texaspokieokie]

If you want greater detail read Blood Sweat and Chalk by SI's Tim Layden. It's in Chapter five: Option Fever. It was in 1970. Chuck Fairbanks was still the coach and Switzer was an assistant. Basically, Fairbanks was about to lose his job and called Royal for help with the offense. Royal, being an OU alum felt sorry for him and told Bellard to call Switzer and tell him everything he wanted to know about the offense.

this was repeated by Kevin Sherrington in todays DMN.i bet Royal regretted this after the 71-75 games.

i'm wrong pretty often, & this is just another example.

[ashley]

HistoryWhile the record books commonly refer to Emory Bellard developing the wishbone formation in 1968 as offensive coordinator at Texas,[4] the wishbone's roots can be traced back to the 1950s. According to Barry Switzer, it was Charles “Spud” Cason, football coach at William Monnig Junior High School of Fort Worth, Texas, who first modified the classic T formation in order “to get a slow fullback into the play quicker.”[5] Cason called the formation “Monnig T”. Bellard learned about Cason's tactics while coaching at Breckenridge High School, a small community west of Fort Worth.

Earlier in his career Bellard saw a similar approach implemented by former Detroit Lions guard Ox Emerson, then head coach at Alice High School near Corpus Christi, Texas. Trying to avoid the frequent pounding of his offensive line, Emerson moved one of the starting guards into the backfield, enabling him to get a running start at the opposing defensive line. Bellard served as Emerson's assistant at that time. During his high school coaching career in the late '50s and early '60s, Bellard adopted the basic approaches of both Cason and Emerson, as he won two 3A Texas state championships Breckenridge in 1958 and 1959 and a 4A state title at San Angelo Central High School in 1966, using a wishbone-like option offense.

In 1967 Bellard was hired by Darrell Royal and became offensive coordinator a year later. The Texas Longhorns only scored 18.6 points per game in a 6–4 season in 1967. After watching Texas A&M—running Gene Stallings' option offense—beat Bear Bryant's Alabama team in the 1968 Cotton Bowl Classic, Royal instructed Bellard to design a new three-man back-field triple option offense. Bellard tried to merge his old high school tactics with Stallings' triple option out of the Slot-I formation and Homer Rice's variations of the Veer, an offensive formation created by Bill Yeoman.

Introducing the new offensive scheme at the beginning of the 1968 season, Houston Chronicle sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz stated it looked like a “pulley bone”, while Royal agreed but changed the name to “wishbone”.[6] Royal quickly embraced the idea of the wishbone, which proved to be a wise choice: Texas tied its first game running the new offense, lost the second, and then won the next thirty straight games, leading to two National Championships using the formation.[7]

Bellard later left Texas and – using the wishbone – guided Texas A&M and Mississippi State to bowl game appearances in the late 1970s. At Mississippi State Bellard “broke the bone” and introduced the “wing-bone”, moving one of the halfbacks up to a wing formation and frequently sending him in motion. Another variation of the wishbone formation is called the flexbone.

Bear Bryant at Alabama began to use the wishbone option after visiting Darrell Royal in 1971.

Ironically, the longest running wishbone offense was run not by Texas but by their arch-rivals, the University of Oklahoma, who ran variations of the wishbone well into the mid 1990s. Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer has been credited by some for having “perfected” the use of the wishbone offense and former OU quarterback Jack Mildren is often referred to as "the Godfather of the wishbone" throughout College Football lore[citation needed]. The Oklahoma Sooners wishbone offense set the all-time NCAA rushing average in 1971 of 472.4 yds per game, a record which still stands to this day [8].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_formation

Some of this is a little misleading. EB's wishbone was conceived from the UofH's split back veer. He wanted to use the same philosophy but use three running backs because he had three studs comming back at Texas the next year. In many of the wishbone option plays one of the hallfbacks blocks the contain man (corner or inverted safety) that the flanker or split end in the splitback pro set blocked. This wishbone was a lot different than the prior ones because in the old ones a veer option attact was not used.

[swardboy]

Wasn't that Ft. Worth coach on here a few years ago? Or his son?

[jkjsooner]

I'm not really trying to debate you. You could sit there with your ego and your other troll handles and do that all day.

Go back and look up our scores against equal talent on defense. Check out our production vs. the likes of Arizona and Clemson.

I'll stop now due to your vast football knowledge.

1988 was a down year. We lost a lot from the 1987 team. I'm not sure I'd use that year to make any judgement.

I'm not sure why Arizona is listed. We scored 28 against them in '88. If you're talking about the 1989 game vs Arizona (Gibbs's year), we were pretty screwed going into that game. Both Steve and Tink Collins were injured and Chris Melson couldn't even take a snap from center w/o fumbling and he sure wasn't built to run the option. The offense was flat out pathetic that game and it had nothing to do with schemes.

I remember going back to the mid '80s hearing about how defenses have caught up to option football, yet 15 years later Nebraska was still dominating playing their own version of option football. Remember how NU destroyed the fast UF team in the national title game. This was long after option football had been declared dead.

I think the death of the wishbone has more to do with the fact that it became harder and harder to recruit offensive players who were not developing the skills necessary to compete in the NFL. This goes for almost every position in the offense.

I also think we ran offenses that matched up pretty well with the talent that high schools produced. That's why teams in our area had a hard time developing pass happy offenses back in the day. Now it seems everyone is running a spread type offense and you're seeing a lot more great QB's coming out of Oklahoma and Texas.

[Leroy Lizard]

1988 was a down year. We lost a lot from the 1987 team. I'm not sure I'd use that year to make any judgement.

I'm not sure why Arizona is listed. We scored 28 against them in '88. If you're talking about the 1989 game vs Arizona (Gibbs's year), we were pretty screwed going into that game. Both Steve and Tink Collins were injured and Chris Melson couldn't even take a snap from center w/o fumbling and he sure wasn't built to run the option. The offense was flat out pathetic that game and it had nothing to do with schemes.

The following year we ran up huge yards against Top-20 teams UCLA and Pitt. There was nothing wrong with our offenses in 1989 and 1990 (well, until Gundy started at QB).

Besides we dropped the bone after 1988. The idea that our offensive production dropped in the final years of the wishbone is total bull-****.



I remember going back to the mid '80s hearing about how defenses have caught up to option football, yet 15 years later Nebraska was still dominating playing their own version of option football.

They were saying the bone was dead in 1982.


Remember how NU destroyed the fast UF team in the national title game. This was long after option football had been declared dead.

I think the death of the wishbone has more to do with the fact that it became harder and harder to recruit offensive players who were not developing the skills necessary to compete in the NFL. This goes for almost every position in the offense.

I also think we ran offenses that matched up pretty well with the talent that high schools produced. That's why teams in our area had a hard time developing pass happy offenses back in the day. Now it seems everyone is running a spread type offense and you're seeing a lot more great QB's coming out of Oklahoma and Texas.

Your reasoning is far more sound than the "too much defensive speed" baloney.

I also think the limited practice time hurt the wishbone.

[PLaw]

Thanks at least in part to this man, our two programs had pretty dang good, earth-chewing offenses back in the '70's and '80's....

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6108520


RIP Mr. Bellard - there should be a corner in the Switzer center with your name on it.

gig 'em.

BOOMER