Foresthill
EOG Addicted
I watched this game as a 12 year old in 1975. It was so much fun watching 21 point underdog Missouri dominate #2 ranked Alabama 20-7 as Missouri held Alabama's vaunted wishbone running attack to 31 yards on 34 carries -- less than a yard per carry. The final score was deceiving -- the game wasn't that close.
Big 8 football was dominate at the time and Missouri's teams of the era had many epic upsets including Alabama, Ohio State, USC and Nebraska -- all on the road -- as coach Al Onofrio and his players feared no one and played one of the toughest schedules in the land.
An analogous scenario plays out tomorrow in Columbia, MO, as an unranked Missouri team takes on #2 Alabama in a season opener just as in 1975. This time Missouri is a 28 point underdog and the home team.
I would love to see history repeat itself, but I seriously doubt it will, with a 1st year Missouri head coach who had only two spring practices, due to the pandemic. I'm going to hope for the best and expect the worst.
From stltoday.com:
'Beat Bama' became a reality for Mizzou in 1975
By Bennett Durando Special to the Post-Dispatch
Mizzou's Tony Galbreath finds running room against Alabama in 1975. AP photo
COLUMBIA, Mo. — At the height of The Shack’s power as a preferred student drinking spot, countless stories passed between the walls of Mizzou’s historic campus dive bar. Before it closed in 1984 and mysteriously burned down in 1988, Missouri football players would visit after practice to sneak a beer while hanging out inside the walls inscribed with student initials and made famous by “Beetle Bailey” comics.
The players got to know the owner, Butch Weston. In September 1975, they made a bet with Butch.
The Tigers were going to beat Bear Bryant’s unbeatable Crimson Tide.
Weston, an Alabama fan, scoffed at the ludicrous claim. But he loved a friendly wager, so he promised free kegs of St. Louis-brewed Falstaff beer if they returned from Birmingham as winners.
“There was no risk for Butch,” defensive end Bob McRoberts said, “because there was no way in hell we were gonna beat them.”
When Missouri kicks off its 2020 season against No. 2 Alabama on Saturday night, the matchup will share parallels with that 1975 game, which celebrated its 45th anniversary Sept. 8. For starters, it was the last time Missouri played a season opener against Alabama. The Crimson Tide were ranked No. 2 in the country, just like this week. Mizzou was unranked, like this week. And the fanfare surrounding Alabama football has hardly changed in 45 years. Current coach Nick Saban is carving a legacy as legendary as Bear Bryant’s.
But Sept. 8, 1975, was different. The three-touchdown underdogs from Missouri staged a “stunning upset,” The New York Times called it, on national television. MU has not beaten Alabama since.
"We just beat the living snot out of those guys,” said center Mike Owens. “It wasn’t close.”
The game was planned around ABC’s schedule to be played during Monday prime-time hours, making it the second college football game ever to have a Monday night telecast. That rare national audience, (and) Alabama’s 22-game regular-season win streak entering 1975, made the game one of the most anticipated in Mizzou history.
“Back then, if you’re on TV, you’re on one of three stations — ABC, CBS and NBC — so to be on TV at all was a pretty cool thing,” quarterback Steve Pisarkiewicz said. “Let alone a season opener. Let alone against a program like Alabama. It added pressure, but anybody will tell you that during that era, we thrived on that.”
Pisarkiewicz and running back Tony Galbreath had both earned starting jobs the year before in another big game, when they entered as backups and rallied Missouri from down 10-0 to beat Nebraska 21-10. There would be no shortage of big games in 1975, either. Alabama was one of four top-10 opponents on the schedule — another parallel to this season’s four top-10 matchups.
"It seemed like we were playing bowl games almost every week,” backup quarterback Pete Woods said. “But the fun part this time was that we were the only game on that night.”
On the Thursday before the game, the team ended practice with a prank on coach Al Onofrio. He always barked orders from a mobile wooden tower on top of a hay wagon. When he had everyone gather around the tower for his post-practice speech that day, the players grabbed the wagon and paraded Onofrio around the field, chanting: “Beat Bama!”
"He was probably scared to death that it was going to tip over and kill him,” Owens said.
The game was personal for Owens, a Mississippi boy who was offered a scholarship by Alabama. He still remembers the chills when Bryant called his house and asked: “Son, are you ready to wear the red jersey?” But despite the mythology of Alabama, Owens had a brother on Missouri’s team, and he fell in love with Columbia on a visit. His 21st birthday was the day after the Alabama game, so that bet was extra important to him.
On Monday in Birmingham, the jitters of waiting for a night game inspired Pisarkiewicz and a few players to go for a walk around town. They quickly discovered that was a bad idea.
“Everybody we saw in Birmingham, all they ever said was ‘Roll Tide,’” Owens said. “We were sick of it.”
On game day in Birmingham, the team was so antsy to take the field that it left the locker room early. Then disaster struck. Five minutes before kickoff, Pisarkiewicz and Owens were practicing snaps when an errant one jammed the quarterback’s left middle finger. He heard a snap. The team trainer broke off a piece of a tongue depressor and taped up the broken finger while “Zark” insisted that he play.
“I was lucky it was on the left hand,” Pisarkiewicz said, “but it still hurt catching snaps and handing the ball off.”
The bad omen didn’t stop Missouri. Mizzou forced Alabama to go three-and-out then drove 58 yards for a Galbreath touchdown. The lead grew to 10-0 by the end of the first quarter and 20-0 by halftime.
The Tide’s notorious “wishbone” running attack was denied by a baffling Missouri hero: Keith Morrissey, a former high school quarterback who was playing his first-ever college varsity game after being moved from QB to offensive line and then to defensive tackle. He was only 227 pounds, but when Alabama resorted to passing in the second half, he had the agility to elude the Tide’s near-300-pound blockers. In his first game ever playing defense, he sacked future NFL quarterback Richard Todd three times.
Back in Columbia, Morrissey’s fraternity house was a delirious scene while the ABC broadcasters wondered whether Morrissey’s small hometown of Gallatin, Missouri, even had running water or indoor toilets (what morons).
The TV cameras that had been stationed on Alabama’s sideline were switching sides now, adjusting their reaction shots to the unexpected score. During the game, sideline reporter Jim Lampley interviewed Morrissey, who only recalls saying, “Quick movement, quick movement,” several times.
Ozzie Newsome scored for Alabama in the fourth quarter, but the game was out of reach. The Tide ended with 31 rushing yards on 34 carries. The final was 20-7. As the defensive end McRoberts walked to midfield, he sought out “The Bear,” hoping to shake hands with a football icon. “Coach, it’s an honor,” McRoberts said. Bryant replied with a series of inaudible grumbles: “Hmph. Good game.”
Alabama didn’t lose a game the rest of the season. It outscored its opponents 367-52. But that night, the rare visage of a defeated Bryant humbly told reporters, “They kicked the hell out of us. What more can I say?”
And when Missouri’s team plane landed in Columbia well past midnight, hundreds of celebrating students were waiting at the airport. The players greeted them with high fives, basking in the glory of their historic upset. But not for too long. They had plans for the rest of the night. They had places to be.
Butch Weston was waiting at The Shack with two kegs of Falstaff. (bolding, underlining, italicizing, and parenthetical clarifications/additions by me)
Big 8 football was dominate at the time and Missouri's teams of the era had many epic upsets including Alabama, Ohio State, USC and Nebraska -- all on the road -- as coach Al Onofrio and his players feared no one and played one of the toughest schedules in the land.
An analogous scenario plays out tomorrow in Columbia, MO, as an unranked Missouri team takes on #2 Alabama in a season opener just as in 1975. This time Missouri is a 28 point underdog and the home team.
I would love to see history repeat itself, but I seriously doubt it will, with a 1st year Missouri head coach who had only two spring practices, due to the pandemic. I'm going to hope for the best and expect the worst.
From stltoday.com:
'Beat Bama' became a reality for Mizzou in 1975
By Bennett Durando Special to the Post-Dispatch
Mizzou's Tony Galbreath finds running room against Alabama in 1975. AP photo
COLUMBIA, Mo. — At the height of The Shack’s power as a preferred student drinking spot, countless stories passed between the walls of Mizzou’s historic campus dive bar. Before it closed in 1984 and mysteriously burned down in 1988, Missouri football players would visit after practice to sneak a beer while hanging out inside the walls inscribed with student initials and made famous by “Beetle Bailey” comics.
The players got to know the owner, Butch Weston. In September 1975, they made a bet with Butch.
The Tigers were going to beat Bear Bryant’s unbeatable Crimson Tide.
Weston, an Alabama fan, scoffed at the ludicrous claim. But he loved a friendly wager, so he promised free kegs of St. Louis-brewed Falstaff beer if they returned from Birmingham as winners.
“There was no risk for Butch,” defensive end Bob McRoberts said, “because there was no way in hell we were gonna beat them.”
When Missouri kicks off its 2020 season against No. 2 Alabama on Saturday night, the matchup will share parallels with that 1975 game, which celebrated its 45th anniversary Sept. 8. For starters, it was the last time Missouri played a season opener against Alabama. The Crimson Tide were ranked No. 2 in the country, just like this week. Mizzou was unranked, like this week. And the fanfare surrounding Alabama football has hardly changed in 45 years. Current coach Nick Saban is carving a legacy as legendary as Bear Bryant’s.
But Sept. 8, 1975, was different. The three-touchdown underdogs from Missouri staged a “stunning upset,” The New York Times called it, on national television. MU has not beaten Alabama since.
"We just beat the living snot out of those guys,” said center Mike Owens. “It wasn’t close.”
The game was planned around ABC’s schedule to be played during Monday prime-time hours, making it the second college football game ever to have a Monday night telecast. That rare national audience, (and) Alabama’s 22-game regular-season win streak entering 1975, made the game one of the most anticipated in Mizzou history.
“Back then, if you’re on TV, you’re on one of three stations — ABC, CBS and NBC — so to be on TV at all was a pretty cool thing,” quarterback Steve Pisarkiewicz said. “Let alone a season opener. Let alone against a program like Alabama. It added pressure, but anybody will tell you that during that era, we thrived on that.”
Pisarkiewicz and running back Tony Galbreath had both earned starting jobs the year before in another big game, when they entered as backups and rallied Missouri from down 10-0 to beat Nebraska 21-10. There would be no shortage of big games in 1975, either. Alabama was one of four top-10 opponents on the schedule — another parallel to this season’s four top-10 matchups.
"It seemed like we were playing bowl games almost every week,” backup quarterback Pete Woods said. “But the fun part this time was that we were the only game on that night.”
On the Thursday before the game, the team ended practice with a prank on coach Al Onofrio. He always barked orders from a mobile wooden tower on top of a hay wagon. When he had everyone gather around the tower for his post-practice speech that day, the players grabbed the wagon and paraded Onofrio around the field, chanting: “Beat Bama!”
"He was probably scared to death that it was going to tip over and kill him,” Owens said.
The game was personal for Owens, a Mississippi boy who was offered a scholarship by Alabama. He still remembers the chills when Bryant called his house and asked: “Son, are you ready to wear the red jersey?” But despite the mythology of Alabama, Owens had a brother on Missouri’s team, and he fell in love with Columbia on a visit. His 21st birthday was the day after the Alabama game, so that bet was extra important to him.
On Monday in Birmingham, the jitters of waiting for a night game inspired Pisarkiewicz and a few players to go for a walk around town. They quickly discovered that was a bad idea.
“Everybody we saw in Birmingham, all they ever said was ‘Roll Tide,’” Owens said. “We were sick of it.”
On game day in Birmingham, the team was so antsy to take the field that it left the locker room early. Then disaster struck. Five minutes before kickoff, Pisarkiewicz and Owens were practicing snaps when an errant one jammed the quarterback’s left middle finger. He heard a snap. The team trainer broke off a piece of a tongue depressor and taped up the broken finger while “Zark” insisted that he play.
“I was lucky it was on the left hand,” Pisarkiewicz said, “but it still hurt catching snaps and handing the ball off.”
The bad omen didn’t stop Missouri. Mizzou forced Alabama to go three-and-out then drove 58 yards for a Galbreath touchdown. The lead grew to 10-0 by the end of the first quarter and 20-0 by halftime.
The Tide’s notorious “wishbone” running attack was denied by a baffling Missouri hero: Keith Morrissey, a former high school quarterback who was playing his first-ever college varsity game after being moved from QB to offensive line and then to defensive tackle. He was only 227 pounds, but when Alabama resorted to passing in the second half, he had the agility to elude the Tide’s near-300-pound blockers. In his first game ever playing defense, he sacked future NFL quarterback Richard Todd three times.
Back in Columbia, Morrissey’s fraternity house was a delirious scene while the ABC broadcasters wondered whether Morrissey’s small hometown of Gallatin, Missouri, even had running water or indoor toilets (what morons).
The TV cameras that had been stationed on Alabama’s sideline were switching sides now, adjusting their reaction shots to the unexpected score. During the game, sideline reporter Jim Lampley interviewed Morrissey, who only recalls saying, “Quick movement, quick movement,” several times.
Ozzie Newsome scored for Alabama in the fourth quarter, but the game was out of reach. The Tide ended with 31 rushing yards on 34 carries. The final was 20-7. As the defensive end McRoberts walked to midfield, he sought out “The Bear,” hoping to shake hands with a football icon. “Coach, it’s an honor,” McRoberts said. Bryant replied with a series of inaudible grumbles: “Hmph. Good game.”
Alabama didn’t lose a game the rest of the season. It outscored its opponents 367-52. But that night, the rare visage of a defeated Bryant humbly told reporters, “They kicked the hell out of us. What more can I say?”
And when Missouri’s team plane landed in Columbia well past midnight, hundreds of celebrating students were waiting at the airport. The players greeted them with high fives, basking in the glory of their historic upset. But not for too long. They had plans for the rest of the night. They had places to be.
Butch Weston was waiting at The Shack with two kegs of Falstaff. (bolding, underlining, italicizing, and parenthetical clarifications/additions by me)
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