Next week’s “1” vs “2” Means Nada, Juxtaposed With 56 Years Earlier

Let tangential me get to the point, next week’s clash between the only two college football unbeatens (Ohio State, which ended a 4 game loss skein vs (9-3) Michigan and Indiana, for so long a Big Ten doormat, which ripped Purdue) is an exhibition game and means next to nothing, even in a football/playoffs sense.

This is in sharp contrast, almost the 180 degree kind, with a 1 vs 2 “reg” game, set back to December by ABC, on the advice of my late friend and college football immortal, Beano Cook, exactly 56 years earlier when Texas in route to the title, won a thrilling game vs Arkansas.

So much more to this and I am tired of fighting the money windmills, a 12 team(s) ‘off a prime (as in prime time television, The “wagger” still in this society) so let’s talk then and not now, at least for now.

It was not great all those years that college football only had a mythical national champion. (1998 when Tennessee, beaten decisively by Vanderbilt yesterday, won/”claimed” it, beating Florida State was the first more or less title game).

That mythical aspect, dependent entirely on voting, manifested in one familiar with votes, R.M. Nixon, to arrive in Fayetteville, Arkansa and eventually proclaim Texas as #1, severely irking coach Joe Paterno of also unbeaten, but in ‘el East and certainly without a win, a road one no less, vs a team as good as Arkansas.

At a point, say 1986/1987 after a Jerry Sandusky designed defense “yoked” Vin “turnovers” Testaverde and Miami, adding to Paterno’s “halo status” while conversely less than 5 years after Nixon’s “Texas proclamation,” his status was say 110 degrees lower and apart (110 evoking shade, now a slang for criticism).

Texas still had to beat Notre Dame in the “Cotton” and a diving catch by a “Cotton,” Speyrer, an all-time clutch one keyed themdoing so and claiming the ’69 mythical crown.

Now negative perceptions and relative comparisons have trended Mr. Nixon upward and Paterno, one I saw through before and see as a “Postman Always Rings Twice” type, surely has dropped.

Back to point, so difficult for me as thoughts and history repeats notes fly around, veritable electrons near the atom, next week’s means nada, a shame, a 1 vs 2 while on December 6, 1969, thanks to Beano, “we” saw a classic game that was one of two great Texas wins that gave them the ’69 crown, backed by Nixon and disputed with some but ultimately little justification, by Paterno.

Two things among many in this great memory, (I think I was rooting for Arkansas, but what does that matter?), one is the (male) cheerleader doing a cartwheel on the playing field after Street’s long/must completion to Randy Peschel and the handshakes, not so common then, between some of the opposing players.

Trust me, it was Beano Cook who so often looked at schedule and could think out of the box, that strongly suggested to ABC sports head, Roone Arledge, that the Texas at Arkansas tilt, be moved to December 6th.

Below, Beano is quoted as part of a fine article about the game on its fiftieth anniversary in 2019.

“I never thought we would have such a dramatic game,” said Beano Cook, an ABC producer, in 2009. “It was a perfect game for us.”

Billy Graham prayed before the game and U.S. President Richard Nixon landed in Marine One just after kickoff to watch in person.