#PrimeTimeLegionField, #LegionFieldBuiltByLegends, #RunTheBestYouGot Alabama vs. Ole Miss, 1969: The night college football went prime time By Lars Anderson, AL Please click on AL for article and photo credits He is not a young man anymore. But when he closes his eyes, the images from his youth flicker to life on the grainy film of his memory, unspooling like a motion picture from a bygone era. The movie reel rolls: It is the summer of 1969 and across America change is in the air. President Nixon has declared hes withdrawing 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Nearly 400,000 tie-dyed souls are preparing to descend upon a farm in Woodstock, N.Y. to see the likes Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin at a music festival. And ABC recently has announced that it will launch a grand experiment by televising a rare prime time SEC college football game on Oct. 4, 1969. Scott Hunter, a 21-year-old from Mobile, is in midtown Manhattan with a friend on this warm summers night. They are at a bar toasting Alabamas upcoming season when Hunter, the Tides fresh-faced starting quarterback, tells a patron to tune in on ABC when Alabama plays Ole Miss. You gotta watch us in October, Hunter tells the stranger above the boozy din of the watering hole. Well be on national TV! The stranger promises that he will. The game doesnt start until nearly 9 p.m. CT. Roone Arledge, the executive director of ABC sports who in a year will enter into a risky venture known as Monday Night Football, wanted the kickoff to be earlier, but he ran into a formidable obstacle: Lawrence Welk. Every Saturday night at 7:30 CT the big-band leader hosted his eponymous television show, featuring the wholesome-as-milk entertainment of his orchestra. The one-hour show is ratings boon: For the last two years it has finished second among all of ABCs programming in the Nielsen ratings. Arledge asks Welk to move his show into an earlier time slot; Welk says no. So at 8:30 CT on Oct. 4 -- 45 years to day of this Saturdays matchup between Alabama and Ole Miss in Oxford--the starters for the No. 20 Rebels and the No. 15 Crimson Tide are announced, one by one, live in front of the camera. This is followed by the national anthem. It is nearly 8:50 when Hunter trots onto the dimly lit artificial surface at Legion Field for Alabamas opening possession. All eyes were on the two opposing quarterbacks. There is Hunter, who in less than two months would set the Crimson Tide school record for passing yards in a game when he throws for 484 yards against Auburn on this same field in the Iron Bowl. And there is the freckle-faced Archie Manning, Ole Miss junior signal-caller who had been running around the SEC like his shoelaces were on fire since the start of his sophomore season. With a curious nation watching, the two quarterbacks are mesmerizing. Manning completes 33-of-52 passes for 436 yards and two touchdowns. He runs 15 times for 104 yards and another three touchdowns. Each play he makes seems more improbable than the last. ABCs play-by-play announcer, Chris Schenkel, simply runs out of adjectives to describe this country kid from tiny Drew, Ms. No player before Manning had ever thrown for 300 yards and run for 100 in a major-college game; he sets school records for pass attempts, completions, yards and total offense. In living rooms across country, new fans are being born by the second with every bit of magic Manning creates. Even that stranger from the New York City bar whom Hunter met three months earlier is captivated. With just under four minutes to play in the fourth quarter, as the clock approaches midnight, Alabama trails 32-27. Facing fourth-and-goal on the Ole Miss 14-yard line, Hunter calls timeout. He jogs to the sideline, where Bear Bryant is puffing furiously on a Chesterfield cigarette, its red-orange ember glowing in the night. What do you want to do? Hunter asks his coach. There is confusion on the Alabama sideline. The coaches in the press box are still trying to determine the play call when the referee yells to Bryant, The commercial is over. Its time to play ball. Bryant, his Chesterfield dangling from his mouth, pushes Hunter onto the field. Then he yells to his quarterback, Run the best you got! In the huddle Hunter shouted to his teammates, Fire Red Right, Max Protect, 56 Comeback In. Hunter expected a blitz and so the play call instructed halfback Johnny Musso to stay in the backfield as a blocker. 56 Comeback In meant Hunter would try to hit wide receiver George Ranager on a comeback pattern in the middle of the field. It worked beautifully: The Rebels blitzed a linebacker, who was stopped in his tracks by Musso. Hunter threw a strike to Ranager for the winning touchdown. He finished 22-of-29 for 300 yards and one touchdown. It was Hunters finest hour as Alabamas starting quarterback. Ive been texting Archie today, Hunter says now, from his office in Mobile, where hes an investment consultant. Were going to get together in Oxford on Friday night and do a little reminiscing about that game in 69. He did everything in that game but make the popcorn. I got letters from people all over the country after that game. It played a role in growing college football into what it is today. Im proud to be a part of that. That game proved that college football could make it in prime time on Saturday night. ABC hit a home run. The amazing thing is, ABC stored the videotape reel of the game in a warehouse in New Jersey and the second-half reel was destroyed in a fire. And that stranger from the bar? Turns out he was the president of Goodyear Tire. After the game he tracked down a phone number for Hunter and called the Alabama quarterback. Son, he said, after you get out of college, youve got a job here if you want it. Hunter declined. But the phone call reinforced what he still believes today: There will never be another game like the one played 45 years ago, on Oct. 4, 1969, at Legion Field. Indeed, it was the Big Bang moment college football went prime time.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 09:17:29 +0000
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