Introduction From The Sports Time Traveler™
The Sports Time Traveler™ is still one week behind in covering the 1963 football season.
The games are getting more important and more interesting as we get into mid-November.
I traveled back in time this week (virtually) to cover the college games of Saturday, November 9th and the NFL and AFL games of Sunday, November 10th.
The bylines for all the short stories belows are November 12, 1963 because that is the day I finished reading the newspaper archives before my return trip to 2023.
The Championship of Maryland
ANNAPOLIS - November 12, 1963
On Saturday in Annapolis a sellout crowd of 30,035 fans packed Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium for the unofficial college football championship of Maryland. #4 Navy played host to Maryland, and although Maryland came into the game at just 2 - 5, the Terrapins were coming off a near upset of Penn State, one of the top 25 teams in the nation based on AP voting.
But any hopes of a Terrapin upset on Saturday were quickly squelched by Navy’s sensational quarterback, Roger “the Dodger” Staubach.
In a little more than one half, Staubach ran for 2 TDs, and passed for 2 more and Navy led 35 - 0 just 6 minutes into the 3rd quarter.
Staubach went to the bench and the 2nd and 3rd string players finished out the 42 - 7 win.
Staubach only completed 7 of 12 passes for 104 yards and rushed for 20 yards, but his impact on the game was unquestionable.
NFL veteran Gino Marchetti of the Baltimore Colts, a starter on the Colts defensive line, was at the game to scout Staubach for Baltimore. He told Ed Schoenfeld of the Tribute Publishing company, “This is the finest quarterback I’ve seen play college football in 12 years.”
Tom Nugent, Maryland head coach, had this to say about Staubach in an interview with Alan Goldstein of the Baltimore Sun, “He’s a real leader. We predicted most of the things he did - I guess everybody does - but we couldn’t stop him. Staubach truly is the greatest quarterback of them all, the finest I’ve seen anywhere.”
The Championship of Texas
AUSTIN, TX - November 12, 1963
6 - 0 Baylor visited 7 - 0 number 1 ranked Texas on Saturday in an effective Texas college football championship game. Baylor features the quarterback who has the most yardage in college football, Don Trull.
But while Trull completed 19 passes for 204 yards, he also missed on 20 other passes. In addition, Baylor’s ground game was non-existent. Texas held Baylor to just 6 yards rushing.
On offense Texas quarterback Duke Carlisle moved the ball efficiently as the Longhorns gained 242 yards rushing and 60 yards passing.
Yet Baylor’s defense limited the Longhorns just one scoring drive, a 3rd quarter touchdown.
Late in the game, with the score still just 7 - 0 Texas, Don Trull drove Baylor down to the Texas 19 yard line.
With 29 seconds to go Trull threw into the end zone where he was intercepted by none other than the Longhorns quarterback Duke Carlisle, who was also playing defensive halfback.
Carlisle, who had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated just 3 weeks earlier, was the hero of the game as Texas was victorious 7 - 0 and maintained their undefeated record.
Battle of Brothers
CHAMPAIGN, IL - November 12, 1963
Last Saturday #2 Illinois hosted Michigan in a family affair. The head coaches of the opposing squads are brothers. Pete Elliott commands the Fighting Illini while Bump Elliott is the leader of the Wolverines.
Michigan entered the game with a disappointing 2 - 3 - 1 record. But they had some reason to believe as they were coming off a convincing 27 - 6 win over a 4 - 2 Northwestern team that had nearly beaten Illinois earlier in the season.
Michigan’s confidence was evident in the 1st half when they ran 28 plays to Illinois 9 and led 7 - 0 at halftime.
But in the 3rd quarter Illinois went on a monster 17 play, 92 yard drive for a touchdown and then elected to go for the 2 points. They successfully and ran it in to take an 8 - 7 lead.
Late in the 4th quarter Illinois was still holding on to the 8 - 7 lead and had the ball deep in their own territory when senior halfback Jim Warren fumbled at the 11 yard line. From there Michigan was able to drive home a short touchdown that put them up 14 - 8 with 5 minutes to play.
Michigan held on and the brotherly battle ended with a big upset victory for the Wolverines.
The loss was the first of the year for #2 Illinois.
A Big Easy in Mississippi
OXFORD, MS - November 12, 1963
#3 Ole Miss, with a record of 5 - 0 - 1, had an easy opponent in the University of Tampa, a program not known for high level football. The Spartans were essentially here just for the $12,500 payday.
Last week Tampa lost to another small-time program, Troy State, by a score of 7 - 0. So not much was expected from Tampa here in Mississippi.
Yet in the 1st quarter Tampa held their own and the score was 0 - 0.
In the 2nd quarter Ole Miss scored the first touchdown of the game, and then Tampa looked like they might even things ups as they drove the ball to the Ole Miss 41 before stalling.
The game was still just 7 - 0 deep into the 2nd quarter. But with just 6 seconds left in the 1st half, Ole Miss finally got into the end zone for a second time, although they missed the extra point, and led 13 - 0 at the break.
Ole Miss only managed 1 touchdown in the 3rd quarter, but the floodgates opened in the 4th when Ole Miss scored 3 more touchdowns to win the game 41 - 0.
Tampa was held to just 4 first downs for the entire game.
And in total yards the Ole Miss Rebels ran up 399 to just 81 for the Spartans.
Ole Miss improved its record to 6 - 0 - 1, but didn’t prove anything to the pollsters in doing so.
The AP College Football Poll
Today (Tuesday, November 12, 1963) the AP poll came out and there was a tiny surprise as Navy moved up to #2, including 4 first place votes.
The #2 ranking is the highest in 18 years for Navy. The last time they were #2 was in December, 1945, when they entered the last game of the season against Army ranked #2. Navy lost that game 32 - 13 to an Army team that was the undefeated #1 team. It was the 2nd consecutive year that Army beat Navy for the National Football title in the final game, with Army going undefeated in both the 1944 and 1945 seasons.
Here’s the AP Poll results from November 12, 1963:
1 - Texas 8 - 0 - 0 (48 1st place votes)
2 - Navy 7 - 1 - 0 (4 1st place votes)
3 - Mississippi 6 - 0 - 1
4 - Michigan State 5 - 1 - 1 (1 1st place vote)
5 - Oklahoma 6 - 1 - 0
6 - Pittsburgh 6 - 1 - 0
7 - Alabama 6 - 1 - 0
8 - Illinois 5 - 1 - 1
9 - Auburn 6 - 1 - 0
10 - Nebraska 7 - 1 - 0
NFL GAMES From November 10, 1963
Browns vs. Steelers in Pittsburgh
Last week Jim Brown steamrolled over the Eagles for 223 yards in the Browns victory. On Sunday, he looked like he was going to put on an equally impressive show for the largest crowd in Pittsburgh Steelers history, a capacity filling 54,497. Brown rushed for 92 yards on 15 carries in just the 1st half.
45 of those yards came on 5 carries as part of a 74 yard 2nd quarter touchdown drive that gave the 1st place Browns a 7 - 0 lead at halftime. The key play was a 4th and 1 at the Steelers 30 in which Jim Brown smashed through for 5 yards to keep the drive alive.
In the middle of the 3rd quarter, with the score still 7 - 0 Browns, the Steelers pinned Cleveland on their own 2 yard line with a 62 yard punt.
Then came the play of the game.
Cleveland QB Frank Ryan pitched the ball to Jim Brown, who was to run wide left, but Brown was immediately met by Steelers defenders.
Ben Garlikov of the Dayton Daily News describes what Jim Brown did next, “Thinking quickly, he stopped and before he was hit, he threw the ball from 3 yards deep in the end zone, to about the 8 yard line. No one had a chance to get it, but one Clevelander was in the general area... He was still on his feet when he let go, but immediately upon release of the ball, was tackled.”
The officials ruled it a safety, despite the fact that Brown was not touched before he released the ball, and the pass was not considered grounding as Cleveland receivers were in the area the ball was thrown.
Still leading 7 - 2, Cleveland mounted a drive a short while later and got to the Pittsburgh 18 when halfback Ernie Green fumbled.
Pittsburgh took advantage of the mistake and drove the ball for a go ahead TD to make it 9 - 7.
Cleveland could not get untracked on offense after that. Jim Brown had just 7 yards on 4 carries in the 2nd half. That left Brown 1 shy of 100 yards for the game. It was only the 3rd time in 9 games that Brown was held below the century mark this season.
Even worse was the performance of Browns QB Frank Ryan who was just 11 for 25 passing. Under Ryan’s leadership, 3 times the Browns had the ball in the 4th quarter and couldn’t mount an attack. One newspaper questioned if Ryan will lose his starting job.
The Steelers on the other hand did move the ball steadily when they had it. And their halfback, John Henry Johnson piled up 131 yards. But their kicker, Lefty Lou Michaels, missed on all 5 of his field goal attempts, including 2 in the 4th quarter. Michaels missed from 25, 29, 45, 45, and 49.
Despite the missed field goals the Steelers held on to win it 9 - 7.
The difference in the game was the controversial 2 point safety call against Jim Brown.
Statistically however, the Steelers mauled the Browns. Total yards favored Pittsburgh 382 to 227. And the Steelers had 23 first downs to just 14 for the Browns.
The loss dropped Cleveland, which had won its first 6 games of the season, to 7 - 2, while the Steelers improved to 5 - 3 - 1 and put themselves in playoff contention.
Celebrating the victory, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a huge banner headline on page 1 of the newspaper on Monday that read, “54,497 See Steelers Win 9 - 7.”
Eagles vs. Giants at New York
The 6 - 2 Giants hosted the 2 - 5 - 1 Eagles on Sunday in front of a crowd of 62,936 at Yankee Stadium.
The Giants came into the game riding a 3 game winning streak in which they’ve pounded their opponents by a score of 118 - 48.
But in the 1st quarter the Eagles made a game of it. After Y.A. Tittle led the Giants on a 12 play, 85 yard TD drive, the Eagles came right back and tied it on a 64 yard bomb by King Hill.
The game was tied at 7 at the end of the 1st quarter.
Then in the 2nd quarter, Giants QB Y.A. Tittle took over. He led the Giants on 3 touchdown drives. And by the halftime he was 13 of 15 for 214 yards.
At the beginning of the 3rd quarter, Tittle masterminded another TD drive, this one going 90 yards in 11 plays and the score ballooned to 35 - 7.
Tittle was retired from the game in the middle of the 3rd quarter having connected on 16 of 20 passes for 261 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Gene Ward, of the New York Daily News, wrote, “The bald eagle (Tittle) has never quarterbacked a better game in his entire career.”
The early exit for Tittle gave rookie QB Glynn Griffing substantial time on the field. He went 5 for 11 for 67 yards including the first TD pass of his career.
The final score was 42 - 14.
William Wallace of the New York Times started his article on the game with this, “It is a pleasure to behold a winning football team going about its business, and the New York Giants once again delighted their many fans… The Giants really are something right now.”
What the Giants really are is tied for 1st place in the Eastern Division after their thrashing of the Eagles.
Despite the 28 point margin, the game wasn’t as close as the score indicates.
The Giants gained 417 yards with 25 first downs compared to just 101 yards and 6 first downs for the Eagles.
OTHER GAMES OF NOTE
The Chicago Bears held the Los Angeles Rams to just 88 yards of offense, and shut them out. They never let the Rams get deeper than the Bears 36 yard line.
But despite gaining 272 yards on offense and never turning over the football, the Bears could only manage 2 field goals in a 6 - 0 victory.
The Bears, at 8 - 1, are now holding teams to an average of just 9 points per game. They remained tied for first with the Packers, who handily beat the Vikings in Green Bay, 28 - 7.
NFL STANDINGS AFTER WEEK 9
EASTERN DIVISION
Cleveland 7 - 2
New York 7 - 2
St. Louis 6 - 3
Pittsburgh 5 - 3 - 1
Philadelphia 2 - 6 - 1
Dallas 2 - 7
Washington 2 - 7
WESTERN DIVISION
Chicago 8 - 1
Green Bay 8 - 1
Detroit 4 - 5
Baltimore 4 - 5
Minnesota 3 - 6
Los Angeles 2 - 7
San Francisco 2 - 7
AFL GAMES From November 10, 1963
Chargers vs. Patriots in Boston
The AFL’s leading teams from the Eastern and Western divisions clashed in Boston on Sunday in front of 28,402 fans.
In the 1st quarter, San Diego quarterback Tobin Rote passed 27 yards to Lance Alworth for a touchdown and an early 7 - 0 lead for the Chargers.
Rote is a 35 year old veteran player who spent 10 years with the Packers and Lions in the NFL and 3 years with Toronto in the CFL before joining the Chargers this season.
The 7 - 0 lead held up all afternoon as the only other scores in the game were 2 third quarter Patriots field goals.
The Pats did manage to gain 291 yards on offense, but 3 fumbles and 2 interceptions stifled their offense in the 7 - 6 loss.
Jets vs. Oilers in Houston
The New York Jets got a 93 yard punt return TD early in the 4th quarter in Houston and took a 21 - 17.
And then 36 year old QB George Blanda put Houston on his back, leading the Oilers to 2 fourth quarter touchdowns and a 31 - 21 lead.
The Jets scored late to make it a final score of 31 - 27 Oilers.
Blanda, did both the passing and the kicking for the Oilers, racking up 205 yards and a TD through the air, and booting 4 extra points and a 41 yard field goal in the victory.
The win propelled the Houston Oilers into 1st place in the Eastern Division and buried the Jets in last.
Share this post