Joe Paterno calls this his best team at Penn State in the video.
73 highlights
73 highlights
Penn State Season Recap 1973
- Thread starter PSUPride1
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Was it mentioned on the board that Gary Hayman died this past October? I missed it if it was. He was a very good WR and KR for us during the '73 season.
Gary Hayman Obituary (1951 - 2020) - New Castle, DE - The News Journal
View Gary Wesley Hayman's obituary, send flowers and sign the guestbook.
www.legacy.com
Thanks for posting this. I think there might be some collective amnesia about how good a PSU team this was.
OK. Joe started coaching in 1950 at psu, so i'm going with this interview was in 1974/75 (perhaps someone knows for sure). So my first inclination was that he was talking about 24 years as head coach, in which case he'd seen not just '69, but also 77/8, 82, 86, but not 94.
No, pretty sure he's referring to his full 24 as a coach at psu, meaning he is rating the team going back to 1950. That said, he's calling the '73 team better than the '69 team... and while it was more evenly balanced, you play 73 vs 69 and i'm not sure 73 even scores. I had the sense that Joe felt the team was dissed (it was, but their lackluster orange bowl win sealed their fate) and he wanted to send a message to future voters that they needed to get their act together.
He also loved Cappy... my guess is this might have been his fave team of all time if only just for Cappy.
That team was very good, but imo had no shot at beating any of the above referenced psu teams. Even so, thank you for sharting... fun to watch!
Sorry to see Gary Hayman's obit. He was a talented WR and playmaker who, if memory serves, didn't always see eye-to-eye with JoePa and was a bit outspoken for his day (good!). Nevertheless, Joe supported him. Hayman did some good things for his community once he was done with football.
Cappy had the flu the previous year for the Sugar Bowl vs Oklahoma. Lions lost that game 14-0, but were awarded a win 2 years later when the NCAA placed the Sooners on probation and vacated all of their wins from 1972. LSU keyed on Cappy all night and the Tigers had the best defense in the nation that year, holding him to 50 yards. Lions won that game with a long bomb to Freddie Scott Sr and a great punt return by Hayman, 16-9.
I believe they were ranked 13th and we had aspirations to be recognized as the #1 team in the country with the #1 RB. It was a hard fought much tougher battle than it was expected to be... and they came in having lost 2 in a row to bama and tulane (both by 14 pts).
Their best win was season opener vs then #10 colorado... a team that went on to lose 6 games.
LSU was good, but we needed to handle them more easily if we wanted a higher ranking. As it was, they significantly outgained us (was re-reading an article where cappy called the field the worst he ever played on... torrential rains day before on an experimental turf).
Not the kind of win this team needed to impress voters.
No, LSU was a very good team in '73, but collapsed down the stretch. At 9-0, they lost their last two games to a highly-ranked Bama and a good Tulane team, then lost the Orange Bowl to us.
This is a great reference site for sports buffs. I've researched and found specific baseball games I attended as a kid. My way-back memory is usually better than my more recent memory, and I am amazed at how accurate my recall is for games in the 60s and 70s vs. late 90s and more recent. As someone who prefers to post from memory, it gives me a little more confidence that I'm not too far off when I do.
LSU 1973
1973 was an odd season in that a number of traditional powers had great seasons. I don't think we were the best team, but it would be hard to argue exactly who above us should swap places with us at #5. #5 was as low as we should be, but a case could be made for #4, maybe #3, but the contra-argument would need to be very solid.
Yes, that old polyturf (I think ??) on the Orange Bowl was fugly, and was shiny like a polyester suit on TV. They keyed on Cappy, who struggled for yards against a stacked D. But like in the previous 2 Orange Bowls, we did enough on offense and got some key plays at key times, while our D dominated.
It wasn't. The problem is that 5 teams finished the regular season undefeated. Guess who was ranked lowest of those 5?
While I typically feel we get shafted (witness 69, later 94) by voters, this is one where I'm hard pressed to argue against any of the teams that finished ahead of us.
OK had a tie.. they also played against 7 ranked teams (lone tie was vs then #1 usc). osu played to a tie with the #6 team (michigan) but was lights out killer the rest of the season (4 shutouts, 3 in a row mid season) and knocked the snot outta usc at the rose bowl. Only 3 teams reached double digits on the scoreboard all season against them.
ND beat #1 bama by a point to win the champs position. Their schedule included a convincing win over then #6 usc (finished 8th in poll). Like psu, they throttled spitt (then ranked 20th...but finished 6-5). ND SOS was 36th.. we were 50th.
Leaving me with bama sliding from undefeated #1 to #4 ahead of us. If you want to argue that by virtue of playing a bunch of relative nobodies (granting here than nc state was much better than many knew when we played that 35-29 nail biter) and finishing undefeated we deserve to be at #4 over bama (losers by a point to the newly crowned #1 irish)... fine. Bama really didn't play anyone either... and beat lsu by 14.
Our big wins? spitt team that finished 6-5. We will never know how we'd fare vs lsu on a reall football field, but both teams had the same disadvantage... thankfully we prevailed.
In sum I can't fault the pollsters here, although maybe i'd give us #4 by virtue of having run the field while bama did lose a game (albeit by a point to ND). I'm open to hearing other pov's, but i remember feeling that was just one of those years where we needed a 35-7 kinda bowl win to have a chance of moving up.
OK had a tie.. they also played against 7 ranked teams (lone tie was vs then #1 usc). osu played to a tie with the #6 team (michigan) but was lights out killer the rest of the season (4 shutouts, 3 in a row mid season) and knocked the snot outta usc at the rose bowl. Only 3 teams reached double digits on the scoreboard all season against them.
ND beat #1 bama by a point to win the champs position. Their schedule included a convincing win over then #6 usc (finished 8th in poll). Like psu, they throttled spitt (then ranked 20th...but finished 6-5). ND SOS was 36th.. we were 50th.
Leaving me with bama sliding from undefeated #1 to #4 ahead of us. If you want to argue that by virtue of playing a bunch of relative nobodies (granting here than nc state was much better than many knew when we played that 35-29 nail biter) and finishing undefeated we deserve to be at #4 over bama (losers by a point to the newly crowned #1 irish)... fine. Bama really didn't play anyone either... and beat lsu by 14.
Our big wins? spitt team that finished 6-5. We will never know how we'd fare vs lsu on a reall football field, but both teams had the same disadvantage... thankfully we prevailed.
In sum I can't fault the pollsters here, although maybe i'd give us #4 by virtue of having run the field while bama did lose a game (albeit by a point to ND). I'm open to hearing other pov's, but i remember feeling that was just one of those years where we needed a 35-7 kinda bowl win to have a chance of moving up.
Nice summary of how that played out in '73. Fwiw, I agree with each point you made. I would add that we beat Stanford on the road in the season opener (and on my birthday!), which was considered a very good intersectional win at the time.
Thanks for the post.
N&B, while I would not suggest that PSU played a demanding schedule in ’73, I will also point out the contenders that year also played less than demanding schedules for the most part. PSU won as many road games as Bama and OU, and more than ND, tOSU, and Michigan.
I’ll agree OU had a tough schedule. I will add that while OU may have played 7 teams that were ranked at the time the game was played (I’m not going to bother checking), only 6 of them finished with a winning record, and one of those 6 won less than 50% of their games. OU played 5 teams that finished ranked (one having 4 losses and a tie), did have the tie vs. USC on their record, and were on probation during a period when the pollsters didn’t seem to be in a “punishing” mood like they were in later years.
As for ND, PSU played more teams that finished ranked. ND’s toughest road game was the Pitt game you pointed out. Hats off to the Irish for knocking off Bama, but if they get the opportunity in ’73, then they shouldn’t have gotten the opportunity in ’77 over PSU also.
Bama beat fewer final ranked teams than PSU and had the loss to ND. While they won all the games that they did rather comfortably, I can’t get past the fact of that first sentence. I can’t support the idea a team gets more credit for losing a game.
tOSU had the much publicized tie with Michigan when both teams entered the season final with perfect records. The much less publicized part of that matchup is that neither team had played a team that would finish ranked up to that point in time. tOSU had only played one other team that would finish with a winning record up to that point in time.
Here is a summary of the contenders’ opponents’ records/rankings/and how many were ranked:
- ND (11-0): 60-60-0 (,500), 2 ranked (#4, #8), 0 road wins over a final ranked team
- tOSU (10-0-1): 54-66-2 (451), 2 ranked (#6, #8), 0 road wins over a final ranked team
- OU (10-0-1): 67-53-5 (.556), 5 ranked (#7, #8, #14, #17, #18), 1 road win over a final ranked team
- Bama (11-1): 73-61-0 (544), 3 ranked (#1, #13, #19), 1 road win over a final ranked team
- PSU (12-0): 62-70-1 (.470), 3 ranked (#13, #16, #20), 1 road win over a final ranked team
- Mich (9-0-1): 51-69-0 (.426), 1 ranked (#2), 0 road wins over a final ranked team
Notre Dame beat USC, then #
I'm not sure how we do vs osu or ok that year. FWIW usc was #1 when they played to a tie. As to michigan, they killed a stanford team the week after we struggled to beat them. That said, we were on the road while they played michigan in AA... big difference (and michigan had advantage of seeing more film).
Were I re-ranking those teams, I'd have put OK and osu at the top... after that, you get your pick of PSU/ND/Bama and I'd call it fair. [And yes, I'd have to take the time to re-visit how those teams OK beat finished before annointing them best in class.]
My personal sense was that the first 6 teams were all worthy of being #1... man, a 8 team playoff would have been fun. Check this out:
Texas had been 8th (when playoff starts) vs #1 Bama
#2 OK rematches with #7 USC (7-7 tie early in season)
#3 ND vs #6 PSU (yowsa)
#4 osu rematches with #5 Michigan (seaason ending 10-10 tie).
Sigh. lol.
ND beat USC and Bama. We beat LSU by 7, Bama got 'em by 14 (although pretty sure at home). The win over USC was the difference in schedule strength (why ND was 36th and we were 50th)... I think we were every bit the match for the Irish and it would have been a great game... ditto vs Bama.
I'm not sure how we do vs osu or ok that year. FWIW usc was #1 when they played to a tie. As to michigan, they killed a stanford team the week after we struggled to beat them. That said, we were on the road while they played michigan in AA... big difference (and michigan had advantage of seeing more film).
Were I re-ranking those teams, I'd have put OK and osu at the top... after that, you get your pick of PSU/ND/Bama and I'd call it fair. [And yes, I'd have to take the time to re-visit how those teams OK beat finished before annointing them best in class.]
My personal sense was that the first 6 teams were all worthy of being #1... man, a 8 team playoff would have been fun. Check this out:
Texas had been 8th (when playoff starts) vs #1 Bama
#2 OK rematches with #7 USC (7-7 tie early in season)
#3 ND vs #6 PSU (yowsa)
#4 osu rematches with #5 Michigan (seaason ending 10-10 tie).
Sigh. lol.
The 1973 Playoff selection would have been AMAZING
A review of the 1973 college football season, in which a ton of teams finished undefeated and Notre Dame took the national title.
www.footballstudyhall.com
