1961 College Football National Championship

Alabama 1961

Alabama's Season

Alabama had a remarkable defense this year. They led the nation in total defense at 132.6 yards per game, and in scoring defense at 2.2 points per game. No team has posted a lower average scoring defense since

Sugar Bowl

We have repeatedly seen, in these last few MNC articles, an MNC-contending SEC team going to the Sugar Bowl and playing a tier-two or worse opponent, and this season is no exception. As a result, none of these teams had to face much of a challenge to "win" their MNC, which is too bad, and may be part of the reason the FWAA repeatedly chose a Big 10 team that played a tougher schedule as their MNC team. As I've said in past articles, part of the problem was segregation, which severely limited which teams could play in the bowl (and conveniently protected SEC teams from having to play the best teams from other regions). But that was only one problem. The Sugar Bowl did a poor job of recruiting even the best all-white teams to come play the SEC champion, and in at least one instance the SEC team playing there lobbied behind the scenes for an easier opponent.

Auburn 1957 was on probation and couldn't go to a bowl, and so won their MNC more easily because of that. 1958 LSU won their MNC by playing #19 Clemson, who LSU coach Paul Dietz lobbied the Sugar to invite instead of #6 Air Force. 1959 was the only season during this time period when the Sugar Bowl actually matched up 2 top-ranked teams, but it was a rematch of a regular season game, LSU vs. Mississippi, so it was still a lame matchup. 1960 Mississippi played #25 Rice in the Sugar, and the FWAA rewarded them with an MNC (I disagree with that one). There were 5 all-white teams better than Rice that could have been recruited to play, but weren't.

This year, #1 Alabama played for their MNC against #9 Arkansas, when a couple of other all-white teams, #4 LSU and #5 Mississippi, would have been better. And that brings up another issue -- these SEC MNC-contenders from this time period were rarely even playing the best teams from their own conference. In any case, Arkansas 1961 was 8-2, losing 16-0 at #4 Mississippi and 33-7 to #3 Texas. They had beaten one rated team, 7-4 Rice (#17) 10-0 on the road. But as part of another trend, for the 4th year in a row, the SEC champion gave one of their weakest performances of the season in the Sugar Bowl.

Alabama scored a touchdown in the opening quarter, fullback Mike Fracchia getting loose for a 43 yard run, then quarterback Pat Trammell running it in from 12 yards out on the next play. Fracchia, pictured below carrying the ball in this game, rushed 20 times for 124 yards, and Trammell, pictured above, rushed 18 times for 69. Alabama later missed a field goal, but an interception returned to the Arkansas 20 set up another attempt, and they hit that one to lead 10-0. Arkansas finally got moving to the Alabama 10 late in the first half, but missed a field goal, so it remained 10-0 at halftime.

Ohio State 1961

Ohio State's Season

In 1957, Ohio State had finished 9-1 because they lost their opener at home to 5-4-1 Texas Christian. This year, they finished 8-0-1 because they were tied in their opener at home... by 3-5-2 Texas Christian. They came into the game ranked #3, and the game started on-script, OSU scoring a touchdown on their first drive of the game. Bob Ferguson carried the ball 13 times on the drive, converting twice on 4th and 1, and the touchdown was scored on a short pass on another 4th down play. But TCU outgained the Buckeyes the rest of the way. Their answering drive went to the OSU 4, highlighted by a 31 yard pass, but a 4th down pass was dropped at the goal line. Their next drive went to the OSU 24 before it was halted by an interception, and the score remained 7-0 at the half.

TCU was stopped at the OSU 24 in the 3rd quarter, and they finally broke through for a touchdown in the final quarter, on a 12 yard pass that was set up by a 61 yard pass. That tied the game up 7-7, but now it was OSU that took control of the game. They drove to the TCU 10, but on 2nd down they threw an interception at the goal line that was returned to the 6. The next time OSU got the ball, they had a short field but no time, and they had to try a 54 yard field goal on the last play of the game. It came up short, but there was still some drama left, as a TCU player caught the ball at his 2, ran backward into his end zone avoiding tacklers, and barely got back out again to avert a game-ending safety.

Ohio State totaled 249 yards of offense, almost all on the ground, and TCU had 236, mostly through the air. As stated above, TCU finished the season 3-5-2, and they were not top 25. Still, OSU wasn't the only strong team they pestered. TCU also gave 10-1 Texas (#3) their only loss 6-0 in Austin, and they defeated 7-3-1 Kansas (#15) 17-16. But on the other hand, TCU lost to 4-6 Texas Tech and 6-5 Baylor, and they tied 2-7-1 SMU in their finale.

Nobody else came within a touchdown of Ohio State this season, though 4 more times opponents were within a touchdown going into the 4th quarter. The first of these was the next week, hosting UCLA (7-4, #25), when Ohio State found themselves down 3-0 going into the final quarter but pulled away to win 13-3. The next game was not so exciting, a 44-0 rout of Illinois (0-9), but the next 3 games were all close going into the 4th quarter again. First they led 3-0 at Northwestern (4-5) and won 10-0, then they led 23-15 at Wisconsin and won 30-21. They gave up 305 yards in that one, but Wisconsin ended up being pretty good, upsetting 8-2 Minnesota (#6) in their finale to finish 6-3 and ranked #12.



The next week Ohio State hosted Iowa and led 12-7, but exploded in the 4th quarter to win 29-13 (Bob Ferguson pictured carrying the ball in this game above). Iowa outgained them by a hefty 374 yards to 288, but the Hawkeyes also had 4 turnovers to none for the Buckeyes. Iowa finished 5-4, but they beat 6-3 Wisconsin, and all 4 of their losses came to top 10 teams, so I have the Hawkeyes ranked #11 for 1961. OSU was fairly unimpressive in their next 2 outings, leading at Indiana (2-7) just 9-7 at half and winning 16-7, then beating Oregon (4-6) 22-12. They gave up 315 yards of offense in that one.



That brought them to their finale at Michigan, where, as previously discussed, they poured it on as much as possible in an effort to win the AP poll despite the tie in their season opener. They led 21-6 at the half, and 21-12 going into the 4th, but they piled up 29 points in the final quarter to win 50-20. Bob Ferguson scored 4 touchdowns (one of them pictured above). As previously indicated, on their last drive Ohio State took over at their own 20 with 34 seconds left, threw 4 passes to get into the end zone, then went for 2 and got it. Woody Hayes explained after the game, "We were going for national recognition." But although they made up a lot of ground on #1 Alabama in the next AP poll, they came up short.



Ohio State's next game should have been the Rose Bowl, but in a surprise move, the Ohio State faculty council voted to decline the Rose Bowl bid, largely because they were tired of the overimportance of football at OSU. This is why major football schools don't let their professors vote on such matters anymore. OSU students rioted for 2 days (as pictured below), and Woody Hayes fumed over the decision for years. Ohio State football declined a bit over the next 6 years, and Woody Hayes blamed it on this Rose Bowl bid being declined, thinking it led to weak recruiting. But they had just gone 3-5-1 in 1959 -- what caused that? In any case, even If Ohio State had gone to the Rose Bowl, it would have just been a rematch with UCLA (7-4, #25), which would have been a worse matchup than the Sugar Bowl and a waste of everybody's time.

Alabama vs. Ohio State

Awards Ceremony

Grading the Selectors