The 1969 Michigan offense, a space odyssey
As a University of Texas graduate who grew up (mostly) in Austin and more recently has spent nearly a decade living in southeast Michigan, I’ve had a chance to absorb a fair amount of lore from two of college football’s most storied traditions. The University of Texas has been at the game of football for a long time with far and away their best run occurring in the 60’s and early 70s under the direction of legendary head coach Darrel K Royal.
Similarly, the University of Michigan leads the nation in all-time wins as a college program, although a fair number of those wins and 10 of their 11 National Championships took place before 1950. Michigan’s most storied run took place from 1969 to 1989 under their own legendary head coach Bo Schembechler.
Schembechler’s Wolverines never won a National Championship, while DKR’s Longhorns claimed three, but he finished with a winning record over Ohio State and won 13 Big 10 Championships.
Both schools had breakthrough seasons under those coaches in the same year, 1969. In that season, both teams managed a bit of a strategic breakthrough to the classic “three yards and a cloud of dust” strategies of trench warfare. In those breakthroughs you can see the seeds of modern football, wherein top defenses now routinely invite offenses to run the ball and hope to withstand those runs with as few defenders as possible...
Read more on my new substack: America's War Game
We were good under Bo, but you could certainly make the case that our most dominant era was under Yost.
I thought this same thing and then grew depressed that Yost coached from 1901-1926...so 100+ years ago (mostly) INSTEAD of ....you know....Bo...who only coached.... 33+ years ago.
nevermind
....and all those bagmen are probably dead now.
I'm not arguing with you, but have to wonder what Crisler would've achieved if he'd kept coaching (he was in his 40s when he retired). The 1947 team was incredibly dominant and the 1948 team was essentially his coached by Oosterbaan.
Cool.
Hook 'em.
So yeah, this is quite the tease... LOL!! But it did draw me into the new substack! I'll head over there sometime this weekend, when I get some time to sit down and learn more about the game. I love your articles, always informative and written in an easily digestible way.
Appreciate that!
1974 Rose Bowl Vote M got screwed.
Yup. And Staee got its revenge for Michigan having voted against their admission to the Big 10. And Franklin's shoulder injury against OSU in the 10-10 tie didn't help. Neither did Mike Lantry missing two FG's at the end of that game. That game still irks me, but not as much as the next year when Lantry actually made the winning FG on the last play but the refs called it no good.
Both of these games led to rule changes. The first, allowing more than one Big 10 team to play in a bowl game. The second, to raise the height of the goal posts. I guess it takes Michigan getting screwed to get things done.
if Moeller would have just known when to say when...... DAMN IT!!!!
Hey, a man has to drink.
You're not wrong. His team lost some games, I guess, but I loved his offense, he seemed to have no trouble recruiting, and they were fun to cheer for. His departure was, for this Michigan fan, at least, disappointing.
You should be thankful for our 1969 team helping Texas get the national title by beating OSU, which was #1 the entire season.
It's mentioned ;)
Breakthroughs always occur when this thing shows up...
I didn't see the author before reading the post and he started talking about his substack, and I thought, "Pfft. I guess everyone has a substack now, even randos on the mgoboard." Oh, it's Ian Boyd. Cool.
“In those breakthroughs you can see the seeds of modern football, wherein top defenses now routinely invite offenses to run the ball and hope to withstand those runs with as few defenders as possible...”
I’m not a subscriber so I’m probably missing some obvious technical point you’re making, but once the Emory Bellard-invented wishbone and its variants took over college football in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, defenses from the DL to the DBs were consumed with getting as many defenders as possible to the line of scrimmage because those offenses threw the ball so seldom.
Which was a problem for Michigan when we played in the Rose Bowl because the PAC-10 was the one major conference that wasn’t completely taken over by the wishbone/triple option offenses that dominated most of college football. USC, Stanford, Washington, and UCLA had QBs who could throw the ball reliably, something Michigan didn’t face much during its regular season schedule.
Michigan threw 26 passes against OSU in 1970. It wasn't until the 1982 game that Michigan threw more than that against the Buckeyes, when they attempted 28.
But while those PAC 10 teams could throw reliably, it’s not as if they were torching our defenses either.
Look at the scores of those losses in the Rose Bowl…10-3, 13-12, 14-6, 27-20, 17-10. The defense still played good enough to win. Maybe if Michigan had a passing game?
Then of course, you have the Rose Bowl GODS, who despise Michigan like no other team.
You had Charles White’s phantom TD in 78, Leach throwing an end zone interception that would have tied the game in 77. Stanford converting a critical fake punt in 71 (something Michigan knew they were going to do but STILL didn’t stop it) to kick the game winning field goal…and Bo having a heart attack before his first ever Rose Bowl.
"Maybe if Michigan had a passing game?"
That should have been the other part of my response... as you know better than most people, our passing game in the first five Rose Bowls under Bo was comically ineffective, with a slight exception of the '78 game against Washington when Leach was 14/27 for 239 yards and 2 TDs.
The performances in the '72 and '77 games were particularly pathetic: a combined 7/23 for 102 yds, 1 INT, and no TDs. Ooof.
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I guess I won't "read more."
Thanks for the amount that was in the OP