Jackie Sherrill was one of the best coaches ever. He came up with the idea of using walk-ons as the kick cover team. There are the stories of just pulling guys out of the stands for this. It was not like that. The 12th Man was made up of very skilled guys that could have had scholarships at other universities. At practice there were different colored jerseys. White, Offense. Maroon, Defense. Burnt Orange, Walk- Ons. Red, 12Man. They said it was to hide the blood. I am not sure it was ours or theirs.

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SinKiller said:

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Windy City Ag said:

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Kevin had a hard time hitting the receivers.

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He was successful throwing to the Ohio State Defense that day.

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There were a lot of questions about that "performance"...

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As I have said. He along with many others had the flu. He did his best.

Criticism of his "performance" here is laughable from people that could not even have stepped onto the field.

How was your bowl "performance"?

TXAGBQ76 said:

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I have never heard anyone say Jackie just pulled players out of the stands. He "advertised" his desire to have non-scholarship players on a 12th Man Team and held a series of try outs to select the team.

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The Battalion February 17, 1983

I have not checked TexAgs recently but did so tonight and wanted to comment on some of the commentary about the 12th Man Kick Off team. These remarks are not new, and over time they seem to be repeated for some reason. I want to once again shed light on what really happened. First of all, anyone saying that I did not like or respect walk-on players has some agenda. I routinely praised them and their value to our team's performance. My son Shawn was actually a walk-on under Jackie and played on the 12th Man Kick Off team. The truth is that I always admired the 12th Man Kickoff team and the players on it. Many of them I still have contact with on a regular basis. I have always applauded Jackie on a brilliant idea in creating the team. I think it created a great buy-in by the 12th man student body and help create a great home atmosphere. I have told him this many times over the years. Soon after I took over, the NCAA rules makers decided that they wanted the kickoff to be a more exciting play so they moved the restraining line back 5 yards.Later, for the same reason, they moved it back another 5 yards This meant the kicks that were going into the end zone and in many cases, not returned, were now being returned almost every time. That, coupled with the fact that travel squad limitations imposed by the conference, meant that for away games, kicks had to be covered by scholarship players. So if we had two home games in a row and the 12th Man team covered in those games, when we went on the road, our scholarship team had not covered in a game in two weeks. The same thing happened when we were on the road for two weeks. When we came home the 12th Man had not been in a game in two weeks. That built in an inconsistency in our coverage. While I loved the 12 th Man concept, I did not think this was in the best interest of our team's success. With this in mind, I started a program where one of our non-scholarship players would represent the student body wearing the #12 at both home and away games. We had competition during the week to see who got this honor. I thought it worked well. I also might note that every coach (4) since me has followed this tradition and it has worked well. Now ,for "safety reasons", the NCAA has moved the kickoff line back up to have fewer kicks returned. They have actually debated eliminating the kickoff completely. In closing, I will never forget the exciting atmosphere created at Kyle Field when the 12th Man team covered or in those Cotton Bowl games. I have great respect for the contribution that these young men made in our history.