Amateur Hour at Texas A&M when Bellard was fired. It was the usual including the complaining that motivated Bear to leave (or at least his complaints about the delusion of the alumni seem to suggest that was part of why he left.)

The straight T, Wishbone TBone whatever are formations. Schemes are what matter, Tbone , Wishbone or Veer schemes are all triple option. Pretty much same reads, minus freeze in Veer. A true T offense, straight (dead) T or WIng T are gap schemes. Down blocks/pin and pull. Two different worlds. Not really about back alignment. Emory was a triple guy, Wilson was in over his head.

frenchtoast said:

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Mid-season firings should be the norm with our resources.

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This

greg.w.h said:

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Amateur Hour at Texas A&M when Bellard was fired. It was the usual including the complaining that motivated Bear to leave (or at least his complaints about the delusion of the alumni seem to suggest that was part of why he left.)

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How about win at A&M like you did at Bama? Solves the complaining issue

We didn't fire Bellard. He quit in President Jarvis Miller's office after he heard from Miller that there was a movement afoot among the Board to fire him.

Raptor said:

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Check it out....the more you know.

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Anyone else read the article about inflation in Raptors article and not the one about Bellard? Well played Raptor. Well Played

MagnumLoad said:

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Baylor ran the hideout play for a long bomb TD on Kyle Field. i was screaming to get someone on him. Firing followed. Good coach and good man.

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Herkie Walls…

Bluecat_Aggie94 said:

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Carter was in the White House. It was a difficult time for everyone.

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By that logic we are going to fire jimbo

A board member was a customer of mine and a big cigar. I made a call on him right after Emory left and asked him what happened. He straight up said there is a disappointment with Emory because of the number of African American athletes he was bringing in.

Jimbo4win said:

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frenchtoast said:

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Mid-season firings should be the norm with our resources.

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This

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Is dumb…

Great stuff and great memories BostonAg. I remember it well during my fish year. It was electric as the recruits sawed varsity's horns off when the Band played the War Hymn. As I recall, there is a picture of it in our annual from that year. Ed Simonini was once interviewed and said it was when he decided that A&M was the place for him.

The '72 recruiting class has been the gold standard for A&M recruiting for years when measured by the number that were eventually drafted.

JustisWalkert said:

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Sterling82 said:

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To add to this, there were reports that Wilson was politicking alumni for the move and had Tate and Miller in his corner. The schism in the coaching staff started boiling over in the locker room and impacting the team. As is usually the case backstabbers don't end up producing what they promise and A&M football was in decline throughout Wilson's tenure. The firing of Bellard was a big setback for the program and certainly did not demonstrate the virtue of mid-season firings.

Not long ago I watched some highlight of the 73 Arkansas game. I was struck by how stodgy Bellard had let the offense become over the years. In 73 we would move the HBs into the slot and put backs in motion to get them into pass patterns. That had disappeared by 1977.

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Wilson went 6-5, 4-7, and 7-5 including an Independence Bowl win in his last three seasons. That equates to a 46% win percentage. Bellard went 74-27, or 64%, in his tenure. That includes losing seasons in his first two years. Wilson did open up the offense but never finished higher than 5th place in the SWC. Bellard finished tied for 2nd in 1974 and tied for 1st in 1975, his two best years.

But then came Jackie Sherrill

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I seem to recall that complex Wilson offense: Run-run-pass-punt…..run-run-pass- punt……rinse, lather, repeat all while Woodard rode the pine.

Boston Ag:
Rolf Krueger was not in that class as he had already graduated after playing for Stallings for 4 years.

And then we managed to run off Sherrill.

jeff1971 said:

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Boston Ag:
Rolf Krueger was not in that class as he had already graduated after playing for Stallings for 4 years.

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Yeah, I just corrected that. It was Kent Krueger. I knew better. Just a brain fart.

Kent Krueger is a name I don't remember

Jimbo4win said:

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greg.w.h said:

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Amateur Hour at Texas A&M when Bellard was fired. It was the usual including the complaining that motivated Bear to leave (or at least his complaints about the delusion of the alumni seem to suggest that was part of why he left.)

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How about win at A&M like you did at Bama? Solves the complaining issue

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How about A&M be less delusional??

I seem to recall that complex Wilson offense: Run-run-pass-punt…..run-run-pass- punt……rinse, lather, repeat all while Woodard rode the pine.

Please refresh my memory. Didn't Woodard sit out a year after the result of his broken/sprained ankle and gain a lot of weight?

Jimbo4win said:

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greg.w.h said:

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Amateur Hour at Texas A&M when Bellard was fired. It was the usual including the complaining that motivated Bear to leave (or at least his complaints about the delusion of the alumni seem to suggest that was part of why he left.)

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How about win at A&M like you did at Bama? Solves the complaining issue

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Bellard's teams won plenty. He built from ground zero to make A&M football a perennial contender. If the standard is that you have to win every game to not get fired, good luck with that.

jeff1971 said:

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Kent Krueger is a name I don't remember

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He was the youngest of the Kruegers, and I think the biggest, but his football career never materialized. His primary claim to fame was his last name, and great things were expected from him. About the only thing I remember about him was that he and a couple of other freshman offensive linemen got in trouble for running across one of the student parking lots by jumping from roof to roof one night. Thousands of dollars in damages, and if you saw some of the cars that students were driving back then, that would take lot of cars to reach those damage totals.

Slocum was run, run, incomplete pass, punt towards the end. Fran was incomplete pass, incomplete pass, 2 yard run, punt. Then he would scratch his head in confusion.

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But then came Jackie Sherrill

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Two things that Aggies seem to always screw up: Hiring coaches and firing coaches. Jackie's arrival was a result of A&M screwing up their first choice: Bo Schembechler of Michigan. It was a case where Schembechler was in a Brian Kelly situation: nearing the end of his career and looking for a nice retirement plan from somebody stupid enough to take the bait. Rumor has it that Bo was in motel room in College Station, preparing to be announced as the next head coach when Michigan finally came through with an offer he could live with. The Jackie deal came together soon after that but it was just another example of A&M's Big Cigars looking for the shiniest toy on the shelf. Who in their right mind ever thought that an aging Bo Schembechler would be a good fit at A&M? Probably the same folks who thought that Dennis Franchione would be the second coming of Bear Bryant. And who's to say that Jackie would even have made it to his pivotal fourth season if he had not flipped that third season from losing year to winning year by beating TCU and Texas in the final two games of 1984? Two games away from Aggies being Aggies and pulling the plug on another rebuild because they got impatient.

A&M had 14 years of mediocrity between Bear and Bellard with only one winning season.

Bellard improved results substantially and was a victim of rising expectations from his success. His last four seasons had some tremendous losses just when it appeared the team was turning a corner and heading towards a top tier status.

Leading up to Bellard:

• 68: 3-7
• 69: 3-7
• 70: 2-9
• 71: 5-6

Bellard's tenure:

• 72: 3-8
• 73: 5-6
• 74: 8-3
• 75: 10-2, Ags rose to #2 after beating Texas on Thanksgiving weekend to go 10-0 only to fall hard to Arkansas the next week and lose the bowl game.
• 76: 10-2, Ags were #9 before losing its first two conference games and were out of the SWC race early. By the end of the bowl season, Sporting News had Ags ranked #3. Things are looking up again.
• 77: 8-4, Ags rose to #5 before getting blown out by #3 Michigan, #1 Texas and #20 USC in bowl.
• 78: 4-2, Ags were #6 before losing two of first three conference games and are out of the SWC race early. Bellard resigns.

BostonAg74 said:

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Quote:

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But then came Jackie Sherrill

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Two things that Aggies seem to always screw up: Hiring coaches and firing coaches. Jackie's arrival was a result of A&M screwing up their first choice: Bo Schembechler of Michigan. It was a case where Schembechler was in a Brian Kelly situation: nearing the end of his career and looking for a nice retirement plan from somebody stupid enough to take the bait. Rumor has it that Bo was in motel room in College Station, preparing to be announced as the next head coach when Michigan finally came through with an offer he could live with. The Jackie deal came together soon after that but it was just another example of A&M's Big Cigars looking for the shiniest toy on the shelf. Who in their right mind ever thought that an aging Bo Schembechler would be a good fit at A&M? Probably the same folks who thought that Dennis Franchione would be the second coming of Bear Bryant. And who's to say that Jackie would even have made it to his pivotal fourth season if he had not flipped that third season from losing year to winning year by beating TCU and Texas in the final two games of 1984? Two games away from Aggies being Aggies and pulling the plug on another rebuild because they got impatient.

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Think there was a single cigar in the room in the Sherrill hire. Bum Bright.

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A&M had 14 years of mediocrity between Bear and Bellard with only one winning season.

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Don't you think that "mediocrity" is a pretty generous assessment for those years?

Would you prefer "not very good""

mediocre
adjective
[ol]

of only moderate quality; not very good.

[/ol]

TAMU74 said:

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SinKiller said:

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I was at 33-0...Houston Ags don't take kindly to being woodshedded by the Coogs. Just a gut-punch of a game.

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I was at that game and it was a humiliating defeat.
I'll never forget that late in the fourth quarter on third and long we were still running Woodard up the middle which had not been successful all night long.
Without looking at the schedule from that year I believe we lost the next weekend rather badly to Baylor as well.
I think it was after that game that Bellard quit.

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Damn, y'all are old AF. I'm actually a bit surprised y'all know how to use the internet. Good job learning technology!

As much as I enjoyed watching Bellard's teams when the bone clicked and the defense was super stout, I'd say his major weakness was that he was always good for at least one embarrassing non-competitive blowout loss each year, usually on TV, too.

1974: vs. Texas - 32 to 3
1975: vs. Arkansas - 31 to 6
1975: vs. USC - 20 to 0
1976: EXCEPTION - fairly competitive even in 2 losses
1977: vs. Michigan - 41 to 3
1977: vs. Texas - 57 to 28
1977: vs. USC - 47 to 28
1978: vs. Houston - 33 to 0
1978: vs. Baylor - 24 to 6

His strength became his curse, in that he really built up high expectations, especially in the student body.

I recall seeing around campus, after the Houston loss in 1978, signs and banners draped from the dorm windows saying things like:

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Give 'em Hell; Give 'em Hell; Hell, give 'em Bellard

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and,

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Make Emory a memory.

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I'm sure seeing that type of thing weighed on the man's heart, especially if he was also getting major heat from above.

And, one more personal thing I'll share:

Emory resigned in the afternoon. That evening his son, Emory Bellard, Jr. was in town on a recruiting visit and dinner for Republic Bank in Dallas. I was one of the invitees, although I didn't know who Republic had sent.

Before I went into the restaurant, I was listening to Houston sports guys on the radio discussing the Bellard story.

I left the car, walked into the restaurant, and a gentlemen was at the door greeting us as we arrived. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself, and he then said, 'Hi, I'm Emory Bellard, Jr'.

I damn near lost my voice. Even to this day, I can't help but think how unbelievably awkward it must have been for him to have been there that night.

FWIW, he told me he had gone by to see his dad that day and they had talked. That was about it.

Oh, I must not have made a very good impression on Republic Bank. I got a flush letter pretty quickly after that! I mean, who wants to hire a guy who can hardly talk?

BostonAg74 said:

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ontheway said:

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A board member was a customer of mine and a big cigar. I made a call on him right after Emory left and asked him what happened. He straight up said there is a disappointment with Emory because of the number of African American athletes he was bringing in.

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Actually, I had heard stories about Gene Stallings making "over my dead body" promises to the big cigars when it came to recruiting black athletes. To be honest, if it had not been for the success of Jerry LeVias at SMU, most of the SWC would have held on to that attitude for a lot longer than they did. Even with LeVias' big play heroics at SMU, their big donors were not happy with Hayden Fry for bringing him in. Darrell Royal also held the line on keeping his rosters lily white until after he won the national championship in 1969.

The big turning point for A&M football came at a basketball game in 1972, when Bellard hosted his first big recruiting weekend. At halftime, players were introduced, and the A&M crowd, being far more knowledgable about high school football than your average SWC crowd, went nuts as each player's high school accomplishments were detailed. One of the first players to be introduced was a cowboy hat wearing kid named Carl Warnke, who threw both arms up in an enthusiastic "Gig 'Em" as he walked out on the court. The crowd went absolutely crazy. Each player after that, including Ed Simonini, Bubba Bean, Garth ten Apel, Kent Krueger, Carl Roaches and at least a half dozen other top high school recruits, took their cue from Warnke and gave a thumbs up after their introduction, with the crowd reaction getting progressively louder and more insane.

Not surprisingly, the SWC met that Spring and passed a rule against such public introductions of recruits because it gave some schools "an unfair advantage".

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I very well remember that basketball game w/ the introductions.
Do you recall if Big George Woodard was in that intro as well?
I seem to think that he was.

a few notes...

the 1978 team started the season 4-0...and was ranked #6 when it traveled to the Astrodome to take on the #17 Coogs.

the aggie QB turned the ball over 4 times in the 1st half...and UH converted each one for points. Led 33-0 at halftime. That was also the final score.

the next week the 0-5 Baylor Bears came to Kyle and shocked the Ags 24-6. It was a humiliating defeat. Baylor finished 3-8 on the season.

if I remember correctly...once Wilson took over he moved Curtis Dickey to the I-formation --- where he should have been along. In the offseason Wilson won the recruiting battle for the St. Pius QB named Gary Kubiak. Not sure he would have ended up in Aggieland if the Ags were still running the wishbone

nm

W said:

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a few notes...

the 1978 team started the season 4-0...and was ranked #6 when it traveled to the Astrodome to take on the #17 Coogs.

the aggie QB turned the ball over 4 times in the 1st half...and UH converted each one for points. Led 33-0 at halftime. That was also the final score.

the next week the 0-5 Baylor Bears came to Kyle and shocked the Ags 24-6. It was a humiliating defeat. Baylor finished 3-8 on the season.

if I remember correctly...once Wilson took over he moved Curtis Dickey to the I-formation --- where he should have been along. In the offseason Wilson won the recruiting battle for the St. Pius QB named Gary Kubiak. Not sure he would have ended up in Aggieland if the Ags were still running the wishbone

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Dickey didn't do any more from the I than he did in the wishbone. The idea that the wishbone limits great running backs is ridiculous. Billy Sims and others would like a word.

Whaler said:

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I remember a lot of controversy surrounding the Wishbone offense Bellard ran. A lot of people thought opposing defenses had figured out how to stop it.

Of course Bellard "invented" the Wishbone offense while he was an assistant at tu. (Although Bill Yeoman claimed Bellard basically copied Yeoman's Veer offense, which Yeoman invented by accident by virtue of a missed hand-off to the fullback by Danny Davis and Davis' successful run around the end -- but that's another story).

Anyway, A LOT of A&M folks we're fed up with A&M's Wishbone offense, and people believed Bellard would never open up the offense with passing. I think maybe our O-line just wasn't as good that year as it'd been... Oklahoma continued to run the Wishbone successfully for a few more years, IIFC.

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Bellard invented the wishbone at t.u. in the 60's. Danny Davis didn't play at UH until the mid to late 70's.