Decades ago, the Southeastern Conference did not have teams like South Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas A%M. South Carolina was an independent, Missouri was in the old now defunct Big 8. The Razorbacks and the Aggies were in the old Southwest Conference which is equally out of business.
The 1969 season began with 5 ranked SEC teams with Georgia ranked 8th and Ole Miss at 9th. Alabama came in at 13th, Tennessee at 15th and Auburn 20th.
LSU and Florida were unranked. Then, there were the usual suspects of the era in Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Kentucky who were traditionally bad.
Georgia was the highest rated team of the conference going in based off of their 1968 team which finished 8-1-2 and first in the SEC.
The Bulldogs started the 1969 season off with a bang with a 35-0 whipping of Tulane and then a 30-0 equally convincing win over Clemson. They followed those wins up with another impressive beating of South Carolina, 41-16 to drop to the 6th spot in the polls.
But, then, they lost to unranked Ole Miss, 17-25. They dropped to 14th in the polls, but that didn’t
slow them down on the field with big wins over Vanderbilt and Kentucky, 40-8 and 30-0 respectively.
However, their world fell apart after that and after standing 5-1, they wouldn’t win another game all year long.
The Tennessee Vols were ranked 3rd and they beat the Bulldogs 3-17. After tying 13th ranked Florida, 13 all, they lost to 11th ranked Auburn, 3-16. It’s always a bad season for the Dogs when they lose to in state rivals, Georgia Tech, and the Yellowjackets shut down Georgia 0-6.
The now unranked 5-4-1 Georgia Bulldogs who once had a promising season were invited to the Sun Bowl where they were crushed by 14th ranked Nebraska who was about to make a splash on the national scene, 6-45.
At the beginning of the season, the Ole Miss Rebels were ranked 9th. Led by legendary coach Johnny Vaught and some incredible young junior quarterback by the name of Archie Manning.
The Rebels started off their season hosting nearby Memphis and laid a solid whipping on them, 28-3. But, a very strange thing happened next. The now 8th ranked Rebels lost to lowly Kentucky by a single point, 9-10.
Supposedly, the Rebels held back against Kentucky thinking they could beat the Wildcats easily enough. With Alabama looming ahead, the Rebels were not focusing on the task at hand and it cost them a loss. The win was one of only two for the Kentucky Wildcats.
Focusing on Alabama would backfire on the Rebels. The now 20th ranked Rebels had to travel to Birmingham, Alabama to take on the 15th ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in what would be one of the best games of the 1969 season. Alabama came out with an exciting 33-32 win. I wrote about that game here. Ole Miss vs Alabama
A once promising season had been ruined with the Rebels losing two straight and at 1-2, they had fallen out of the polls. But, they still had a legend at quarterback in Archie Manning and they wouldn’t stay down long.
The following week, 6th ranked Georgia came to Oxford, Mississippi to take on the Rebels and Ole Miss stunned everyone and beat the Bulldogs, 25-17.
Back in the polls at 19th, the Rebels thrashed Southern Mississippi, 69-7, but this was not the day of Brett Favre at Southern Miss. Ole Miss worked their way back into the top 20 partly by the greatness of folk hero Archie Manning.
However, just as soon as they were back in, they were stunned by the unranked University of
Houston. Having Houston unranked was the result of the Cougars losing their first two games, but after their early stumbles they finished the year with 9 straight wins including a convincing 36-7 win over Auburn in the Bluebonnet Bowl.
Ole Miss was an unimpressive 3-3 after the shocking loss, but don’t forget they had a legend in Archie. There’s a reason he’s thought of as half man, half super hero in the state of Mississippi. He was actually one of the first early super stars that I remember from this decade.
They weren’t going to get a break with 8th ranked LSU up next on their schedule. But, the up and down Rebels did it again with a surprising 26-23 win over the Tigers in Jackson, Mississippi.
They were back in the polls at 17th and whipped Chattanooga 21-0, before the state’s best team was next up and again played in Jackson, the state’s capital. Tennessee was the 3rd ranked team in the country and had been dominant in the 1960’s, but this game was a stunner.
It was called the Jackson Massacre with Ole Miss just destroying Tennessee, 38-0. Massacre
Ole Miss crushed rival Mississippi State in their Egg Bowl game, 48-22. Then, for some reason, the Sugar Bowl took Ole Miss and matched them up with the 3rd ranked Arkansas Razorbacks. The Hogs were coming off a humiliating one point loss to top ranked Texas and they lost another when Ole Miss stunned them, 27-22.
The Archie Manning led Ole Miss Rebels finished off a hot and cold season with an 8-3 record.
The legendary Bear Bryant’s Alabama Crimson Tide started off the season with the 13th ranking. The Tide had junior quarterback Scott Hunter and sophomore running back Johnny Musso leading them and they started the season off with a close win over Virginia Tech. After butchering Southern Miss, 63-14, they met up with Ole Miss at Legion Field in Birmingham. The Tide came out with the win and things were looking good at 3-0.
But, then the bottom dropped on their season with an awful and rare loss to Vanderbilt. Their annual rivalry game with Tennessee was next and the Volunteers just walloped the Crimson Tide, 14-41.
The rest of the Crimson Tide’s season was hit and miss. They did beat Clemson and Mississippi State next, but then lost to 12th ranked LSU. They bounced back and crushed a really bad Miami, 42-6, to improve their record to 6-3.
The Iron Bowl and 12th ranked Auburn was next. Their bitter rivals, the War Eagles, just rolled the Tide and it was ugly. Auburn won, 26-49, leaving Alabama with a 6-4 record.
But, it got worse with another loss, this one coming in the Liberty Bowl against Colorado. Bear
Bryant’s teams had some rare mediocre seasons in the late 1960’s and in 1970.
The Volunteers of Tennessee were something of a major force in the 1960s under head coach Doug Dickey. They finished with a 9-2 record in 1967 and some even considered them national champs. They followed with 8-2-1 in 1968 and were ranked 15th at the beginning of the 1969 season. They had interesting players such as Hacksaw Jim Reynolds, the Swamp Rat Dewey Warren and a hurdler that was called the Fastest White Guy Alive, Richmond Flowers.
The Vols had a warm up game with nearby Chattanooga and won easily, 31-0. But, the poll voters seemed to take exception to that and punished them by placing them at 19th.
At 1-0 and ranked 19th, Tennessee took on 17th ranked Auburn and beat them, 45-19. Now, that impressed the pollsters, as it should have. The Volunteers were suddenly ranked 10th in the nation. They brutalized Memphis and Georgia Tech, before dispensing with Alabama.
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Tennessee then faced their 3rd ranked team of the season with 11th ranked Georgia and the Vols prevailed, 17-3, in Athens. The ACC’s South Carolina was up next and Tennessee beat them, 29-14.
The nation’s 18th ranked team was up next, Ole Miss. No problem, right? Tennessee was ranked 3rd and was unbeaten with a 7-0 record and Ole Miss was little threat, right?
In what had to be the biggest shocker of the season, so far, Ole Miss and Archie Manning rose up and destroyed any chances Tennessee had at a national title in 1969. In what would become known as the Jackson Massacre, Ole Miss just ruined Tennessee, 0-38.
Did Tennessee fold? Maybe a little bit, they did beat Kentucky the following week. But, the Wildcats were terrible and it was a close win for Tennessee. The Vols followed up that close win with another too close for comfort victory over in state rival, Vanderbilt. Tennessee got the win, but it wasn’t pretty at 40-27.
Now ranked 11th, the Volunteers were invited to the Gator Bowl where they took on inner conference rival, Florida. The Gators were ranked 15th and came away with a hard fought 13-14 win.
Even though Tennessee had a good season, they were disappointed with the way it ended.
Strangely, Tennessee head coach left Tennessee to head to Florida right after this game. But, he never had the same kind of success in Gainesville that he had in Knoxville.
The Auburn Tigers were the other ranked team in the SEC when the season began at 20th. Auburn was led by future Heisman Trophy winner Pat Sullivan at quarterback and future All America Terry Beasley at wide receiver. They were members of a good sophomore class at Auburn which was coached by legend Ralph ‘Shug’ Jordan. The Auburn Tigers had won a national title in 1958 under Shug Jordan, but the Tigers had been up and down throughout the 1960’s.
The 20th ranked Tigers started 1969 off on the right foot by beating the stuffing out of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, 57-0. What kind of a name is the Demon Deacons, anyway? Creepy.
That win impressed the voters and the Tigers were dropped to 17th just in time to be devastated by the Tennessee Vols, 19-45. The Tigers dropped out of the polls for a week until they whipped the wimpy Wildcats of Kentucky, 44-3. Back in at the 20th spot, Auburn then tamed the Tigers of Clemson, 51-0, to drop to 15th.
They beat Georgia Tech, 17-14, but then lost the following week to 9th ranked LSU, by a single point. But, there was no keeping Auburn down. The following week, they beat the 7th ranked Florida Gators, 38-12.
Auburn was then 5-2 and ranked 11th in the country and it was a good season nationally with Ohio State running wild with their Super Sophomores from 1968 and Texas with it’s new Wishbone offense. USC was unbeaten out West and Arkansas was fighting for a title as well. Penn State hadn’t lost a game in two years and many said they didn’t play anyone, but they did beat the Big 8 champion in the Orange Bowl.
Auburn crushed Mississippi State next, 52-13. Scoring over 50 points back in the 1960s was quite an accomplishment proving that Auburn had quite the offense with Pat Sullivan at quarterback. Offenses did not run a fast tempo back then, which is something to remember when comparing with today’s modern wide open offenses.
Next up for the 6-2 Tigers was their second biggest rival, Georgia. The Tigers improved to 7-2 with a solid 16-3 win over the 16th ranked Bulldogs.
The Tigers just ran all over the Crimson Tide in the Iron Bowl, 49-26.
An invitation to the Bluebonnett Bowl in Houston did not go so well for the Auburn Tigers, with the Houston Cougars beating them down, 7-36. Houston was a tough team back in those years running their Houston Veer which was hard to stop.
Auburn completed their 1969 season with an 8-3 record.
By the time unranked LSU trounced Texas A%M and Rice of the old SWC, they entered the polls at 16th. As if beating the Aggies, 35-6, and Rice, 42-0, wasn’t impressive enough, the Tigers then obliterated another SWC team, Baylor, 63-8. All of those teams were bad in 1969, but that was still impressive enough for the voters to rank LSU 14th in the latest poll.
Traveling to Miami was next for the Bayou Tigers and they beat the Hurricanes, 20-0. The team that started the season unranked, was now 9th in the country, and beating Kentucky was no problem at all. But, the true tests lay ahead of them and they had played a ridiculously easy schedule so far.
At 5-0, 14th ranked Auburn was their first true challenge of the season. The Tigers passed the test, but by the skin of their teeth with a 21-20 win in Baton Rouge.
Ole Miss was 3-3 and not ranked when they met up with LSU in Jackson, Mississippi. Although unranked, the Rebels still had the legendary Archie Manning and they took down the unbeaten Tigers, 23-26.
LSU also beat Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide, 20-15 to improve to 7-1 on their season.
The Bulldogs of Mississippi State had been beaten by the Houston Cougars, 74-0, so LSU’s 61-6
beating of the Dogs shouldn’t have been a shock. But, it improved the Tigers to 8-1 with only in state rival Tulane remaining. This wasn’t a good Tulane team and LSU beat them easily, 27-0.
Here’s where LSU’s season got strange. They believed they belonged in the Cotton Bowl to play Texas for the national championship. They were ranked 10th, so it’s a little strange that they believed they should have been in the Cotton Bowl over 9th ranked Notre Dame. They were invited to other bowls, but they declined and stayed home for the holidays. Bad Blood
The LSU Tigers had a young, do everything sophomore by the name of Tommy Casanova that was a three time All American. His claim to fame was on defense, at safety, but he also returned punts and kicks as well as played some at running back and wide receiver.
The Florida Gators started the very same season unranked, but quickly took care of that problem by upsetting 7th ranked Houston, 59-34. Defenses?
Florida found itself ranked 12th when they beat Mississippi State, 47-35. They didn’t have much problem with pre Bobby Bowden Florida State, before barely squeaking by a bad Tulane by a single point.
After clubbing North Carolina, 52-2, and then Vanderbilt, 41-20, the Gators dropped all the way to 7th in the polls. But, then, Auburn whipped them at Auburn, 12-38 and they tied Georgia 13-13.
They bounced back with wins over Kentucky and Miami and finished their season 8-1-1.
Back in those days, people weren’t concerned about conference standings and the Gators were invited to the Gator Bowl, how ironic. Their opponent was the SEC’s very own 11th ranked Tennessee Volunteers. The Gators won the game to finish up 9-1-1 and to add insult to injury, they stole the Vols coach right after. Doug Dickey was a Florida alum, so he went home. But, he never had the same kind of success at Florida as he enjoyed at Tennessee.
Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Mississippi State were the bottom dwellers in 1969. However, the Commodores finished ahead of Alabama in the standings this season because they beat the Crimson Tide.
In the final poll, Ole Miss finished 8th, while LSU finished 10th. Florida was 14th and Tennessee right behind at 15th. Auburn also finished ranked at 20th. Five out of ten SEC teams finished ranked in the polls, but not really a true challenge for a national title.
The SEC only had 4 consensus All Americans in 1969 with wide receiver Carlos Alvarez of Florida, offensive guard Chip Kelly of Tennessee, Linebacker Steve Kiner also of Tennessee and defensive back Buddy McClinton of Auburn.
Congratulations if you made it this far in this blog. This is ancient history now, but the kind of topic that I love. Like today, Alabama was about to rise up and become a threat in the national title picture every season, but it was another year away.