http://www.usfdons.com/hof.aspx?hof=267&path=&kiosk=

Quote: Considered the best college team in the country, the Don eleven, which included African-Americans Ollie Matson and Burl Toler, did not participate in post-season play. At the time, when an integrated college football team was uncommon, a bowl bid was denied due to racial prejudice. According to sportscaster Ira Blue, the Orange, Sugar and Gator bowls chose not to invite any integrated teams. While it was suggested that a bid might be forthcoming if the team played without Matson and Toler, in true USF character, this close-knit team decided to stay home.

They would be considered D1 in football at the time. I am wondering at the time when there are integration of schools? Which ones do not get ranked and get bowl bids because they had African-American players on the teams? This shows one case of how good a team was back then. Plus, you could see that any D1 HBCUs never invited to any of the bowl games. If the schools with black players ever get invited to big bowl games? We could see some of these schools still have football today like University of San Francisco. I see a similar pattern here with the conferences like Big 10, PAC 12 and ACC ignore schools who would help their conference out, but the schools do not have the academics like the big boys.

Buffalo faced the same situation in the 1950's and made the same decision.

(05-15-2016 04:28 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  This shows one case of how good a team was back then. Plus, you could see that any D1 HBCUs never invited to any of the bowl games. If the schools with black players ever get invited to big bowl games?

There were no Division I HBCU's until 1970.

(05-15-2016 04:28 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Considered the best college team in the country, the Don eleven, which included African-Americans Ollie Matson and Burl Toler, did not participate in post-season play.

There is exaggeration here: Nobody considered the Dons to be the "best college team in the country". They never rose higher than #13 in either the AP or Coaches polls, and finished #14 in both.

That's probably because their schedule was soft. They played only one "Power" conference team, PAC member Idaho. They beat them 28-7, but Idaho was a lousy 2-7 team that year. All the other opponents save for Fordham were very weak west coast teams. At least two of them were the equivalent of I-AA teams. They played a bad San Jose State team twice for some reason. Only two of their opponents had winning records, and those teams were 6-5 and 5-4 respectively.

5-4 Fordham was easily the best team they played, and while they won on the road in New York, the score was 32-26, not exactly impressive. An 8-2 Holy Cross team that finished #19 in the AP poll beat Fordham by 35 points.

Nevertheless, their story is a fascinating one, and has resonance today as a lot of their struggle wasn't racial in nature, rather it was trying to get recognized in the face of the political dominance of the PCC (PAC 8). They had tried to schedule local PAC powers like Cal and Stanford but were rebuffed, and that lack of power status hurt their bowl campaign as well.

Here's an excellent book on the team, I read it a few years back:

http://www.amazon.com/Undefeated-Untied-...1580001076