(06-01-2020 09:46 AM)Zorch Wrote: Saw this article in the RTD today about the big Tribe football upset of Navy in 1967. It will probably be "paywall" to many of you but perhaps the Moderator can cut-and-paste it into the thread. If not, PM me and I will send it to you in a return PM.
Also, not mentioned in this article, but which I have read before in other articles (probably 25-30 years ago, now) is this great quote by Dan Henning (who was playing football for the Tribe then and who was at the game): Noting the many statues and murals depicting great and heroic Marine Corps and Navy battles of the past (such as Guadalcanal, Tripoli, Midway, etc) that lined the approach road to the stadium, Henning remarked "Boy, these guys really do play a tough schedule".
https://www.richmond.com/sports/college/...2dc82.html
Sports Memories: William & Mary upsets Navy in 1967
By Jerry Lindquist Richmond Times-Dispatch (Oct. 22, 1967) By Shelley Rolfe Richmond Times-Dispatch (Oct. 23, 1967) Jun 1, 2020
Major college sports seem to be the focus of most memories, and one of my most enduring memories is William & Mary’s stunning football upset of Navy 27-16 in the fall of 1967 — at the time and for many years thereafter considered one of the 10 or 20 biggest college football upsets of all time.
Navy was ranked No. 1 in the East and was celebrating its annual homecoming, and W&M was not ranked. W&M won because of several outstanding plays, one of which was a surprise recovered W&M kickoff. W&M was coached by Marv Levy and had benefited that season by the addition of some players from George Washington University, who had transferred when GWU eliminated football before the season.
What also is memorable was the large crowd of students and others who met the team bus late that night outside old Blow Gymnasium.
— Steve Row
William & Mary football pulled off one of the great football upsets on Oct. 21, 1967, when it defeated the Naval Academy 27-14. Ranked sixth nationally and No. 1 in the East, the Midshipmen were seen as a sure-shot winner against the overmatched Indians.
The coaching staff was headed by future Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy. Many of the assistants on that staff would go on to NFL coaching jobs. Two sophomores on that team were Jimmy Cavanaugh — later a great assistant coach at a number of colleges including a long, successful career at Virginia Tech, and Jimmye Laycock — who would become the Tribe’s most successful football coach over a 39-year career.
— Drew Bright, W&M Class of ’70
The director of alumni affairs at the College of William & Mary asked me, a student there, if I wanted to go with him to the William & Mary football game in Annapolis.
For the U.S. Naval Academy, it was another routine homecoming game -most were victories against William & Mary. This would be no different. The Indians, the athletic nickname then, were massive underdogs.
It was Oct. 21, 1967, and Navy was ranked No. 1 in the East with a 3-1 record, while lowly W&M was 2-4. We got to the stadium amid all the color and pomp of a homecoming. I’m not sure, but I think our seats were on the 10-yard line, not choice seats.
Navy got off to an immediate lead, and we were surrounded by cheering alumni, most clad in blue. Navy led the Indians 16-0 early in the third quarter. Then everything changed. We could start cheering.
The Indians scored three touchdowns in the last 16 minutes of the game, and the ultimate victory became coach Marv Levy’s greatest collegiate win. It was the most exciting victory I ever saw in my more than 55 years of watching W&M football.
ANNAPOLIS — Homecoming at the Naval Academy traditionally has meant funny hats, equally funny slogans, and a victory over William and Mary. Saturday something was missing.
The old grads turned out en masse to celebrate another Navy win over its annual patsy, and instead watched William and Mary shake off a quarter century of frustration.
A three-touchdown barrage in the final quarter brought the Tribe from behind for a 27-16 decision. It was W&M’s first win over Navy since 1942.
Down 16-0 midway through the third quarter, William and Mary struck back on the passing of Dan Darragh, scoring four touchdowns within 14 minutes to scuttle a team that had been labeled best in the East.
A Darragh to Steve Slotnick pass play that covered 51 yards shoved the Indians in front with 3:05 to go, and when Terry Morton drove two yards into the end zone less than a minute and a half later to provide the clincher, a stunned crowd of 19,542 began moving towards the exits. Navy had been a 21-point favorite.
For more than 40 minutes, Navy seemed to have matters well in hand. William and Mary’s most serious scoring bid had been a thrust that reached the Middie 36 late in the first half, and when Rick Bayer swiped a Darragh pass for the second time and returned it 48 yards for a touchdown 9:41 into the third period, the rest seemed highly predictable.
But it wasn’t.
Darragh, a 6-3, 190-pound senior quarterback, suddenly found the right combination. Navy-Marine Corps Stadium here is ringed with reminders, signs recalling naval successes of the past, but for the moment all the heroics belonged to Darragh.
In less than six minutes, he directed a 69-yard drive for six points, hitting split end Jim Cavanaugh for 20 yards along the way, then going the final yard himself after a pass interference penalty against Navy in the end zone.
In the fourth, W&M was 53 yards away from snapping what had grown into a 12-game losing streak to Navy. They tied in 1953.
Fullback Joe Pilch gained two yards to the W&M 49, and then Darragh gambled with a play that backfired earlier. Slotnick had been the intended receiver when Bayer intercepted and went unmolested down the right sideline for a touchdown. Slotnick, elevated to first-team chores last week, has the option of going to the sideline or faking to the sideline and going deep.
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The first time they tried it, Slotnick, a 5-8, 164-pound senior from Irwin, Pa., went for the sideline. Bayer went for the ball. This time he went for the sideline, then turned downfield. Defender Scott McDaniel went for the fake, and Darragh lofted a perfect pass that Slotnick grabbed on the Navy 16 without breaking stride and dashed into the end zone.
It was William and Mary’s longest play of the year, and quite likely the most satisfying. The second most satisfying came on the ensuing kickoff. Buchanan’s kick fell short, just over Navy’s front line and just in front of Terry Murray.
Murray swooped in to pick up the ball, and it squirted away. Jeff Lund pounced on it for the Tribe on the Navy 20. Darragh hit Slotnick on a third-and-five situation for a first down on the six, and two plays later Morton applied the crusher.
The victory was William and Mary’s third straight, fourth in seven starts overall, and came after a bizarre start in which Navy had a two-point edge after eight seconds of play.
The game’s opening kickoff jumped through Chip Young’s hands on the goal line. He ran back to retrieve the ball, started to run out of the end zone, then stopped and went down on one knee as a Navy defender delivered a flying tackle.
An official’s flag flew to the ground, and after a short conference, Navy was awarded a safety. Clipping had been called against the Indians in the end zone.
‘Never Been Prouder,’ Says Indians’ Levy: Marv Levy, the William and Mary football coach, has never left the impression he is an emotional guy. Late Saturday afternoon he was.
Somehow the cheering abated long enough in the W&M dressing room for Levy to deliver his regular post-game message. What do you say to a team that has upset a 21-point favorite, a team that you had not beaten in 25 years?
Levy’s voice cracked, the words sputtered out in rapid succession. He was highly emotional, he even cried.
“I’ve never been prouder of a team in my life. You came back and beat the best in the East.” (Someone shouted, “Second-best in the East now.”)
“If you’ve ever wondered why you put in all those hours, why you work that hard, sweat that much, you should know now. I’ll never forget you,” Levy stammered.
Adin Brown, the Tribe’s co-captain, had the game ball. It had been William and Mary, 27-16, over Navy, and Brown called for silence again. Someone always gets the game ball after a victory.
“No doubt about it, here coach,” Brown said, and flipped it across the room to Levy. More cheering.
The place was bedlam, and Dan Darragh, who directed the upset, held court. The pass that covered 51 yards to Steve Slotnick — it put W&M ahead — was called at the line of scrimmage. It was an audible.
“Their linebackers showed a blitz was coming, so I called a sprint-out pass,” Darragh said. He threw and prayed. “Oh man, I said, ‘catch it, catch it, catch it,” he recalled as Slotnick did and scored.
Augie Tammariello, a W&M assistant coach, seemed in a state of shock as he entered the dressing room. “What’s the matter coach?” a player asked. “You don’t look happy.”
“I’m too shocked,” Tammariello said.
Later, Tammariello had recovered, somewhat anyway. “I think we wanted to beat them more. I don’t think they believed we could beat them,” was the way he summed it up.
Bill Elias, the Navy coach, put it another way. “We weren’t playing with our hearts,” he said.
Monday Morning Quarterback
Marv Levy, the William and Mary football coach, is a Phi Beta Kappa, holds a master’s degree in history from Harvard and is naturally a very articulate man. But yesterday Levy described himself as “a little incoherent.”
An upset? N-o-o. Rather the result of one, W&M’s second in as many weeks. A week ago the Indians invaded the Midwest and cut down Ohio University, 25-22.
Saturday the site of operations was Annapolis, the victim Navy, the score, 27-16. The victory was W&M’s first over the Middies in a quarter of a century and clearly there has to be agreement when Levy calls it more a stirring form reversal than the Ohio U. win.
There may be some understandable urge to call what W&M accomplished Saturday “incredible,” but perhaps a brake should be applied to impulses. The thing is, “incredible” should not be thrown around promiscuously. The word, for example, probably should not be employed more than once a week.
Frankly there is some doubt whether this week it is more applicable to the W&M game or Virginia’s 24-23 loss to South Carolina. Perhaps Virginia and W&M people will want to submit the issue to an arbitration board.
W&M rallied from a 16-0, third-quarter deficit. Thinking of how it had been when it was 0-16, Levy said yesterday, “Oh boy, if there ever was a time when I was ready to give up, that was it. I’m glad the boys didn’t feel that way.”
Yesterday was a quiet day for Levy. W&M is not scheduled Saturday and there was no rush to watch game movies or hold coaching staff meetings. The slow-paced day gave Levy “the luxury of savoring the win.”
The slow pace was welcome, too, as contrast to Saturday. It hadn’t only been hectic in Annapolis. When the Indians returned to Williamsburg Saturday night they were met by a large, demonstrative, welcoming delegation. Navy had been leader in the race for the Lambert Trophy, which goes at season’s end to the East’s No. 1 team. Levy was presented with a aluminum-wrapped cardboard replica of the Lambert Trophy. Students chanted, “We’re No. 1 in the East.”