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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


The Way It Used To Be

College football coaching legends share their experiences on the gridiron before laptops, charter jets and mega-million dollar facilities
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If there is one constant, it is that there are no constants. Over time, everything changes and nothing remains quite the same. Never is this more evident than in the profession of coaching college football.

American Football Monthly recently sat down with a few of the game’s greatest coaches for a peek inside the ever-changing world of college football. From their first job to their last, their first championship season to their first losing season, AFM has captured it all – in their words. Men like Eddie Robinson, Tom Osborne, Barry Switzer, Spike Dykes and Gene Stallings have provided AFM with an exclusive journey down memory lane. Maybe you can’t walk in their shoes, but perhaps you can at least try them on. Over the course of the next few months, AFM will feature several of these “firsts” in each issue. So sit back and enjoy the game of football “the way it used to be.”


Rivalries ...

John H. Vaught (Mississippi, 1947-1970; 1973)
“First, you think of the coaches. Wherever Bear Bryant was. Then there were coaches like Bob Neyland at Tennessee, Charlie McClendon at LSU, and Frank Broyles at Arkansas. Our people wanted to beat LSU. We had a great victory over Tennessee (43-13) in Memphis my first year as head coach. General Neyland had never lost to the University of Mississippi before I came here. I’m telling you, he didn’t like that at all. We beat him again the next year (16-13), also in Memphis. We played most of the games in Memphis. They (Tennessee) were glad to get us in Memphis, because it was a home state game for them. They didn’t realize that it was really a home game for us. We were pretty popular in Memphis at that time. We finally beat them in Knoxville in 1960, but Neyland wasn’t the coach. He was the athletic director then and Bowden Wyatt was the head coach. Neyland used what we called the Wide Tackle 6 defense against everybody, no matter what offense you used. I just knew the Wide Tackle 6 defense couldn’t stop the offense we were operating with. I convinced our players that we had about two or three plays we could run and would option at the line of scrimmage and go where the weakness was. We were able to move the ball pretty well against them. He quit playing us.

“LSU was always a big rivalry. We basically played the ball game down there almost every year. We didn’t have to do that, but I, personally, chose to do that. Getting half of the gate receipts had a lot to do with it. I also knew we could beat them.”

NOTE: During the Vaught era, Ole Miss played LSU in Baton Rouge 16 of 20 meetings, with three in Oxford and one in New Orleans (1960 Sugar Bowl). More from Coach Vaught in upcoming issues of AFM.

Recruiting ...

Don Nehlen (West Virginia, 1980-2000)
“In 1983, we were recruiting both Major Harris and Browning Nagle at quarterback for West Virginia. We had a home appointment at Browning Nagle’s house at 7 p.m. in Pinellas Park (outside of Tampa) which was where he lived. John ‘Doc’ Holiday, who was my assistant coach and who recruited the State of Florida, and I were in Miami and we got fouled up with the airplane. I can’t remember now, but I think it was due to weather. Anyway it delayed our flight by about two hours. So when we landed in Tampa, it’s now 7 p.m. ... so, we get Browning on the phone and apologize for the delay and, of course, he says it’s no big deal and that his parents were home and whenever we got there would be fine.

“I told Doc, ‘Doc, there is no sense in us renting a car and trying to find this place, let’s just get a taxi so we are not two hours late – after all, an hour and a half is bad enough.’ Now, Doc agreed to get a taxi even though he admitted that he had been there before and had a pretty good idea as to the location. So, we got in the taxi and started on our way.

After a few minutes, Doc tells the cab driver to take a left ... we go a little more and Doc tells the cab driver to take a right ... and then all of the sudden we are on a dead-end dirt road. Well, all of the sudden the taxi driver stops the car and puts his arms in the air and says, ‘Are you damn guys gonna rob me?’

“Doc and I are sitting in back seat of this taxi cab with the driver’s hands in the air and we just start laughing.

I said I am really sorry and explained to him what we were trying to do. Anyway, he was from Pittsburgh, which is close to Morgantown, and when I told him who I was he said, ‘Oh my gosh, you are Coach Nehlen.’ I told him that we sure weren’t gonna rob him.

“We finally get to Browning’s house about an hour and a half later. I told the cab driver that we would be done in about an hour. Well, he said he would be back for us and then he took off with all of our bags in the car.

“He came back and we got Browning!”

NOTE: West Virginia successfully recruited both Major Harris and Browning Nagle. Nagle later transferred to Louisville before becoming a first-round draft choice by the New York Jets. Coach Nehlen coached Nagle his senior year at the East-West Shrine game.
More from Coach Nehlen in upcoming issues of AFM.






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