So It Has Come To Pass

This is the season when even ordinarily conservative, defense-minded coaches rediscover the forward pass. If they don't use it more themselves, it certainly will be used against them with greater frequency than in years. The reason lies not in a desire to live more recklessly on Saturday afternoons, but in the columns of statistics that pour out of the NCAA office. The digits add up to an inescapable conclusion: defenses have caught up to the wishbone.

Last year pass completion percentage rose to 47.44% nationwide, the alltime high. Passes attempted and passing yardage also shot up, while rushing attempts and rushing yardage dropped—a synchronism that had not occurred since 1966. What's more, yards per rush, the main measure of rushing efficiency and a figure that increased each season from 1967 to 1975, fell dramatically in 1976. Clearly what is developing is another cycle in the evolution of football. As the 5-2 defense annihilated the straight T and the roving linebacker choked off the wing T, new defenses are catching up with run-dominated offenses, particularly the wishbone.

Invented in 1952 by a junior high school coach in Fort Worth, the wishbone was first used in a college football game in 1968 when Texas turned it loose on Houston on national television. What the nation saw that day was a deceptive attack whereby, in some unholy manner, the quarterback could select a ballcarrier long after a play began to develop. The landmark game ended in a 20-20 tie, but Texas quickly ironed out the wrinkles and went on to win nine straight, including the Cotton Bowl. Houston polished its attack, too—something called the veer, which amounted to a wishbone with an extra pass receiver instead of a running back—and rang up 562 yards a game that year, then an NCAA record. Soon wishbones and veers were proliferating. Oklahoma adopted the wishbone in 1970, and the next year the Sooners fine-tuned it to gain 566.5 yards a game, a record that still stands. As one bedraggled Sooner opponent put it, "Trying to stop the wishbone is like trying to stop a leak in a worn-out pipe. You plug up one spot and it opens up somewhere else."

But suddenly last season the wishbone began to be less effective. Florida Quarterback Terry LeCount explains what happened from his vantage point in the driver's seat. The Gator system calls for the quarterback to make four "reads" as he shuffles along the line of scrimmage. "I'd read one, two, three and four, and they'd all be covered," LeCount says. "So I'd turn the corner, and there still would be three guys waiting for me." The Texas-Oklahoma game, an intense interstate rivalry that produced an average of 51 points a game from 1968 to 1973, ended in a 6-6 tie last season. But most indicative of all the statistics was that for the first time in a decade not one wishbone team ranked in the Top Ten in offense at the end of last season.

"Naturally a shift in balance comes along every so often." says Alabama's offensive coordinator, Mai Moore. "When you run the ball as often as we do in the wishbone, passing evolves because teams begin stacking defenses. When they stress the run, they become vulnerable to the pass. You take what they give you."

National champion Pittsburgh certainly took what it was given, despite the presence of Heisman Trophy winner Tony Dorsett. Against Duke, Dorsett was held to 40 yards rushing, largely because the Blue Devils had stationed what seemed to be their entire College of Arts enrollment on the defensive line. But Panther Quarterback Matt Cavanaugh began lofting passes over the eight- or nine-man front, four of them for touchdowns in a 44-31 Pitt win. In the Sugar Bowl, Georgia alternated eight-and nine-man lines to collar Dorsett, limiting him to 34 yards in his first 14 carries. Again Cavanaugh took to the air, hitting two passes to set up one touchdown and connecting on a 59-yard scoring pass for a lead Georgia never overcame. Oklahoma threw just four passes in victories over Kansas State and Missouri, but facing Nebraska with a share of the Big Eight title at stake, Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer unreeled a halfback option pass and a flea-flicker. The two passes were instrumental in a 79-yard march and the game-winning touchdown. "I felt intuitively we ought to hump it up out there," Switzer said.

"When you look at offense as a totality, your first fundamental has to be a running game that is solid and powerful," says USC Coach John Robinson. "But in many of the big games passing is so often the difference."

It is a philosophy Robinson may well have acquired by witnessing recent Rose Bowls. Since 1968 the Pac-8, with its pass-oriented attack, has won eight of 10 against the often favored, run-oriented Big Ten. Last year USC upset Michigan primarily because the Trojans overplayed against the run to stop the Wolverine ground game, especially in the first half. Though his offense was going nowhere, Michigan Quarterback Rick Leach tried only four passes during those 30 minutes of play. In the end USC had held Michigan to 155 yards rushing, 207 yards below the Wolverine average, and to six points, 32 under the Wolverine average.

If you don't believe passing is making a comeback, listen to the coaches: "We're strong believers in passing. We feel it's safer than our pitchouts."—New Mexico's Bill Canty.

"The defenses eventually catch up, and that's what's happening now. You'll see an increase in passing all over the country."—Georgia's Bill Dooley.