Razorback Bowden Wyatt

At the beginning of the season, the football experts sadly asked one another: "Would he win a game?" Deciding he might—with a little luck—win a couple, they picked Bowden Wyatt's Arkansas Razorbacks to finish sixth in the seven-team Southwest Conference. Last week the confused experts, after seeing the Hogs win seven in a row, finally saw him lose one. Nonetheless, many of them were ready to concede that Wyatt, in his second year as coach of a team which had won but ten games in the three previous seasons, was a logical and obvious enough choice to be 1954's Coach of the Year.

Bowden Wyatt is an efficient 38-year-old man who can credit the Razorbacks surprising rise to power in the Texas-dominated conference on the ability of his players if he chooses to. But those who know the score will give credit where it rightfully belongs: to Wyatt himself, a hibernating, reclusive coach whose every ounce of energy is dedicated to football.

From Loudon ( Tenn.) High School, Wyatt went to Tennessee where he became an All-America end under General Robert R. Neyland. After five years as assistant coach at Mississippi State, he took over at Wyoming, where the Cowboys soon won Skyline Conference titles and Bowl bids. Wyatt took over at Arkansas in January 1953, won three games that season before his system began paying off.

The key to the system: teamwork and harmony among players, his assistants and himself. "Bowden's philosophies on football," says his wife, "are his building blocks. They're his hobbies, his vacations and his Sunday nights. He gives his players everything he has and he keeps building."