Wednesday, December 30, 2015

What's On TV Tonight (1969)?

It's the second-annual Peach Bowl on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 1969 ...


Thank you for this fantastic, fantastic movie, YouTube user James Schrumpf, who writes, "It's 1969, and Oh. My. God is it 1969. The hair! The clothes! Lester Maddox? ... sit back and enjoy some good WVU football, and don't miss the short speech at the end by their new head coach -- Bobby Bowden."

33 comments:

  1. "This is it. This is the payoff. All the hard work, sweat and tears of a tough football season at West Virginia University will culminate in Atlanta, Georgia, home of the second-annual Peach Bowl."

    Real me saw some great movies in 2015, but I enjoyed none of them any more than I did this 28-minute thing produced by the WVU athletics department after the 1969 football season.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope the family of the pilot who flew the team down to Atlanta at the start of the picture got together and watched this thing on a big flat screen on Christmas evening this year and enjoyed seeing Grandpa again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's Lester Maddox on the hood of the car in the Peach Bowl parade. We are on track to see Gov. Maddox again about a year from now on Dick Cavett's new show.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Among the Mountaineers who are out doing some after-Christmas-sales, window shopping for shoes along Peachtree Street include Carl Crennel, an eventual two-time CFL champion with the Montreal Alouettes and younger brother of ex-Fort Knox (Kentucky) High and WKU star Romeo Crennel.

    ReplyDelete
  5. OK, back to Monongalia County for a bit to tour the WVU campus ... the Mountainlair looks fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This place opened in 1968. It's fun to think about Romeo Crennel visiting his baby brother at WVU and maybe going bowling with him at the Mountainlair, and then, two years later, Romeo's back on campus at WKU as a graduate-assistant coach with the football team, and Downing University Center opens with pretty much the same decor.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That's Jim Braxton on the phone in the dorm at WVU. I freaking loved Jim Braxton. I loved his football cards with the Bills; I was thrilled when he finished his career with the Dolphins, and I was genuinely sad when he died in 1986. I think quite a bit how the world might've been different and better had he lived longer. Rest in peace, Jim Braxton.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I had no idea that Jim Braxton was a kicker until seeing this movie.

    I freaking loved Jim Braxton. Loved him.

    ReplyDelete
  9. When I lived in the East, one of my favorite ways to drive back to western Kentucky when I wasn't in any sort of hurry was through McDowell County on U.S. 52.

    ReplyDelete
  10. West Virginia had already accepted the Peach Bowl invitation when it went to Syracuse for its final game of the regular season. At frigid Archbold Stadium, the Mountaineers fell behind, 10-0, at the half ...

    ReplyDelete
  11. West Virginia ended up winning, 13-10, scoring touchdowns on a fourth-and-goal pass and then a long run by Braxton after a lateral from the quarterback several yards beyond scrimmage.

    ReplyDelete
  12. South Carolina came into the game with just a 6-4 record, but all six of the victories had come in the Gamecocks' six Atlantic Coast Conference games. That easily won the ACC. (Second-place North Carolina State went 3-6-1 overall but 3-2-1 in the conference.)

    West Virginia introduced a wishbone formation in the Peach Bowl, and that puts a third running back, Eddie Williams, into the starting lineup along with Braxton and Gresham for the first time all season. The ploy worked--Williams ran for 208 yards on 35 carries and earned offensive MVP for the game.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The Mountaineers jumped ahead, 7-0, on a Gresham run with 9:24 to go in the first quarter (as seen on the Grant Field scoreboard filmed here). South Carolina closed to within, 7-3, in the second quarter, and then neither team scored in the third.

    ReplyDelete
  14. In the final moments, Braxton closes out the scoring with a touchdown run to produce the 14-3 margin.

    ReplyDelete
  15. And that'll do it for Jim Carlen at West Virginia. He's moving on to head coach at Texas Tech, and West Virginia is going to promote one of his assistant coaches, Bobby Bowden, to the top job.

    ReplyDelete
  16. So, in the bowls involving ranked teams so far, we've had:

    -- No. 14 Nebraska beat Georgia, 14-6, in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 20;

    -- No. 20 Toledo beat Davidson, the Southern Conference champion, 56-33, in the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 26, and

    -- No. 15 Florida beat No. 11 Tennessee, 14-13, in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, on Dec. 27.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Replies
    1. This is one of the most Tennessee stories of all time.

      Delete
  18. The Vols still ended up as Southeastern Conference champion, but then came the loss in the Gator Bowl, in which Tennessee was stopped at the Florida 1 late in the game with the opportunity to win. Again, (indispensable) Wikipedia: "The game, which marked the Gator Bowl's silver anniversary had added drama because two days before kickoff word leaked out that Volunteers head coach Doug Dickey, the SEC Coach of the Year, would return to Florida, his alma mater, after the game.

    ReplyDelete
  19. That leaves the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, No. 12 Auburn vs. No. 17 Houston, tomorrow, Dec. 31, 1969, in Houston and then the four big New Year's games:

    -- No. 1 Texas vs. No. 9 Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas,

    -- No. 2 Penn State vs. No. 6 Missouri in the Orange Bowl in Miami,

    -- No. 13 Mississippi vs. No. 3 Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and

    -- No. 5 Southern California vs. No. 7 Michigan in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Three Top 10 teams failed to qualify for bowls: No. 4 Ohio State, No. 8 Louisiana State and No. 10 California-Los Angeles.

    ReplyDelete