The recent death of coach Emory Bellard, who died at 83 on February 10 after a battle with Lou Gehrig's disease, brought back memories of my childhood as a college football fan in the 1970s when the Wishbone was all the rage. Bellard is considered the founding father of the offense, although similar option attacks had existed for almost as long as the sport. Still, with the T dominating football in that era, Bellard's option attack certainly mixed things up while allowing him to became a successful head coach at Texas A&M and Mississippi State.
What is funny to think about is that the attack, created in the late 1960s while Bellard was an offensive assistant to head coach Darrell Royal (pictured with QB James Street) at Texas, was launched to take advantage of the Longhorns' depth at running back while helping to negate their disadvantage in size at the line. It is hard to think of Texas, or other powers to benefit from the use of the Wishbone soon after like Oklahoma and Alabama, to turn to the offense as a way to overcome a deficiency, but Texas then, like the service academies now, had plenty of tough, hard-nosed football players but little size. Just take a look at the roster of the 1969 national champion Longhorns, who road the new offense to an undefeated season. Only one player had a solid NFL career and that was back Jim Bertelsen. The Wishbone was a great equalizer on the national level for a team whose size resembles a good rugby or lacrosse program today. And that Texas title was just the beginning. Over an 11-year period teams operating some variation of the bone (Nebraska, Alabama, Oklahoma) won full national titles or shares of one seven times. That is heady stuff. And with that success and an eventual acceptance by these programs of black athletes (does UT change anything if Texas athletes like Bubba Smith were allowed to stay home?), plus the equalizing boost earned by PEDs, the athletes recruited by these programs were as big as anything recruited by the Big Ten or any other program from areas of the country that traditionally produced bigger athletes.
But that speaks to the great irony about the Wishbone. Except for Oklahoma and Houston, this offense was embraced by all-white teams as a way to compete nationally with teams that were more talented, like Michigan State, USC and Ohio State, thanks to having a few black players. And then when they were forced to integrate their programs, these teams remained good thanks to the success black players had with this offense. Thus the Wishbone, which began at first as a way for small all-white teams to compete for national titles, became a showcase for the black skill player. And so players like Johnny Rodgers and Joe Washington became superstars and the bigger backs they replaced, like Steve Owens, were no longer needed. But the one position that was finally integrated on a national level thanks to this offense was quarterback, where blacks rarely were allowed to play prior to the 1970s. Even in the beginning of the use of the wishbone, once everyone was integrated, the one skill position saved for white players was QB. This was done both for image issues, as programs with racist overtones felt they could not allow a black to play the premium position in all of sports (yes that's you Alabama!) and because many coaches did not believe that blacks could handle the decision-making needed to become effective at the position. But by the mid 1970s players like Thomas Lott of Oklahoma and Danny Davis of Houston proved that black QBs could lead teams with Southern players to double digit victories. And so an offense designed by a coach at an all-white school helped launch more equality in the locker room. Funny how things work.
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