The 1979 USC football team had some kind of talent … and some regret
The topic of best college team of all-time will always stir debate. 2001 Miami? 1995 Nebraska? 1972 USC? 1971 Cornhuskers? 2019 LSU?
There is no such debate, though, when it comes to the subject of the most talented team of all-time. And it didn’t win the national title.
The 1979 USC Trojans, with a nucleus that was back from a 1978 squad that shared the national title with an Alabama team it had beat soundly in Birmingham that season, were a collection of talent unlike any other.
As loaded as some of college football’s greatest champions were, they didn’t have the number of all-time greats that the 1979 USC team had. Among those Trojans are four Pro Football Hall of Famers: Anthony Munoz, Ronnie Lott, Marcus Allen and Bruce Matthews. Seven of their teammates also played in Pro Bowls during their NFL careers: Dennis Smith, Joey Browner, Chip Banks, Don Mosebar, Roy Foster, Hoby Brenner and Charles White. Three others helped teams win Super Bowls: Keith Van Horne and Jeff Fisher with the 1985 Bears and Riki Ellison with three 49ers teams.
By comparison, the stacked 2001 Miami Hurricanes roster combined to appear in 46 Pro Bowls. John Robinson’s 1979 team collectively played in 64 Pro Bowls. USC’s offensive line alone combined for 30 Pro Bowls. The two starting running backs both won Heisman trophies.
John Robinson, USC head coach: It was all coaching. They really weren’t worth a shit till I got hold of ’em. (Laughing)
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Ronnie Lott, USC safety: That whole staff that Coach Robinson had was outstanding. Each one of those coaches went on to do some really amazing things. Our offensive line coach, Hudson Houck, was probably one of the greatest offensive line coaches in all of football, period. He went to coach the Dallas Cowboys. Norv Turner is one of the best offensive minds ever. The staff really complemented the talent.
Anthony Munoz, USC offensive tackle: Hudson was so on the cutting edge of what he was teaching us. We were using our hands at USC, punching with the hands. We played Alabama at home my sophomore year, we got a few illegal use of hands penalties because when you have a split crew they weren’t used to seeing us coming out and punching with the hands and extending. That’s when all of that was starting.
Keith Van Horne, USC offensive tackle: Hudson Houck is the whole reason I was able to start in college and made it in the pros. He is the best football coach I’ve ever had in my life.
Hudson Houck, USC offensive line coach: It was so much fun coaching because we had a great head coach. John Robinson let you coach. I think I worked with him for 16 years (between stints with USC and the Rams). I was best man in one of his weddings. We could talk and argue, and at the end of the day no one was upset at anybody.
Norv Turner, USC wide receivers coach: George Seifert was the secondary coach at Oregon and had recruited me. John was the offensive coordinator. I was the third-team quarterback. Dan Fouts was the starter. In 1971, they fired that staff. Coach went to USC as an assistant on John McKay’s staff and then to the Raiders for a year before he got the SC job. I had been a GA at Oregon and he hired me to come to USC.
He stressed to the players that we’re gonna go good against good on a daily basis. That’s how we’re gonna get better. That was the first thing he talked about in meetings.
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Robinson: Norv and I would sneak into old Mac Court and throw at targets. He was such a student of football. Only thing was, he couldn’t pass the ball very good. I wanted him as a coach. I knew he’d be really good. Our defensive line coach, Marv Goux, was an original John McKay guy. He was the emotional leader. He was much like Ed Orgeron. He was such a great off-the-field guy. He’d take guys into the office. He’d either scream at ’em or hug them.
Houck: I played for Marv when he was the O-line coach at USC. He drove the players hard, but they absolutely loved him.
Turner: John Jackson might’ve been the best running backs coach I was ever involved with. He and Coach Robinson made Marcus (Allen) their project. He wasn’t a high school running back. He learned to be a good blocker. In his junior year, they got him to widen his base because some of those running things were not natural to him. It was a great example of a great athlete learning a new position, where he’d be cutting to the left and cutting off the wrong foot and he’d lose some balance. They’d have guys throw bags at their legs while cutting. Coach had like nine million drills.
Scott Tinsley, USC quarterback: Everything was first class with Coach Robinson. He was a great motivator. He really knew how to handle people.
Van Horne: John Robinson was the best head coach I ever had. He knew when to be tough on you. He would hold you accountable and he also knew when to let you loose too. He let his coaches coach.
Recruiting in the 1970s was dramatically different than it is these days. There were no camps, no combines and no five-star ratings.
Houck: First, you called all of the high school coaches, “Who do you have that we should look at?” Now you have your list. You’d have to go down there and pick up all the film. I would go to every high school down there who you thought had a player. We’d take a projector down, pick up the film, go back to the hotel and watch all of the film on the wall in my hotel, then take it back to the head coach the next day and then go to another school.
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Munoz: I knew I was gonna stay in LA. I was a big USC fan. So, when (John) McKay started recruiting me, it was a pretty done deal. All they had to do was offer me. In that whole process, McKay leaves for Tampa Bay so UCLA was kinda in the mix mainly because a lot of my friends were taking trips there. I ended up taking a trip to UCLA. But then Dick Vermeil went to the Eagles and (Terry) Donahue was hired. As soon as USC showed a lot of interest, I turned down all the other interest. Even though football was probably my ticket out, baseball was still my first love. So your recruiting pitch has to be that I’m there on a football scholarship but I can play baseball. USC had a track record of letting guys do that. They said no problem. The protocol was you had to go through your first spring and then if you make the baseball team, you can play the rest of the time and don’t have to go through spring practice.
It got pretty crazy. I’d walk out of basketball practice and there’d be a guy jogging around the track in a UCLA sweatsuit, and it was a coach. I’ll never forget. It was a Tuesday night and we were getting ready to play one of our conference rivals. Signing day was Wednesday. I’m in there getting taped. My trainer, Homer Thompson, comes down and goes, “Moon, I just want to warn you. Don’t be surprised when you go out to warm up, on the far end there’s about 15 Bruins and on the left end there’s about 15 Trojans.” I was like, what? Sure enough, John Robinson was on one side with about 15 players and Terry Donahue was on the other side with 15 of his players. They were making a last-ditch effort.
Lott: Anthony was an incredible athlete. I played against him in football, basketball and baseball where he was a pitcher and played third base. Guys would try to bunt on him but he was so athletic, he was like a much larger Brooks Robinson.
Munoz: My mom raised five by herself, and she really had no clue what was going on. She knew that I could go to school and get it paid for, but she really didn’t see the recruiting process. It was me handling the whole process. My year coming out was the first year coming out where you could only take five visits. Prior to that guys were going, You gotta go to Boulder even if you don’t want to go to school there! You gotta go to ASU! My whole thing was, I know I’m not going there, so why take a trip and eliminate a trip from somebody else who might want to go there?
Robinson: Ronnie was a big recruit for us. He was a high character guy. Dad was in the military. It took Ronnie a while to make the decision to come to USC. UCLA recruited him very hard.
Lott: I was a big John Wooden fan. I wanted to go there just because of him. I wanted to go play football and thought maybe I could make the basketball team as well. Terry Donahue said, “We don’t play freshmen.” I said, “What?” He said, “Yeah, we don’t play freshmen.” I came home and told my dad. I talked to Coach Robinson, “Would you play freshmen?” He said, “This is about competition. If you can compete, we’ll give you a shot.” Sometimes in life, somebody can say a couple of words and those words really resonate with you and those words become the inspiration of your journey.
Ronnie Lott was a multi-sport star who became a Hall of Famer in the sport that earned his long-term focus. Collegiate Images via Getty Images
Munoz: Ronnie Lott and I competed for two years in high school. We were in the same conference. I competed against him in football, basketball and baseball. I knew what kind of athlete he was. He was a QB/DB, a point guard and a shortstop. I don’t think I ever threw him a fastball because he couldn’t hit a curve, but he could hit a fastball. I wasn’t surprised with the type of player he became. He took two rings from me in the pros.
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Turner: I went with (former USC DB coach) Bob Toledo to watch Ronnie play basketball his senior year. If that was one of your guys, you were gonna be there at every Tuesday and every Friday night game. They were gonna know you were there. You were gonna bump into their parents. Ronnie couldn’t shoot, but he was big, strong and unbelievably fast. He was the most tenacious defensive player you’ve ever seen on a basketball court. He ended up playing one season with the Trojans basketball team.
Houck: I recruited Marcus Allen out of San Diego. That was a really hard one because everyone in the whole country was trying to get him. It came down to us and Oklahoma, and Barry Switzer was basically living in the home. He was there all the time. I basically was down there Thursday nights and Friday nights. I knew his family. I watched all his games. Was at his house a considerable amount of time. I don’t know whether it was legal or not legal.
Marcus was a quarterback and a strong safety-linebacker. We brought him to play defense. I saw him in a playoff game and he scored five TDs. Was just a man an among boys. My first night down there, to see him play in a basketball game, I had a van that was full of my clothes because I was gonna stay down there a week to look at players. It was an afternoon game. I sat with his parents.
After the game, I walk outside. Everything had been stolen out of my van. Red Allen, Marcus’ dad, says, “Get in my car. I can help get your stuff.” He was pretty well-connected down there. I think we went to every bar in San Diego. In the meantime, I’m recruiting his dad, so it turned out to be a bonus. At 1 in the morning we said we’d better give up. We can’t find it. That really cemented a real good relationship with Marcus’ dad. I had a very good relationship with the family. When it was all said and done, Marcus said, “Oh, yeah, I was always gonna go to USC.” I said, “Hey dude, why didn’t you tell me?”
Van Horne: I was no high-profile recruit. We had 14 guys on our high school team and we probably won 14 games in four years. Hudson Houck was recruiting from Stanford when he was coaching there and saw me playing basketball, which was my favorite sport. I got some letters from Gonzaga for basketball before they were really good.
Houck: He had great length and was a good athlete. Whenever I went to watch him play basketball, he fouled out of almost every game, so I’m thinking, this is our kinda guy.
Van Horne: Hudson called me after he got hired at USC. I drove from my house down to the school. Ray Zoller, a defensive lineman from Fullerton, hosted me. We went to see Bowie at the Forum. That kind of sold me. UCLA was recruiting me as a tight end, which is what I played in high school. I was 6-7 and my senior year I was 225. I was a tight end for three days at USC. Hudson comes to me, “You’re a tackle now.”
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Paul McDonald, USC quarterback: (Trojans QB coach) Paul Hackett sat in my living room. He didn’t say a lot. He took out a piece of paper and drew five circles. He wrote down the height and weight of the names next to those circles. I remember it was Brad Budde who was 6-5, 265. Anthony Munoz who was 6-6, 280. Keith Van Horne and he wrote down 6-7, 245. I said, “OK, I’m coming.”
Munoz: Brad Budde came in as a true freshman and started and became the first true freshman linemen to start since World War II. He looked like he was coming from an NFL camp to tutor and help us. Brad had that intensity and work ethic. We roomed together as freshmen. He really knew what it meant how to prepare. He left a big impression on me. There was no jealousy. I knew we had an opportunity to be special all four years.
Brad Budde, USC offensive guard: The first thing I think of when I think of Anthony is he has this big, welcoming, beautiful smile. Anthony’s presence is second to none. He just captivates you with the joy he has.
Houck: We knew Anthony was a great athlete. He was a pitcher at that size, but you wanted to see how he was gonna react to other good players.
Robinson: I think it was the first day in practice when Anthony was a freshman. We had this stud defensive lineman Gary Jeter (who became a top-five overall draft pick the next year), and he was kind of arrogant. I’m thinking, OK, Anthony Munoz, we’re gonna welcome you to college football.
Munoz: As a 17-year-old freshman, I came in as a Parade All-American. You’re not full of yourself, but you’re feeling pretty confident, but all of a sudden you get there and there’s 20-30 Parade All-Americans. It was one of the first days. John stopped the practice. Everybody’s like, What’s going on? He circles us up. Everybody circles around him. He calls Gary Jeter out. I’m thinking, oh my goodness, he’s calling the senior out. Then he calls me out. After my heart hit the ground and he got it back up, he said, “Alright, here we go.” OK, this is what I came to USC for.
All I remember was, I got into a stance and my right foot was going from side to side. I came off low, uncoiled into his chest and I drove him about five yards on his back.
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McDonald: He pancaked him. Jeter was a badass, a very chiseled guy. Moon was just super strong, especially in the lower part of his body. He completely surprised Jeter and hammered him. The place went nuts. At that point everybody thought, Whoa, this guy is really good.
Budde: Everyone was expecting the senior to dominate the young pup offensive lineman. Anthony was so gifted with hip flexibility. He moved like a ballet dancer. He got under Gary and drove him back 15 yards. Gary gets up and just offered a handshake and says, “I’m glad you’re a Trojan.”
Munoz: After I got over that excitement, I realized this is camp and I gotta go against this guy every day in practice. That’s what made me better. And hopefully, I made him better. It wasn’t easy, but it made Saturdays easier. I would look over on our defense every day and there’s No. 79 Gary Jeter, (first-round pick in 1977) David Lewis and (future Pro Bowler) Rod Martin were our outside linebackers, (future first-rounder) Clay Matthews at inside linebacker and (Playboy All-American) Butch Underwood at nose tackle.
Houck: I remember one of our players came at Anthony in a half-speed drill. The defensive guy embarrassed Munoz, knocking him backwards. Munoz said, “Hey, let’s do that again.” The guy came around, Munoz lifted him up and threw him on the ground and broke his arm. That was the end of that.
Anthony Munoz’s physical feats, such as this pancake block against Texas Tech, were the talk of the team. USC / Collegiate Images via Getty Images
Riki (Gray) Ellison, USC linebacker: Not even when I went to the NFL was anything like our practices at USC. They were the most violent. I lived for Tuesday full-contact run drill.
In the mid-’70s, USC amassed a ridiculous amount of big, freaky athletes. The starting secondary was huge with Lott at 6-0, 205, Dennis Smith at 6-3, 200, Joey Browner at one corner at 6-3, 210 and Jeff Fisher, the smallest one at 5-11, 190, at the other corner.
Lott: When Dennis Smith was a sophomore the track coach said, “Why don’t you come out and see if you could high jump? We could use some points (in the track meet).” Two days before the Pac-10 track championships, Dennis comes out and practiced. He ends up winning the conference high jump title.
Turner: We had this long, competitive morning practice, and as soon as it was over, he went to UCLA and jumped 7-2 and his points won the meet. Every day on the field, he and Ronnie competed on who could be the most physical guy.
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Lott: Marcus (Allen) came in a corner and was there for just a short time. If he stayed there (at DB), he’d have been in the (NFL All-Time) Top 100. That would’ve been a given. He may have been even more athletic than even Dennis or myself.
Roy Foster, USC offensive guard: Because of Ronnie, we had to shut some of the drills down in practice. Coach would just take him out. He was so disruptive.
Turner: We had a tight end, James Hunter, a basketball player out of Santa Barbara, who was an outstanding athlete and a terrific blocker. He was all-conference kind of talent. We’re playing Alabama in 1978 and he took (All-American) E.J. Junior 10 yards off the line and put him on his back, but he separated his shoulder on the play on a 40-yard run. Hoby Brenner, who at 6-5 played tailback and safety in high school, then steps in, and he became an all-conference player.
Ellison: Chip Banks coming off the corner was unblockable. He was like a Lawrence Taylor.
Lott: He went right into the NFL and won defensive rookie of the year.
Houck: He would fit in right now today. Had such good reach and was a tremendous athlete.
Ellison: (Future first-rounders) Bruce Matthews and Don Mosebar were on the scout team. That’s how you get great.
Foster: They get guys from all over the country. I assume everybody’s blue-chip or close to it. I was so naïve. You would not believe it. I probably was a fullback for an hour at USC. I thought I’d be scoring touchdowns. I weighed 260 coming out of high school.
Houck: I had to go to the room to ask Roy, “Hey, we’re thinking you have a much better chance to play if you become our guard. Look, you can eat all you want.” Roy said, “Oh God, I don’t know whether I can play that position.” I said, “Trust me, you’re gonna be a really good football player.”
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Foster: I actually tried to quit a few times. I was frustrated. I didn’t like football at all. I was homesick. The school kind of intimidated me. I was gone. I took my knapsack and I was standing on the corner of Jefferson and Figueroa. I was gonna go apply for a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s. I was envisioning free Quarter Pounders. Calvin Sweeney, who was a senior receiver on the team, grabbed me coming from class. He asked what was going on and I told him, “I’m done.”
He counseled me right there. “Man, they got plans for you. You’re gonna be an All-American.” He changed my mind. I don’t even know if the coaches got wind of it. Before long, I was starting.
The biggest freak on the USC team might have been their smallest star, tailback Charles White. He ran for more than 2,000 yards in 12 games in 1979 and won the Heisman. White was so gifted that Marcus Allen played fullback that season.
Lott: The only guy who I have ever seen who played and ran as hard as Charlie White is Jerry Rice. Charlie was one of the best high school 400-meter runners in the country. He could run all day long. He only had 2 percent body fat. He was lean. He was strong. I’ve seen a lot of great backs, but his commitment to winning and raising the level of intensity was remarkable. You’d sit there on your helmet in the fourth quarter and just say, “Let’s watch the show!”
Robinson: I think Charlie should’ve been a Navy Seal. He had a complete lack of fear.
Charles White’s 2,050 rushing yards in 1979 still ranks third all-time in the Pac-12 Conference. The Sporting News via Getty Images
USC’s M.O. was a punishing style of football that became synonymous with its staple play — 28 pitch/29 pitch — aka Student Body Right and Student Body Left. But the Trojans’ run game was a lot more than that.
Houck: That was pretty much folklore. I was looking the other day at our playbook, and it was pretty comprehensive. We were a little more exotic than John McKay, who I played for. We had an off-tackle left, and off-tackle right. We had a trap right, trap left. We had crack plays where you came on down, cracked and pulled guards. We had a variety of plays to take advantage of a defense.
Student Body Right and Student Body Left were similar (to the Green Bay Packers’ sweep), but ours was basically from an I-formation, and in the NFL they had split backs. We had a crack down, a crack down, a kick out and run the seam, as Lombardi would say. And as soon as they started overplaying that, then we had the weakside play. And then if they opened up the middle, we had the traps up the middle. Then we had a blast play, which was really just a power play where we doubled and led through with a fullback. If they wanted to put somebody else in the defensive front then we threw the ball. It was pretty much what we did. Too many people in the box? We throw. Not enough people in the box, we ran the ball. That’s really what the NFL is doing now, but they just do it by different formations.
The Trojans went 12-1 in 1978, a season that included a 24-14 beatdown of No. 1 Alabama on the road. White ran all over the Tide for 199 yards. After the game, Bear Bryant acknowledged the final score “could have been worse.” Three weeks later, USC lost to unranked Arizona State on the road after a myriad of fumbled exchanges and ended up splitting the national title with Alabama.
Munoz: That was a farce. We were robbed on that.
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Van Horne: Obviously, ASU played a good game. We had lost our starting center and had gotten down to our fourth center. We had to bring a couple of defensive guys over who played center in high school. I don’t know how many exchanges we fumbled that day.
The 1979 season got off to a brutal start on the road at Texas Tech. USC had no trouble handling the Red Raiders, 21-7, but Munoz, who had already had to overcome two other major knee injuries, went down again with another knee injury on the Trojans’ second series of the season.
Budde: Anthony never really got to shine. He got hurt so much and he was so talented. When he went down at Texas Tech, none of us could even look at him because they didn’t know what to say to him. You just felt so sorry for him.
Munoz: My first thought was that I knew exactly what had happened because I had gone through two previously — once in a practice for UCLA and the second time was in the Cal game at the Coliseum. This one I had to fly all the way back from Lubbock. Even though they hadn’t done an MRI, you knew what it is because you had felt that excruciating pain before. I kept thinking, Well, the doc has done a phenomenal job with the first two, I’m not gonna doubt he’ll do it again. It’s just up to me. If I want to bust my rear end to come back, I will. I hadn’t played in a Rose Bowl yet. That was a lot of motivation to get back after that knee operation. I knew we’d go back to the Rose Bowl. And guys like Charles White, Paul McDonald, Brad Budde that I had come in with, I wanted to play in a Rose Bowl with those guys before I left.
Robinson: You didn’t just come back from an ACL injury back then. It was a year (recovery). He said, “Hey, I coming back for the Rose Bowl.”
Munoz: As soon as I got out of the hospital, my wife Dede — we had got married in my sophomore year — thought I was a little crazy. We had a little one bedroom. The day after I got back from the hospital, I was jumping rope in our apartment and I turned up the stove to get it hot to get a good sweat. I did that at night time. I would tell her I’m gonna play. Not even a week after the injury. I’d tell my guys, “Keep winning, I’m gonna join you guys.” I became the official spatter with my little spray can before games. (True freshman) Don Mosebar took over for me and he did a phenomenal job.
Houck: He was a real technician in there.
Turner: Mosebar played at a really high level. Then, the practice before the UCLA game, there’s a pile of bodies and he got hit in the knee and he hurts his knee. Another true freshman, Bruce Matthews, was scheduled to redshirt and play guard, so we put him in at left tackle and he starts.
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Robinson: He was such a solid player. I don’t think (Matthews) said four words in four years. Wherever we needed him, he jumped in there. The first we timed him I think he ran 5.9 (40). We were worried. Hudson said, “Don’t worry about this guy. He’s gonna be fine. He was right.”
Houck: He was an extremely smart guy, very hard-nosed, and had really good balance.
Budde: We’d be out at practice and Anthony would always be playing that song, “Ain’t No Stoppin Us Now,” and you would hear him jog around the practice field and it would get louder and louder.
Mike Shanahan, former University of Minnesota offensive coordinator: We had just put in the run-and-shoot, Mouse Davis offense. We did some pretty good things on offense. We played good against Ohio State and had like 400 yards at halftime on them. I thought we might have a chance (against USC) but then I turned on their film and thought otherwise. We got behind so quick, you think, this was really about just surviving and not losing half our team for the rest of the season. Dennis Smith was just so long and he hit so hard, and Ronnie Lott was exactly the same way and so powerful. I joked with Jeff Fisher years later, how the hell did you get on that football team?
In late September, No. 1 USC went back to SEC country to face No. 20 LSU in Tiger Stadium in a wild atmosphere. The Trojans had to rally to win 17-12.
Robinson: We got off the plane there were 1,000 people yelling “Tiger Bait!” at us.
Budde: We would always go to a movie the night before a game. The movie ends and you could hear this mumbling from outside the theater. All of a sudden, the doors open up, and it’s all these LSU fans chanting “TIGER BAIT! TIGER BAIT!”
McDonald: At our walk-through on Friday, there were like 5,000 people from LSU there for it, yelling at us, spitting at us. It was pretty crazy. I was exhausted the night before the game. I needed a good sleep. I asked the trainer, Can you give me a sleeping pill and half of a muscle relaxer? I didn’t really wake up till the second quarter. It knocked me out. I was so lethargic. Before the game, I was in the training room, getting taped. “What you’d give me? Don’t ever do that again.”
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Ellison: A lot of guys ate gumbo for the first time. We’d never seen gumbo. It was addicting. Must’ve been at least a half dozen had trouble digesting it that night, with some of our guys being sick. That (win) was a galvanizer for us. When you go through adversity like that, playing in that pressure environment with everything going in their direction. To win there, like that, we took great pride in that.
USC was so talented and so deep that it had the ability to leave future NFL first-rounders on its scout team. Getty Images
The Trojans returned to Southern California and whipped Washington State 50-21 before unranked Stanford visited the Coliseum.
Rod Gilmore, Stanford cornerback: I had watched them wallop us for years. I was a redshirt freshman. There was no reason for us to expect to go down there and win. There’s a certain amount of freedom when you’re a huge underdog to just go play. We had a really young team. That was John Elway’s freshman year. It was a big game for John going back home. He had turned down USC.
When we opened practice that year, he was fourth on the depth chart, and right after that two other quarterbacks transferred out. In his first team practice, John threw the ball so hard that he broke two of the receivers’ fingers. All of our fans wanted more Elway. The deal was Turk Schonert was the starter and John would get the second quarter, and if John was hot, he would get more playing time. If not, Turk would start the second half and John would get a series or two.
Turner: We got up 21-0 and we just let them get going.
Gilmore: I had a pick right before halftime where I should’ve scored but I didn’t trust my speed. I tried to juke a guy or two. We trudged into the locker room down 21-0. But in the second half, we started shutting down Charles White and we didn’t worry about their passing attack.
Lott: We didn’t know how to finish the game. They had this all-world quarterback John Elway and they bring in Turk Schonert and he brought them back. What he did to our defense was pretty simple. He kept the chains moving by completing passes. We could not stop them. He was really accurate and was smart with the ball. He wasn’t trying to make the big play. He was just making the right play. He changed the tempo of the game and by doing that, he changed everything.
Gilmore: One play really stands out that turned the game around for us. It was 21-14. We stopped them and we drove down and had a fourth-and-1 where (Stanford running back) Mike Dotterer fumbled, it bounced back into his hands and he completely reversed field and still managed to pick up the first down.
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Mike Dotterer, former Stanford running back: I grew up hoping to go to USC. I was all set to go to Harvard but in the spring of 1979, Darrin Nelson, who was one of the greatest running backs in Stanford history, tore his hamstring off the bone while long jumping for the track team. So in June, Jim Fassel, who was the running backs coach, was told go get some running backs out of Orange County. He walked right on our (high school) campus and said, “Let’s go to lunch. We need you. You can play as a freshman and you can play baseball for us too.”
What’s amazing about that play is, we were gonna run Student Body Left. I believe I saw Ronnie Lott and Dennis Smith coming off the corner. I took my eye off the pitch and fumbled it. It took a miraculous bounce back to me. I get it and I just can’t fall down. I reversed field. It’s a total broken play. I’m 10 yards deep into the backfield. I’m running around out of sheer fear. But I planted my foot and got the first down.
Two plays later, Stanford scored on a Schonert run to tie the score at 21-21. The Trojans drove back down the field in the final minute of the game and set up for a 39-yard field goal with three seconds remaining. However, USC’s holder was unable to get the ball down clean, and Stanford blocked the kick.
Gilmore: We liked to say we beat USC, 21-21. That was the statement. We certainly felt like it was a win.
Scott Tinsley, USC quarterback and holder: I mishandled the snap. I was just crushed. I screwed up. It was one of those things you take for granted. I’d held forever.
Robinson: We were just so ready for Elway and then when Turk Schonert came in, he just killed us. We got back in a soft defense. Turk running for first downs. We blew it.
Tinsley: The guys could’ve really berated me. They were great. When I talked to Coach Robinson, I said, “Coach, I don’t know what to tell you.” He said, “I would do it again in a minute with you.” He was awesome. He was always awesome.
Lott: Did it feel like a loss? It was a loss. That game was a loss in so many ways. If we didn’t tie, we win the national championship. They counted it as a loss. Man, it was devastating.
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McDonald: After the tie, we watched the film on Sunday. After the players left, it’s Hackett and me in the auditorium. I was yelling and screaming at him, “What are we doing as a coaching staff, as an offense?! We have all of these weapons. We need to use them!”
I think we threw 13 times. We ran the ball at will. In the second half, we shut it down and we didn’t execute the way we were capable of. We had some 3-and-outs. We had no flow. We had no rhythm in our passing game. They were a very basic defense. They ran their zone very well. They weren’t gonna give you big plays down the field.
The next week we played Notre Dame in South Bend. Early in the game, we were backed up at our 5-yard line with a 3rd and 6. I’d say 99.9 percent of the time, we would’ve ran a running play. Instead, Hackett signals the play in, and it’s a pass play — “65 Irish” a new play for the Notre Dame game. It’s a drop-back pass, not even a play-action pass. I’m walking into the huddle thinking, Oh, he was listening to me last Sunday when I was yelling and screaming. My second thought was, You’d better complete this. I threw for over 300 yards that day and we won 42-23.
The Trojans trounced UCLA 49-14 in November and had one more chance to make a statement in the Rose Bowl. Lennox McClendon / Associated Press
After blowing out No. 9 Notre Dame on the road, the Trojans beat No. 15 Washington in Seattle and then routed UCLA to earn a spot against No. 1 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. True to his word, Munoz returned to the starting lineup less than four months after tearing his ACL.
Glen Mason, Ohio State offensive line coach: It was Earle Bruce’s first year. I think we were picked to finish fourth in the Big Ten that year. Art Schlichter was our quarterback. We played UCLA in the Coliseum early in the year and won. That was a big deal for us. On the flight home, the pilot said, “Look out to the left. There’s the Rose Bowl. Maybe you’ll be back later this year.” We kinda laughed.
We knew they were talented but had no idea just how talented. When we walked out and looked at them during pre-game, it reminded me of when I was at an assistant at Iowa State and we played Nebraska, “We’re playing those guys?”
Robinson: It was kind of a miracle Anthony was able to make it back to play in the game.
Mason: We played a hell of a game. We had no business being on the field. We had some good players, but not to that extent. Our guys were all business. They didn’t care. They knew they had a legit chance to come from nowhere and win the championship.
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Munoz: It was a frustrating game for us. We would run right down the field and fumble. We’d run right down the field and throw an interception.
Robinson: We fumbled around and did some dumb things. We finally get down to three minutes left in the game. We’re down 16-10. Anthony had been dominant in the game. I said, “Just give it to Charlie and run it behind Anthony.”
Munoz: The fact that we had to drive 80-plus yards on that last drive should’ve never had had to happen, but the fact that John Robinson and Paul Hackett called a run every play, we were thrilled. We got a chance to just tee off. OK guys, it’s our time.
With Munoz leading the way, White ran for 71 of the 83 yards on the game-winning touchdown drive. The Trojans’ star back ran for a Rose Bowl-record 247 yards. USC finished 11-0-1 but ended up getting voted second in both polls to Alabama, which moved up from No. 2 in the country after defeating No. 6 Arkansas 24-9 in the Sugar Bowl.
McDonald: God, I wish there was a Playoff then.
Lott: That was a great team. Coach Robinson would say we could go play the Rams any day and we’ll kick their butt. And you know what, I think we could have. I’m telling you. I don’t know if we would’ve beat them, but we would’ve competed. The worst team in the NFL, we would’ve beat them. Don Mosebar and Bruce Matthews were backup offensive linemen. We had some great players.
Ellison: We could have beaten a few. I’m sure we could’ve. We were that good. The NFL was simple then: Run the ball and throw the ball deep. We were fierce. That’s legit. We would’ve definitely beaten a lot of ’em.
Robinson: 21-21. God, to this day, that sticks in my craw.
(Top photo: USC / Collegiate Images via Getty Images)
