FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20.1950
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE. KANSAS
PAGE FIVE
Rivals Coached Five Bowl Clubs
Saturday's K.U.-Aggie game at Memorial Stadium brings together two coaches who helped coach five University of Georgia teams through post-season football games in the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Gator and Oil bowls without a defeat.
These now rival coaches are Kansas' Jules V. "Siki" Sikes and Oklahoma A. and M.s Jennings B. "Ears" Whitford. They are the closest of friends off the field but won't be for 60 minutes Saturday afternoon.
Cliff Kimsey, the Jayhawkers' backfield coach, has an added interest in this game. Coach Kimsey played on Wally Butts' great Georgia teams while Sikes and Whitworth were coaching associates working with the Bulldog ends and lineman respectively.
Coach Kimsey, an all-Southeastern conference quarterback, captured Georgia's 1941 team to a 40 to 26 win over Texas Christian university in the Orange bowl on Jan. 1, 1942.
Other major bowl games for Georgia included a 9 to 0 victory over U.C.L.A. in the 1943 Rose bowl, a 20 to 10 win over North Carolina in the 1947 Sugar bowl, and a 20 to 20 game with Maryland in the 1948 Gator bowl.
Former Georgia Coaches Begin Rivalry Saturday
By DON PIERCE
K.U. Sports Publicity Director
Two Spartan gentlemen from the South, Kansas' J. V. Sikes, and J. B. Whitworth, of Oklahoma A. and M. will break off a long-standing friendship for one afternoon here Saturday when they match their two football teams in Memorial stadium.
Both products of Wally Butts*
rugged football factory at Georgia, where they were staff mates for nine years, Sikes and Whitworth believe the game is 80 per cent hard effort. That is the kind of gridironology with which they have inoculated both schools and it has paid off.
In his first season at Kansas, Sikes saw a good team shredded when four regulars were lifted through a Big Seven ineligibility ruling. Yet this eleven banged to seven victories in 10 games. Last year after a faltering start of three consecutive defeats, the Jayhawks righted to win four of their last five games and graze Missouri's Gator bowl crew with a near upset. Now they are working on a three-game winning skin after dropping a heartbreaker, 7 to 14 opener to Texas Christian.
Inheriting a brutal 11 - game
schedule and the scantiest material in recent Aggie history, Whitworth wasn't expected to win over one or two games in his inaugural season this autumn. What did he do? The Cowpokes, widely advertised as the "Thin Thirty," surprised Arkansas and TCU in their first two games by scores of 12 to 7 and 13 to 7, then tied tough Drake, 14 to 14. Last Saturday they were badly outgunned against SMU, one of the nation's top teams, but made a game of it for a half before going down 56 to 0.
Butts, though losing two of his top assistants, couldn't have selected two better minions to spread his famous "Spartan attitude." Jayhawk candidates come off their summer jobs ready for opening day scrimmage. Only the fit survive through
the torrid first two weeks. The work pits are open all season and all but serious injuries are to be shaken off.
Kansas eleven of this and the last two seasons certainly haven't been as talent deep as the title clubs of 1946 and 1947.
A. and M. now is embarked along the same rough-hewn path. Whitworth's new head-gonging regime culled the Pokes early. The squad shrunk to, first "The Fightin' Forty" then the "Thin Thirty". Only those hardy and heavily endowed with desire hung on. Lettermen and highly touted prospects have been among the casualties. The result has been a streamlined squad of iron-
But they have tightened obvious weaknesses with unrelenting hustle and spirit, outconditioned most foes through the final half and managed to mount a highly respectable record.
willed youngsters who play the game all the way. Whitworth has no second raters in camp.
In each of three straight years they have labored under the handicap of an inexperienced quarterback, something most T-formation experts will tell you can't be done successfully.
In typically dry Arkansas humor—he was born near Blytheville in 1908 — Whitworth philosophizes about his lean manpower: “There isn't anything we can do about those unfilled football suits except hang them on a peg until we've got the boys to fill 'em.
Speaking before the Oklahoma City Quarterback club after the Arkansas stummer Whitworth, when asked if the Porkers weren't a bit larger than the Pokes, quipped "Big, I'll guess. We split our line some but I still never saw any light between any of their linen."
Sikes, also a favorite with sportswriters and sportscasters, had them laughing like a minstrel crowd in Kansas City at the Big Seven's annual August kickoff. Asked about his boy Chuck Hoag, the sophomore phenom out of Oak Park, Ill., Sikes' droll reply was: "Yes, Charlie's a good boy. He'll run a little, pass a little, punt a little, and try to knock a few folks down."
...This, of course, brought down the house.
Another classic example of Sikian humor was his answer to a reporter's query, after a rather blue game, before the TCU game, "Yes, we'll try all right," said Sikes, "but sometimes we try too easy."
There's a lot of mutual admiration between Whitworth and Sikes, of course.
"Whittle is a great fundamentalist," the Jayhawk head man tells you when viewing the Cowpoke invasion. It will be one team that we can't outcondition, either. They'll battle us all the way, win, lose or tie."
"I know that we lost at Georgia when Sikes took over the Kansas job." Whitworth said soon after taking over at Stillwater. "He'll have those boys hitting and hustling all the time and he's a mighty smart coach."
It ought to be a leather-popping show Saturday when these two old hominy-destroyers send their teams against each other for the first time.
Jayhawkers Seek Fifth Straight Win Over Oklahoma Aggies
Kansas will be seeking its fifth straight win over Oklahoma A. and M. when they clash at 2 p.m. Thursday at Memorial stadium in non-conference football game. The game is expected to draw about 20,000 and has been designated as Dad's day in honor of the players' fathers.
It will be the ninth meeting between the two interconference foes, and the fifth since the series was re-
led with four dramatic bursts
girting in 1946. It will also mark
part of a vendaettle betwee-
n a pair of southern outhouses.
K.U.'s J, V. Sikes, and J. B.'Eaw'
Whitworth, of the Aggies, who were
staff mates at Georgia for nine years
before moving into head jobs in the
plainsland.
The feud will be opened in the somewhat bizarre setting of the prairies and there won't be any Mississippi river pistols available. But there is going to be enough blocking fire and running powder to keep the paying citizens in their seat until the end.
Kansas will kickoff a shaky one touchdown favorite. Now working on a three-game string, the Jayhawkers haven't been beaten since their opener against Texas Chris-
A. and M. whipped the Horned Frogs, 13 to 7, in one of two successive stunners with which Whitworth's now famous "Thin Thirty" opened the season. Ponderous Arkansas was the first victim, 12 to 7, followed by a 14 to 14 tie with sturdy Drake. Heavily outmanned,
tiant. They dropped that one 7 to 14, but rebounded against Denver, 6 to 6, then clipped Colorado, 27 to 21, and Iowa State, 33 to 21, to post a half game lead in the Big Seven standings.
the Pokes went down last Saturday before SMU's great offensive machine, 56 to 0 in the Cotton bowl.
The game will match the Punchers' brawny, jolting backfield against K.U.'s three sprinting rapiers, Chuck Hoag, Wade Stinson, and John Amberg, in what should be one of the Midlands' top land battles of the season.
With the 6-foot 3-inch Bob Cook to throw from the man-under spot on Whitworth's T, the Cowboy backfield, by all odds, will be the stoutest Kansas has faced this season.
The Poke forwards will have a
Whitworth will shoot a meaty backline at the Jayhawks' none-too stout defenses including Halfbacks Arlen MeNeil, and Wayne Johnson, and Fullback John Grabko. McNeil is one of the better sprinters from Ralph Higgins' fine relay stable. Grabbo blasted the Hawkers hard last season even though Kansas took a surprise 55 to 14 win in Stillwater.
PROBABLE OFFENSIVE STARTERS
No. OKLAHOMA AGGIES Wt. Pos. Wt. KANSAS No.
83 Guy New 202 LE 181 Lyn Smith 81
73 Jim Colclazier 205 LT 218 Bob Talkington 75
66 Wilbanks Smith 205 LG 207 George Mrkonic 74
55 Dick Von Drehle 195 C 190 Wint Winter 53
62 Phil Smith 196 RG 192 Dolph Simons 63
70 Melvin Leierer 215 RT 228 (CC) Mike McCormack 73
80 Waldo Schaaf 210 RE 197 Bill Schaake 87
12 Bob Cook 203 QB 195 Chet Strehlow 14
22 Arlen McNeil 188 LH 185 Charlie Hoag 21
41 Wayne Johnson 175 RH 179 Wade Stinson 22
31 John Grabko 191 FB 185 (CC) John Amberg 41
Officials: Bob Miller (Missouri), referee; Grady Skillern (Oklahoma), umpire; F. F. Gaines (Illinois), linesman; Dick Pendelton (Oklahoma), field judge.
full afternoon too, halting the sharpest Jayhawk running attack since the war. Of course, the Hoag-Amberg-Stinson trident isn't as dazzling or swift as the Mustang fleet which hit A. and M. Saturday night, but its record speaks with authority.
Through the first four games, this threesome with aid from sophomore Fullback Bud Laughlin, and deft ball-handling by Quarterback Chet Strehlou, has vaulted Kansas into the Big Seven rushing lead at a 292.5 yard per game pace. Hoag is fourteenth on the national rushing tables with 377.
K. U.'s line, led by Tackles Mike McCormack and Bob Talkington, has been clearing the way for its shooting stars, and this week flashed definite improvement in pass protection. This is important since K.U. figures the Poke line will be the sturdiest it has paced to date, which may force the Jayhawkers aloft more frequently.
Once the most dread straffers in the midlands, the Jayhawkers have used the airlanes sparingly this autumn.
They have threatened to unilinber their cannon for the past two weeks and may get it into place Saturday. The return from the injury list of Aubrey Linville, a classy receiver, may help this.