University Daily Kansan
SPORTS SECTION
54th Year, No.1 SECTION B
Monday, Sept. 10, 1956.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Writers Pick OU; KU Listed In 4th
1956 SPORTSWRITERS-SPORTCASTERS POLL
| | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | TP |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Oklahoma | 59 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 59 |
| Missouri | 0 | 23 | 16 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 191 |
| Nebraska | 0 | 16 | 17 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 1 | 216 |
| Kansas | 0 | 11 | 12 | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 224 |
| Colorado | 0 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 1 | 261 |
| Kansas State | 0 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 16 | 16 | 4 | 296 |
| Iowa State | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 53 | 405 |
Oklahoma not only was voted the Big Seven championship for the eighth straight time in the 11th annual conference pre-season football poll, but it corralled every first place ballot in an unprecedented landslide.
There is, of course, no surprise in the fact the 1955 national champions were again placed solidly in league throne-room by 59 sportswriters and sportscasters taking part in this year's balloting. They have been voting the Sooners home every year since 1949. And the Wilkinsons have obliged every year. Oklahoma convinced the non-conformists in the first three years of the poll when it twice shared the championship, then won it outright in '48 in the face of forecast title for Missouri twice and Kansas once.
Missouri To Bowl
It had become almost automatic to vote the Sooners the flag the past two years when they picked off 93 per cent of the 1954 and 1955 votes. This year they made it unanimous while drawing the same tremendous predictions from their followers and the same resigned futility from the fourth-estate of rival camps that marked the previous two polls.
As was the case two years ago, Missouri was voted into the Orange bowl as the league's 1957 representative. (The conference prohibits any team from repeating, which means the runner-up will be at Miami next January if the poll is accurate on OU's title-run.) The Tigers barely reached second place this year ahead of Nebraska and Kansas.
Colorado, voted runner-up last year, was ranked fifth at 261; Kansas State sixth on 296 and Iowa State last on 405.
Based on the usual system wherein in the number of votes for any position are multiplied by the number of that position to determine low aggregate, the Tigers, Cornhuskers and Jayhawkers were separated by only 53 points, 191 to 216 to 224.
KU Escapes Cellar
Missouri and Kansas were the only teams, aside from Oklahoma, which escaped at least one cellar vote. Iowa State could not log anything above fifth and saw all but six of its votes concentrated at seventh.
Oklahoma's past and predicted dominance so impressed the experts that one of them, Bob Martin of Station KVOD, Denver, even called for a transfer of Oklahoma to the Big Ten with Northwestern being allocated to the Big Seven in the Sooners' place.
Martin typed . . . "the suggestion is made in all seriousness. The rest of the league is not about to catch up with Oklahoma in football, and Northwestern is not about to make the grade in the Big Ten."
Nobody else called for such earthshaking measures, but opinions ranged through facets which predicted another cakewalk for OU in conference competition; an unbeaten Sooner season, a better Sooner team and a repeat national championship.
Split OU Up
Dick Holdren of the Pratt Daily Tribune was not far behind Martin, however, when he typed . . . "Oklahoma could split their squad, make it an eight-team conference, and take first and second."
John Cronley, sports editor of the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman predicted . . . "The Sooners may
have one of their easiest runs yet
through the Big Seven field . . ."
Ray Soldan of the same newspaper, called the upcoming campaign another "ho hum season within in the conference . . . with no team able to give Oklahoma's fourthstringers much of a contest."
Like one of his staffmates, Volney Meece, Soldan thinks the Sooners may be better than even last year's squad which pasted Maryland, 20-6, in the Orange Bowl. Typed Meece . . . "I think Oklahoma should be almost as good as last year at the outset of the season and as good or better by the mid-year meeting with Notre Dame."
Meece stood out as a bold man by venturing that Missouri would have a chance to up-end the Wilkinsons.
Al Goldfarb. of the.-Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph led the fultility sweepstakes by writing . . . "picking Oklahoma to win the Big Seven is almost as certain as the sun will rise in the morning."
One Writer Cautious
Only cautious note was sounded by Jack Bickham of the Norman Transcript, almost in the shadow of Owen field. He warned . . . "Off spring performances, I expect Oklahoma to be stronger than even last year unless North Carolina catches them before their second team gains experience or they get Notre Dame jitters."
Lineman singled out were Kansas Captain Galen Wahlmeier, John Wooten and Frank Clarke of Colorado: LaVerne Torczon, Nebraska, and Sooners Ed Gray and John Bell. Everett Montgomery, Dodge City Globe sports writer, tabbed Wahlmeier as an all-conference center candidate against Tubbs.
Bill Mayer of the Lawrence Journal-World felt the veteran Hunter, injured most of last season, would lead Missouri to a much improved year over the 1-9-0 campaign of 1955.
Don Miles of the Sterling, Colo. Advocate-Journal, predicted big things for Wooten, giant sophomore guard, and Clarke, the Buffalos large senior end, who finished second among conference receivers last year.
Oklahoma's slam of every first place vote was unprecedented in poll annals. Behind the Sooners the order lined up this way: Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Kansas State, Iowa State.
Bill Hoagland, a former star on coach Phog Allen's KU basketball teams of the early 1950s, will be a member of the United States Olympic basketball team this year for the second straight time.
KU Great Re-Named To Olympic Team
Hoagland was on the U.S. squat in 1952, when seven members of KU's NCAA championship team were named to the squad which captured the Olympic crown at Helsinki, Finland.
Hoagland made the team this year as a guard representing the Phillips 66 Oilers of Bartlesville, Okla.
HEAD COACH CHARLES (CHUCK) MATHER
Chuck Mather Opens Third Season On Rebuilding Road
Coach Charles V. (Chuck) Mather will prove or disprove this season the possibility that the number three is a magic one in his coaching career.
He is starting his third season as Kansas' head football coach. Faced with a large rebuilding job in 1954 when he took the long step from high school to college coaching, his first season ended in a 0-10 record.
Mather's crew improved that to a 3-6-1 record last year. If his team this year improves at relatively the same rate it won't be the first time that Mather rebuilt a club from a winnless first season to a better than .500 mark in the third
Mather joined the ranks of college coaches from Washington High school, Massillon, Ohio He brought with him the most brilliant high school record a coach ever took to college. His Massillon teams had a record of 57 victories and only three defeats and had won six straight Ohio Class A state championships.
Mather also knows defeat. At Brilliant, Ohio in 1937 he took on
the job of coaching at a school that had dropped football. His first season was a winless one. The following year, however, Brilliant played over 500 ball and in Mather's third season had a record of six victories and two losses
The personable Mather doesn't have a phenomenal career as a football player. His high school alma mater, Hopsdale, Ohio, didn't compete in football. He played three games in college at Ohio Northern.
He is an exponent of the standard T formation with variations. Some of his coaching techniques are unique. By the use of films he grades each player on each play. His grading is so detailed that it requires the use of an IBM machine. Despite the use of his IBM machines and movie cameras Mather is a firm believer in good fundamentals and plenty of hard work.
Before coming to Kansas Mather coached at four Ohio high schools. He compiled an overall record of 111 victories 10 losses, and five ties.
Martin told Kansas City police that after the race the three students parked in a parking lot and followed the Kansas City man into a tavern. McCarthy and the Kansas City man exchanged words and McCarthy followed the man outside.
Martin said he did not see what led to the first exchange of blows, but said that McCarthy knocked the Kansas City man down He said that the man kicked McCarthy in the face and that made McCarthy angry.
Lynn McCarthy, a starting end on KU's 1955 football team and a returning letterman who was expected to be a mainstay on this fall's eleven, was sidelined for at least half the season when he was stabbed four times in a fight in Kansas City, August 23. He was KU's top defensive player last year.
McCarthy Out; Stabbed In Fight
McCarthy, 6 foot, 2 inch senior from St. Peter, Minn., became involved in the fight following a short drag race with a Kansas City man. Another KU football letterman, Don Martin, and Robert Richards, KU's ace golfer, were with McCarthy when the fight occured.
McCarthy underwent exploratory surgery in a Kansas City hospital but is back on the campus now.
He holds degrees from Ohio Northern College and Kent State.
KU'S 1956 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
DALL SCHEDULE
Sept. 22 ... TCU at Lawrence
Sept. 29 ... College of Pacific at
Lawrence
*Oct. 6 ... Colorado at Lawrence
*Oct. 13 ... Iowa State at Ames
*Oct. 20 ... Oklahoma at Lawrence
Oct. 26 ... Okla. A&M at
Stillwater
*Nov. 3 ... K-State at Manhattan
*Nov. 10 .. Nebraska at Lawrence
(Homecoming)
Nov. 17 .. UCLA at Los Angeles
*Dec. 1 .. Missouri at Columbia
- Conference games
Cyclone Coach Has High Hopes
"Where else but up?" might well be the answer to any question on where Iowa State football is going this fall.
"We are looking up, certainly," was the opinion of Head Coach Vince DiFrancesca. "With one win and one tie there's only one way to look from 1955."
The Cyclone coach is most pleased with the sound blocking and tackling of the 1956 squad. That is the most encouraging factor for the 1956 season, he admitted. He added that fairy good depth and fine morale were other factors he's counting upon to improve the 1956 picture.
Hopes Are High As Mather Opens Third Year At KU
Fulback Spot Weak
By DARYL HALL (Daily Kansas Sports Editor)
The 1956 football season at Kansas University could be, and should be, the best season the school has enjoyed since Charles V. (Chuck) Mather took over the head coaching reins two years ago.
Personnel wise the Jayhawks have never been stronger for several years. Depth at every position except fullback runs three and four deep. At backfull spot the outlook is dim. With only one returning letterman, Joe Held, experience is lacking. Mather currently is experimenting with several players to find the ideal backfield map.
This could be called the do or die year for Mather. Fresh from the high school ranks, Mather tackled a man sized job when he enrolled at Kansas. Lean on experienced personnel, Mather was forced to start from scratch. But he tackled the job with the zeal of a freshman and quickly imported some of his former high school All-American material from Massillon, Ohio.
Now, with the help of IBM machines a better than average crop of transfers, a good group of freshmen, and two years of experience in the big leagues, Mother should be ready. He has had time to acquaint the players with his standard-T offense and to discourage them from trying to cheat on their IBM machine report cards.
Many of the gridiron experts have predicted Kansas to achieve at least a 5-5 standing in this year's campaign despite the fact that they face three bowl teams of last Year's Day-UCLA, Oklahoma, and TCU. These three teams, combined with the other five teams in the Big Seven Conference—expected to be the roughest in recent history, and a top-notch independent school, College of Pacific, make up one of the toughest college schedules in the nation this year. Some of the experts have even chosen KU to take the Orange Bowl trip this year.
Encouraged by the favorable reports and predictions, KU students and fans will be expecting the Jayhawks to battle it out with the "little six" for a free trip to Florida. We, for one, believe the 'Hawks have a better than even chance to make the trip-providing—
Spirit in the Jayhawk camp appears good. However after meeting TCU and College of Pacific at the first of the season, this spirit will undergo a severe test.
If the team spirit, desire, and hustle continue, if Mather is able to find a capable fullback, and if, if the team receives support from the student body, something that has been lacking the past two years, they might be in Miami come first of the year.
A game by game forecasts.
A game by game forecast:
TCU is a powerhouse. Led by allAmerican Jim Swink, the Horned Frogs are picked to dominate the Southwest Conference this year. Swink, a flashy speedy left half, is predicted to repeat as an all-American. The Texas team is wealthy in lettermen and will have its aim set on a return trip to a bowl game. In the face of last year's TCU-Kansas game, which TCU won 47-14, and the fact that they lost few veterans, Kansas can chalk the season's opener to mere experience and try to survive the attack.
College of the Pacific is expecting its best year in recent history. Led by Dick Bass, a high school
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