JRN/SPS 362 - Lecture Nineteen (November 5, 2025)

Here is the presentation that accompanied Lecture Nineteen.

1. JRN /SPS 362 Story of Football Rich Hanley, Professor Emeritus Lecture Nineteen

2. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football Review A handful of dominant teams marked the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. In the NFL, the Packers, the Dolphins, the Steelers and the Cowboys – America’s Team – drew national followings because of that.

3. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football Review In college, traditional powers such as Alabama, Texas, USC, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Notre Dame, among others, sustained their places at the top of the annual Associated Press poll as they had for years, but schools such as Clemson and Miami would join the elite group.

4. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The most significant dynastic conquest of 20 th and 21 st century football was that of the NFL itself over the United States, planting its shield in every corner of the U.S. (including Los Angeles again with both the Rams and Chargers, and in Las Vegas, from Oakland, in 2020.

5. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Underneath this period, the brutality of the game escalated to the point where NFL and college officials modified rules to reduce injuries while maintaining the organic – and, as it turns out, toxic - level of ecstasy and violence that attracted attention from the start of the game in the 19 th century.

6. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The shadow of death of players by their own hand and by the slow, methodical blinkering of dementia, both connected to the game. Parents began to question whether their children should play the game, thus threatening the future of the game.

7. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era On the field, the San Francisco 49ers replaced the dominant teams of the 1970s for a dynastic reign of their own in the 1980s and 1990s. The team used an offense developed by Bill Walsh when he served under coach Paul Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals.

8. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The 49ers and their deployment of the pass-oriented West Coast offense reflected a decade of rule and other changes. From a run-oriented, defensive game that reflected rugby, football turned to the pass and specialization as rosters expanded.

9. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Changes in the college game helped NFL teams adapt quickly to new rules that favored a wide-open game more than the closely contested, compressed structure of play.

10. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In college, the one-platoon system gave way to free substitution through a series of rules changes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That permitted smaller, faster, more skilled players to take the field on offense, creating the engine for the option offense.

11. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In the NFL, rule changes from the 1960s to the 2000s methodically made it easier to score points. One such rule in the 1960s narrowed the distance between hash marks, giving teams a more open field through which to start pass plays.

12. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In 1978, the NFL prohibited a defender from maintaining contact with a receiver five yards out from line of scrimmage. Also, the league allowed offensive linemen to extend arms and block with open hands. A year later, the in-the-grasp rule protected quarterbacks.

13. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The shift to artificial turf in the 1970s and to domed stadiums in Minnesota , New Orleans and Indianapolis (where the Baltimore Colts moved in 1984), in turn, created the physical environment for more open play in climate-controlled conditions.

14. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Expansion in the 1990s amplified the talent gap. Speed went first to offense in college, and that’s where it went in NFL with defenses adapting over time.

15. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era As noted earlier, the first team to fully exploit the new rules and new approaches was the Dallas Cowboys of the 1960s and 1970s. The team used a shotgun offense, spread formations and drafted fast wide receivers such as Bob Hayes, an Olympic 100-meter gold medalist in 1964.

16. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Landry’s move to speed in the 1960s combined with passing tactics developed by Gillman of the Los Angeles Rams and San Diego Chargers and deepened by Brown and his offensive coach Walsh with the Bengals, provided the foundation for the modern passing game enabled by the rule changes.

17. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era And the college players necessary to make these new offenses work were in place.

18. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In short, the rules, the athletes and the conditions all worked in concert toward creating a more intensified focus on offense, meaning the quarterback developed into an even more prominent position on the field, one that needed an increased thicket of rules to protect from harm.

19. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era For example, 12 of the first 14 games in which a quarterback threw for more than 500 yards occurred after the 1981 season. Prior to Vince Ferragamo in 1982, only Norm Van Brocklin (554 yards in 1951) and Y.A. Tittle (505 yards in 1962) passed for more than 500 yards in a game.

20. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The factors that cracked open the pro and college game in the 1980s had antecedents from as early as the 1920s. That’s when Baylor first operated a spread-type offense, as 19 th century Yale great Pudge Heffelfinger noted in his 1954 book about his life in football.

21. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Leo “Dutch” Meyer, coach of Texas Christian University, deployed the spread offense in the 1930s with the tailback also serving as the quarterback. Sammy Baugh emerged from that offense as a top collegian who later became one of the greatest players in NFL.

22. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Under Meyer, TCU’s tailback - quarterback Davey O’Brien won the Heisman Trophy in 1938 when he passed for 1,457 yards, a record at the time. “His team threw from anywhere on the field,” Heffelfinger wrote.

23. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Meyer’s spread offense used a tailback – quarterback at the top of the formation with the fullback and two halfbacks spread to the wings alongside two ends. In effect, it was a triple wing offense. That gave the offense a “five wide” look that made it hard to defend the pass or run.

24. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Meyer’s 1952 book titled Spread Formation Football gave coaches the key to how TCU could roll up 436 yards including 340 yards by quarterback Ray McKown against Southern California in 1951. “The Meyer Spread became the talk of football overnight,” wrote Heffelfinger.

25. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era “Everybody loved to throw the long pass. But the point Dutch Meyer made was, `Look at what the short pass can do for you.’ You could throw it for seven yards on first down, then run a play or two for a first down, do it all over again and control the ball. That way you could beat a better team,” said Baugh.

26. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Colleges, though, did not adopt the spread formation for decades. But within 30 years, Walsh, an assistant coach with the Cincinnati Bengals under Brown, would pursue Meyers’ principles for the pro game in terms of deploying a short pass in place of a run.

27. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Walsh attended Hayward High School, outside of San Francisco. He played for San Jose State University before landing a coaching job at the College of San Mateo. He later served as an assistant at Cal under coach Marv Levy.

28. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Walsh joined Brown’s staff in 1968 after several years working under Gillman and Al Davis in the AFL. He initially designed a vertical passing attack but modified it to feature horizontal plays after Greg Cook was injured in his first season.

29. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era “His philosophy was based on stretching the field, which would force the linebackers deeper and open things up underneath. Then he'd go deep again. He always liked deep receivers. He liked to force the cornerbacks downfield, then go short to bring (them) up, then go deep again,” Cook said.

30. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era "It was never a take-what-they-give-us philosophy. It was make them take what we give them. And it gave me a feeling of invincibility. I felt I could make any throw he wanted me to make,“ Cook added.

31. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era "We had no idea that we were creating a template for the future of offense in the NFL," Walsh explained later. "We did what we did just to stay competitive, then expanded on it as we continued to have success." 

32. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The offense featured short, precise passes designed to move that ball at least four yards. Quarterbacks were taught to follow a progression pattern to spot the open receiver.

33. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Walsh coordinated all routes in a standard progression, as former quarterback and later coach Sam Wyche revealed. “Therefore, if No. 1 isn't open in the progression, No. 2 probably is, and No. 3 almost certainly is,“ said Wyche.

34. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Walsh said his receivers pursued “controlled routes” that were “carefully planned, very precise, and closely timed.”

35. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The offense worked. The three quarterbacks who played under Walsh’s offense in Cincinnati – Cook (AFL), Carter (AFL) and Ken Anderson (NFL, after the merger) – would lead their leagues in completion percentage.

36. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era But when Brown retired, he did not select Walsh as his replacement to coach the Bengals. Walsh coached at Stanford after leaving the Bengals. In 1979, the new owner of the San Francisco 49ers, Ed DeBartolo, hired him to lead the team.

37. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era DeBartolo grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, in the football crescent, and admired Paul Brown. If he couldn’t hire Brown, he would hire the next best coach: Walsh. In January 1979, Walsh became coach of the 49ers, who went 2-14 in 1978.

38. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Walsh drafted Joe Montana of Notre Dame in the third round of the 1979 NFL draft run an offense he formulated in the 1960s and described as the Cincinnati offense or the Midwest offense. Bill Parcells called it the West Coast Offense in 1985, and the name stuck.

39. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The change in the NFL from “pure violence” into a league based on precision and speed is represented in the iconic photograph of what became to be known as “The Catch,” Dwight Clark’s 11-yard catch from Montana against Dallas that vaulted the Niners to the Super Bowl.

40. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era San Francisco met, ironically enough, Cincinnati in that Jan. 24, 1982, game, with both teams led by Walsh disciples at quarterback: Montana for the 49ers, Ken Anderson for the Bengals. The 49ers won, 26-21.

41. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era With Montana and receivers such as Jerry Rice and John Taylor, the 49ers also won Super Bowls XIX and XXIII in 10 years. Walsh’s successor, George Siefert, won two more, including one with Steve Young at quarterback, to go 5-0 in Super Bowls using Walsh’s principles .

42. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The influence of Walsh’s offense is evident in the number of his assistants hired as head coaches to install it. So many NFL teams would deploy Walsh’s original formulation that it became the standard offense as much as George Halas’ T-formation pro set had.

43. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The primacy of the quarterback in the emerging offenses of the 1980s became startling evident in the 1983 NFL draft. Teams selected six quarterbacks in the first 27 picks, including three Hall of Famers.

44. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era John Elway of Stanford was selected with the first pick by the Baltimore Colts, who dealt Elway to Denver when he told the team he wouldn’t sign with them. Elway would play in five Super Bowls with Denver, winning two.

45. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Buffalo drafted Jim Kelly of Miami (Florida) with the 14 th pick. Kelly would sign with the USFL Houston Gamblers but would join the Bills after two years in 1986 and lead them to four Super Bowl appearances.

46. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Miami drafted Dan Marino from Pittsburgh with the 27 th pick.

47. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Miami coach Don Shula won two straight Super Bowls and finished the 1972 season undefeated on the strength of a running game that featured three backs. But with a new age at hand, Shula adapted with Marino and developed a sharp passing game.

48. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In 1984, Marino combined with Mark Clayton and Mark Duper in an offense that baffled defenses. Marino threw 48 touchdowns that year, 16 more than the next quarterback on the list of TD passes that year, Dave Krieg. It broke the NFL record by 12 TD passes.

49. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era On Jan. 20, 1985, at Stanford Stadium, Marino and the Dolphins met Montana and the 49ers in the Super Bowl The 49ers won, 38-16, as Walsh installed six defensive backs to stop Clayton and Duper and keep Marino at bay.

50. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era To be sure, there were outliers from the past who clung to the old ways of football. The 1985 Chicago Bears used a solid defense and ground game to win the 1986 Super Bowl over the Patriots, and the team showed it could embed itself in the culture with The Super Bowl Shuffle.

51. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The great running back Walter Payton powered the team’s throwback offense under head coach Mike Ditka, who was born in the heart of the football crescent in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, and played for the Chicago Bears and the Cowboys before becoming a coach.

52. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Payton’ astonishing combination of speed, agility and toughness, a combination of Jim Brown and Gayle Sayers, the former Bears’ great in the mid 1960s, rushed for a career total of 16,726 yards.

53. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The 1986 Giants likewise stand as a throwback tam amid the modernization of offenses in response to new rules and innovative coaches. Linebacker Lawrence Taylor led the team’s stifling defense as the Giants won the 1987 Super Bowl over Denver.

54. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The Giants’ innovation emerged from the need to give the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Taylor room to move. His speed on the outside gave him the capacity to blitz or cover running backs and even wide outs. The Giants built the 3-4 defense for him.

55. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Taylor was named NFL MVP in 1986, becoming the first defensive player so honored since 1971.

56. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In 1991, the clash of styles – the throwback represented by the Giants’ defense and stout running game and the new represented by the Buffalo Bills under quarterback Jim Kelly and a no-huddle/sugar huddle, spread offense – would collide in the Super Bowl.

57. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Kelly’s path to the Super Bowl and the no-huddle offense was paved by his experience with the Houston Gamblers of the short-lived USFL and their offensive coordinator Mouse Davis.

58. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Davis was a high school coach in Oregon in he early 1970s when he first read a book written in 1965 by Ohio high school coach Glenn “Tiger” Ellison titled “Run & Shoot Football: Offense of the Future.” Davis adopted the book’s principles but focused on passing.

59. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Ellison ran a modified version of the winged T, placing two wide receivers on the wingback's side, creating, in effect, a slot back. That gave the offense five receivers with space to move .

60. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era But Ellison saw the spread formation as one that would open the running game while providing a secure option for short passes.

61. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era At Portland State, Davis modified it to feature a double-slot formation with halfbacks in the gaps between the tackles and the end. "We swiped it," Davis said in 1979, "but we changed it. Ellison was still run-oriented. We always pass first and run second.”

62. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era “The object is to make the defense the last to know what is going on. First a back or an end in motion gives pause to the secondary, then the quarterback sprints to one side, usually still with the option of pitching to a trailing back,” Davis said.

63. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era “Then all the receivers (four, unless the trail-back is out there, too), rather than running set patterns, react to what the defensive backs have decided to do,” Davis said. It allows for improvisation as events dictate, Davis stressed. And, he said, it’s more fun.  

64. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era During the 1985 USFL opener, Kelly threw for 574 yards, an American professional football record in leading Houston to a 34-33 win over the Los Angeles Express and its quarterback Steve Young. Kelly joined the Bills when the USFL folded after 1985.

65. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era In Buffalo under coach Marv Levy, Kelly ran a modified version of the run-and-shoot that featured a no-huddle pace introduced by Sam Wyche when he coached Cincinnati. The Giants would thus face a fast-paced offense that threatened their defense.

66. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The game in Tampa also featured the full convergence of pop culture, military virtues and the NFL, as pop star Whitney Houston delivered a rousing rendition of the National Anthem amid the U.S. run up to the war in Iraq.

67. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The Giants sought to slow Kelly and the no-huddle, spread offense called the K-gun by running the football and burning time off the clock. Coach Bill Parcells whose team beat the 49ers to get to the game, wanted to do the same to the Bills by “shortening” it.

68. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Defensive coordinator Bill Belichick, meanwhile, focused on slowing the K-gun offense, allowing the great running back Thurman Thomas to run with maximum, time-consuming effectiveness.

69. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era “I thought it was a collective brain fart – like what the hell are you talking about,” said linebacker Carl Banks. “We were a team that prided itself defensively on not giving up 100-yard rushers, not even giving up 100-yard games for a total offensive rush stat.”

70. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era “And then he reeled us back in and kinda gave is a method to the madness,” said Banks? The madness? A two-man front, with five or six defensive backs, to stop Kelly’s short passes. Thomas gained 115 yards on 15 carries, but Kelly was neutralized.

71. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era The plan worked as the Giants kept Kelly in check for most of the game, holding the ball for 40:33 to the Bills’ 19:27.

72. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Still, the game would be resolved only by a field-goal attempt by the Bills’ Scott Norwood from 48 yards on a damp field. He missed, wide right, and the Giants won. But the NFL’s momentum toward the spread offense persisted.

73. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Washington coach Joe Gibbs pursued a hybrid approach during the 1980s and early 1990s, using the spread offense for his wide receivers assigned to a “trips” formation with three on one side of the ball. But he made sure he could run with tight ends who could block.

74. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era And the run that worked the best for Washington was drawn from an I formation play drawn up first in the 1950s and later perfected by Nebraska in the 1980s: the counter.

75. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era It worked. Gibbs won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks, including Doug Williams. Williams became the first Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl when he led Washington over Denver in January 1988.

76. JRN/SPS 362 Story of Football A New Era Meanwhile, the college game underwent a revolution of its own on two fronts: one on the offensive side of the ball just as in the NFL, the other in south Florida that focused on the culture of the game in addition to approaches to and the methods of play.