This Week in Stanford Football History: Bye Week Edition“Throwback Thursday” (“Flashback Friday”)

January 1, 1936

The 1936 Rose Bowl between Stanford and SMU was the 22nd Rose Bowl game, played on New Year's Day 1936 in Pasadena, California. Why is this relevant to us, some 89 years later? Umm….well, maybe because history, tradition, and conference rivalries matter massively in ensuring that alumni and fans care consistently about our football program, buy tickets, order lots of Nike jerseys, attend home and away games, and happily sip an occasional $20 Modelo!

The annual Rose Bowl game was certainly a big deal at the time, and an extraordinarily intriguing matchup was dominating pre-war America’s national sporting public interest as the skies were slowly darkening over in Europe. The Southwest Conference champion Mustangs of Southern Methodist University were undefeated, with a clean sheet of 12-0. They were ranked #3 in the nation, with a top-15 offense and a top-5 defense. Stanford was the Pacific Coast Conference three-team co-champion at 7-1 against a formidable strength of schedule, having lost only at home to UCLA, 7-6, in the season’s third game. Traditionally an “East vs. West” matchup, this was the very first time two college football teams from “West of the Mississippi” had ever been invited to meet in the Rose Bowl. Additionally, Stanford was the first university to participate in three consecutive Rose Bowls. This was an eagerly-awaited chance for LSJU to get its second-ever win in a Rose Bowl, the first having coming in a 7-6 victory over Pittsburgh in 1928, when Glenn Scobey “Pop” Warner was the Stanford head coach (1923-1932). Stanford was 1-4-1 in the Rose Bowl at that point, having “failed to secure victories” in 1902 against Michigan, in 1925 against Notre Dame, in 1934 against Columbia, and in 1935 against Alabama.

It was SMU’s first and, as it turned out, only appearance in the “Grandaddy of Them All”, although that famous term was actually coined much later by legendary ABC television broadcaster Keith Jackson, who was a Washington State alumnus, in case you were wondering. It was a unique opportunity for a Texas team to get widespread national exposure as this New Year’s trip out west represented the mighty Mustangs’ inaugural marquee appearance as a major player in the uppermost echelon of the national college football scene.

This was Claude E. “Tiny” Thornhill’s third season as Stanford head coach and his stout Indians defense had been leading the way all season, having surrendered only 13 total points in eight games! That is not a typo, we are talking a surrendering of less than two points per game! Despite the Mustangs’ high ranking, stingy Stanford, in last-minute betting, was listed as the ever-so slight favorite, a "10 to 8 Choice," which is the rough equivalent to betting odds of 5-4, or a 56% implied probability. The highly anticipated match-up represented the third and final try for a long-vowed victory in Pasadena for Stanford’s famous “Vow Boys”, whose entire backfield would later be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame! The senior class had “vowed” as Stanford freshmen never to lose to USC and Tiny’s boys did even better, not only never losing to the Trojans during the remainder of their college careers, but never losing to the Cal Bears either. Nice. Stanford’s captains were a pair of All-American ends Keith Topping and James “Monk” Moscrip, each of whom was selected to the “Stanford Football All-Century Team” during the University’s Centennial in 1991. So many fans were expected for the game that were actually two gameday programs produced, one a rather pedestrian “official” design and one visually superior “unofficial” program (see image below).



In 1936, travel from to Pasadena was mostly by passenger train, as you can see from the football-shaped dinner menu discovered in the Stanford Athletic Archives. The game attracted overwhelming national newspaper coverage, stimulating such sky-high demand for game tickets that the Rose Bowl managed to add 310 extra seats to accommodate the over-capacity crowd of 84,784. Over 200,000, yes 200,000 additional ticket requests, mostly from Texas, had to be refused. SMU’s fired-up fanbase headed out to the left coast in train after train, but it was Stanford's stifling defense that would shut down 147-pound consensus All-American halfback and eventual College Football Hall of Famer Bobby Wilson and send the Mustangs’ high-powered passing offense right off the rails with six, count’em, six interceptions and a fumble recovery!

Back in 1936, there were no lucrative NIL deals for college players – “Monk” Moscrip likely received nothing, as far as we know not even a cup of coffee, for lending his well-recognized name, image, likeness, and even his facsimile autograph to General Mills, the makers of Wheaties, America’s top-selling breakfast cereal in the 1930s. This was a big-time endorsement worthy of substantial compensation in today’s world as Wheaties had already become known worldwide as “The Breakfast of Champions” after that legendary advertising slogan had become official in 1933.

Speaking of opportunities arising from national football notoriety, some off-gridiron gigs actually did result in a few bucks for our boys. In 1936, RKO Radio Pictures, one of the “Big Five” movie studios during Hollywood’s “Golden Age” that was responsible for hit movies like King Kong and Citizen Kane, produced a less-than-memorable sports movie titled The Big Game, making it apparent that the Stanford University Board of Athletic Control had not been able to trademark that particular term. The first casting announcement for the film came in June of ‘36, when it was reported that four Stanford football players would be used in the film: James "Monk" Moscrip, Robert "Bones" Hamilton, Keith Topping, and Frank “Owl Eyes” Alustiza. SMU’s Bobby Wilson, another non-professional actor, was hired in early July to play one of the football players. Several other All-American college football players were also hired as cast members for the film, including William Shakespeare of Notre Dame and Jay Berwanger of University of Chicago, the latter notably being the very first recipient of the Heisman Trophy. The filmed starred popular comedic actor Andy Devine, who had played football for the Santa Clara Broncos! You may know the scratchy-voiced Devine as the voice of “Friar Tuck” in Disney’s 1973 animated classic Robin Hood). His son, Tad Devine was an outstanding Stanford swimmer in the 1950s and later became a member of the Bohemian Club. But as is so often the case, we digress…..

Back to the 1936 Rose Bowl…. Everyone had been expecting a very low-scoring contest and everyone was very right, as the two offenses combined for 25 punts! The game's solitary score would come early in the opening quarter, with the stage set by a "quick kick" by Stanford QB Bill Paulman that forced the Mustangs start a drive deep in their own territory. Games in those days were often a fierce fight for field position and quick kicks were far more common than they are in today’s game. The Indians got the ball back with a short field, advantageously in business at the Mustangs' 42-yard line. A reverse toss from Robert “Bones” Hamilton (one of the all-time football nicknames) to halfback Jimmy Coffis (who later would serve as the “Dean of Boys” at both Menlo-Atherton High School and at the now defunct San Carlos High School), was followed by Paulman scoring the game’s lone touchdown from a yard out. Stanford's defense would put the kibosh on SMU's high-powered offense, which had managed to ring up 288 points during the regular season and had been averaging 24 points per game against strong competition.

The impressive defensive effort was yet another remarkable chapter in the proud history of the Vow Boys, one of resolute resilience and righteous redemption, as the Stanford team had been “Tide-rolled” in the previous year’s 1935 Rose Bowl by an unstoppable Alabama passing game led by pass-happy halfback/quarterback and College Football Hall of Famer Millard “Dixie” Howell and his favorite target, future College and Pro Football Hall of Fame end Don “The Alabama Antelope” Hutson. There would be no such “Howell & Hudson”-style humiliation this time around as the Indians’ defensive line's ferocious tackling and disciplined play were pivotal in securing the victory for the good guys.

Fast forward to 2025 and SMU is expecting to overwhelm us as they did in 2024, but Frank Reich and the rested and road-ready Cardinal may have other plans this time around. The malevolent Mustangs are 2-2, but have lost both of their games against Power Four conference foes. Their offense is explosive – against Baylor they scored on an electrifying 75-yard TD on the game’s opening play, on a tipped ball to WR Romello Brinson. Hmmm….if that sounds familiar, it may be because the galloping Mustangs scored on their first offensive snap at Stanford Stadium last season, an 87-yard TD on a simple slant from Dallas-native Kevin Jennings to fleet-footed Texas transfer WR “Moochie” Dixon, who thankfully exhausted his eligibility and is no longer on their roster! The dual-threat Jennings is still their QB, now in his second season as a full-time starter, and he is a handful, but the rising Cardinal will not abide that same rough treatment this time around. SMU’s defense is decidedly weaker this year. They allowed 440 passing yards and four passing TDs to Baylor a few weeks ago and another 379 passing yards and five TDs to TCU last week. This is not last year’s malignant mismatch, SMU is beatable if we don’t turn it over. Let’s keep “Peruna IX”, their magnificent stallion mascot, in his corral! Carpe Card!