This Week in Stanford Football History: Florida State Homecoming Edition

“Throwback Thursday” or “Flashback Friday”

October 13, 1979

46 years ago this week, the Stanford Cardinal, under the direction of first-year head coach Rod Dowhower and his instant classic “wide white belt and tight red polyester pants” signature wardrobe combination, made its annual trek down to smoggy Los Angeles to take on its most formidable Pac-10 Conference rival, the Trojans of the University of Southern California. To be honest, the Stanford-SC series had not really been much of a “rivalry”. Between 1958 and 1990, USC’s record against Stanford was an overwhelming 29–3–1. Ugh.

In 1977, our team had been thoroughly roughed up and embarrassed by the score of 49-0, despite having freshman phenom all-purpose back Darrin Nelson and having NFL-trained Bill Walsh calling the offensive plays. The West Coast Offense was working, but the Trojans were just too stacked, with exceptional athletic talent that went three-deep at every position. About 40 players from USC’s 1979 roster would go on to play in the NFL. There had been some occasional signs of hope, however.

In 1978, we had given SC all they wanted in a close-fought 13-7 home loss in front of a fired-up crowd of 84,000 at the old Stanford Stadium. The Cardinal, then in its second year under Walsh, had developed quickly into a legitimate competitive force that would finish in the Top 20 in 1978. We were awfully good, but the darn Trojans were, as usual, much better. Tommy Troy’s troglodytes would finish 12-1, win yet another conference championship, and enjoy a Rose Bowl victory over Michigan, with their lone loss coming on the road at the hands of Arizona State, a talented team the Cardinal would defeat 21-14 at Sun Devil Stadium just three weeks later!

In 1979, it would be back to the Memorial Coliseum, to take another anxiously anticipated beating at our biennial “House of Horrors”. Ah, but this time, to the shock of the entire sporting nation, in “one of” the all-time greatest upsets in college football history (but not, as it would turn out “The Greatest Upset”), it would be the mighty Trojans who got the proverbial shaft!

Behind a constant, alternating array of “Student Body Right” and “Student Body Left”, 1979 Heisman Trophy winner Charles White (#12), who was already the leading rusher in the history of the Pac-10 Conference, would have 60 rushing yards in the opening drive and score easily on an eight-yard burst up the middle to give Troy an immediate 7-0 lead. Doesn’t hurt when your Heisman trophy-winning back is following blocks from his fullback, Marcus Allen, who would win the Heisman two years later in 1981. The Coliseum crowd figured the rout was on and all was sunny and warm in South Central. For the rest of the half, it indeed seemed that the game was resembling a repeat of Stanford’s most recent road game against the Trojans, that aforementioned 49-0 skunking that still stands as the most lopsided defeat in the 102 meetings of the two programs in 118 years.

After a dominant first half, SC was up 21-0 and coasting. Stanford had demonstrated no ability to stop the star-studded Trojan offense, nor any signs of moving the ball against the hyper-aggressive SC defense. Trojan kicker Eric Hipp had yipped a field goal, but just about everything else was working. Confident Trojan fans in the stands were already talking about the next week’s eagerly awaited match-up with their annual national rival, #9 Notre Dame, in South Bend. They may have somewhat underestimated the comeback-minded Cardinal.

Being down 21-0 on the road, at SC, meant you might as well warm up the charter bus and head to LAX….. or did it? Walsh had departed after back-to-back bowl-winning seasons to take over the San Francisco 49ers and his trusted OC Dowhower had taken over, but Odd Rod’s offense has done little in the opening half.  Nevertheless, there was a big factor that influenced the surprising amount of fight in the Cardinal’s dog! You see, half the Stanford team hailed from Southern California. Many of the Stanford starters lining up against each other that afternoon had been teammates with Trojans or had played against them in high school.

Among many others, Stanford players from Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties included QB Turk Schonert (Servite), WR Ken Margerum (Fountain Valley), RB Mike Dotterer (Edison), WR Gordon Banks (Loyola – same as SAHOF CB Toi Cook), TE Chris Dressel (El Dorado of Placentia), OG Chris Rose (Oaks Christian, Thousand Oaks), DE Chuck Evans (West Covina), DL Steve Ballinger (Camarillo), and WR Andre Tyler (Long Beach Poly, which also had produced Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame WRs Gene Washington and Tony Hill). I purposely am leaving out mentioning a number of additional players from Southern California (like safety Steve Foley!) so they can enjoy writing in and complaining about not getting a personal shout-out!

For this reason, our guys may have been down at the half, but they were hardly intimidated. There were a lot of supportive player families sunning themselves in the stands, and it was time to suck it up. Under the courageous leadership of Stanford game captains Joe St. Geme, Charles Bedford, and Brian Holloway, Stanford decided it had had enough, was mad as hell, and was not going to take it anymore.

Fifth-year senior and first-year starting QB Turk Schonert, despite having a terrific season that would result in his winning the 1979 NCAA Passing title [the third consecutive Stanford QB to lead the nation], was fighting off a generational talent in true freshman QB and future College and Pro Football Hall of Famer named John Elway, throughout the season. The rifle-armed Elway, who had starred at Granada Hills High in the San Fernando Valley, would come in for a series in the second quarter of this game, but Schonert would own the second half. Time to show the rookie how it should be, and could be, done.

The Cardinal finally got on the board on a diving touchdown from true freshman tailback Mike Dotterer (#24), who vaulted over future NFL coach Jeff Fisher. Ironically, Dotterer had wanted to play football and baseball at USC, but as he learned during the recruiting process, he apparently did not meet “all” of the desired characteristics of a Trojan running back in those days. Well, he sure met Stanford’s needs. After Darrin Nelson was forced to miss the entire 1979 season with a hamstring injury sustained during the track season, Dotterer stepped up and shared the ’79 backfield duties with fellow freshman Vincent White (from Denver’s Mullen Prep), setting a Stanford true freshman record for rushing touchdowns in a single season with eight! Pretty sure that remarkable record still stands. Dotterer would go on to score 23 career touchdowns in a Cardinal uniform and he currently sits at #27 on our career rushing list, one of only of 35 Stanford rushers in 133 years who have gained at least 1,000 yards. An exceptional two-sport student-athlete who once held the Stanford Baseball single-season hits record and was named an All-American and Academic All-American as an outstanding outfielder, Dotterer was inducted into the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006. He and Larry Reynolds are the only two Stanford players ever to letter all four years in both football and baseball. Not bad for a guy who almost accepted a football scholarship (grant-in-aid) from Harvard, right?

Anyway, back to the comeback….So, Stanford’s second touchdown came on a pass from Schonert to uncoverable junior WR Kenny Margerum, a two-time consensus All-American and a member of the 1985 Bears Super Bowl team. Interesting to note that Margerum had been named the 1977 “Orange County Back of the Year” and Dotterer would be the 1978 “Orange County Back of the Year”! [Note: we have Dot’s 1978 trophy, which will soon be on display at The Pro in Palo Alto].  Also interesting is that Dotterer had played high school ball at four different high schools, including traditional Trojan feeder school Mater Dei and at Edison in Huntington Beach, which happened to be the archrival of Fountain Valley, where Margerum had played.

The third and final TD came on a heads-up QB scramble by Schonert himself. That third and decisive touchdown was almost not to be. On the game-tying drive, the Cardinal had faced a critical fourth and one deep in Trojan territory. Turk pitched left to Dotterer, who, excited by the magic of moment, and cognizant of Ronnie Lott and Dennis Smith ferociously bearing down on him, promptly put the ball on the turf. Disaster had struck! But Dotterer, in full panic mode, and expending one of the most remarkable efforts in program history, somehow scooped up his own fumble, reversed course, and, while being summarily swarmed by about half of one of the greatest defenses in college football history, rambled right, against the grain, and made a desperate dive to pick up the first down by about an inch. Gallows-to-glory in a span of about five seconds. After Dotterer’s season-saving scamper, Turk took matters into his own hands…and feet. We can still see him holding the football high in one hand as he crossed the goal line to tie the game (with the ensuing PAT). It was the shining moment of our late hero’s college career. Improbably, it was now 21-21 and the cowed crowd at the Coliseum would not be stunned into silence quite like that again until October 8, 2007 (Come on, you knew we would get it in there at some point).

Still, the Trojans had a very real chance to win the game on a last-chance field goal attempt by SC’s Hipp, but the botched boot was blocked heroically by WR Gordon Banks and the rock was righteously recovered by freshman linebacker Gary Wimmer. That was all she wrote, the sister had been kissed….and we liked it!

Rest assured, while this epic upset “tie” may not have been a “W” in the final box score, it sure as “Luck” seemed like one. It unquestionably felt like a dream-dashing loss to the outraged and traumatized Trojans. The famed “Men of Troy”, with a Heisman Trophy tailback in Charles White, a Heisman Trophy winner at fullback, a senior team captain who would finish the ’79 season with more than 2,000 rushing yards, paired with an All-American quarterback in Paul McDonald, operating behind an NFL-ready offensive line featuring the likes of guard Brad Budde and tackles Anthony Muñoz and Keith Van Horne, had been blanked 21-0 in the second half of a home game in front of a homecoming crowd of 76,000 partisan fans, against an annoying Northern California opponent most Trojan alumni considered decidedly inferior in their marquee sport of football. In the second half, the dynamic denizens of Dowhower” somehow had shredded a Trojan defense that featured future pros like Ronnie Lott, Dennis Smith, Chip Banks, Riki Gray (Ellison), and Jeff Fisher! Hurts, don’t it?

Now let’s face it, this “win-equivalent” outcome did not exactly turn the tide in the long-lopsided rivalry. One might have thought that the embarrassing “tie of all ties” would have kept the Trojans honest, if such a thing actually were possible, which 120 years of probation-plagued athletic history would tell us, wasn’t. USC would go 14–0–1 against Stanford from 1976 to 1990, with just this one memorable tie in 1979. It was the lone blemish on an otherwise stellar 11-0-1 campaign. This sister-kisser of all sister-kissers absolutely cost the Trojans a national championship. Knowing SC, they probably try to claim it anyway! For Stanford fans, the proud accomplishment that afternoon, a rather prime example of “Schadenfreude”, ranks among the most sacred of Stanford Football deeds.

SC dropped to #4 in the polls after the game. They would finish 11–0–1, but would be ranked #2 in both polls due to the tie. Troy would eventually recover and beat us 11 consecutive times after we cost them a national championship (just had to write it one more time!).

Guess we pissed ‘em off.

For Stanford, 1979 would be a real rollercoaster, with the team finishing a disappointing 5-5-1 and missing out on the postseason. But wow, was it ever an exciting campaign for the fans! We would lose games we should have won and win games we should have lost. Fans were subjected to the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat. It was awfully awesome!

46 years ago? Must be a typo. Carpe Cardinal!