It’s become a part of us, part of our cultural DNA. Like a great song, we know all the lyrics. “Billy Cannon watches it bounce,” the staccato delivery of J.C. Politz opens. “He takes it at his own 11… .”
How could we ever forget it? It’s like a holiday song. We’ve been hearing it around this time of year for a half-century now. Seeing it annually on TV reruns across Louisiana, reliving it all over, too.
Each Halloween Cannon makes that same eerie and bewitching run in grainy black-and-white film, across Death Valley, beating Ole Miss every time in the most classic football game ever staged in Tiger Stadium.
Those 17 seconds are the highpoint of LSU football, the signature play of a storied program, the orgasmic height of a golden two-year run in which the Tigers reached the pinnacle of college football with a national championship in 1958 and a string of 19 straight victories.
No higher ranked teams ? LSU No. 1, Ole Miss No. 3 ? ever squared off in Tiger Stadium before or after that night, and Cannon’s epic 89-yard punt return through and around a horde of diving Rebels for an ultimate 7-3 Tiger victory was as much the difference as one man can be in a football game.
“I still get goose bumps watching it,” said Lynn LeBlanc, who then was an All-SEC tackle for LSU and the team capatain, “and I (italics) played (end italics) in the doggone game.”
More than 40 percent of LSU’s 116-year football history has passed since Oct. 31, 1959, but every single Tiger alive at the time or born since then seems to have been imbued with a genetic code that conveys the sheer drama and near-theatrical backdrop of that memorable game against a formidable opponent in 1959’s Game of the Century, a game that all this time later not only still has that kind of sheen but could be legitimately considered as truly the Game of the 20th Century.
“It had what all great games have,” Cannon reflected, “every man on both teams giving his best on every play, knowing they had to because any one play could decide the outcome.”
The credentials of both teams were impeccable. Both teams were undefeated with 6-0 records, built largely on near-impregnable defenses. A combined total of 13 points had been scored on them, two field goals against the Tigers, one touchdown against the Rebels.
“Ole Miss,” Cannon stated, “was as good a football team as could have been fielded in those days.” LeBlanc said without hesitation that in his three varsity seasons in which LSU compiled a 25-7-0 record, the Rebels were easily the most complete opponent the Tigers faced. Twenty years later, the late Baton Rouge sports editor Dan Hardesty, who saw LSU football up close since the 1930s, noted at that point no opponent had crossed the Tiger goal for 38 straight quarters, going back to the previous season, and this LSU defense would yield a minuscule 29 points for the entire 10-game regular season, making a case that, performing at its best, the ’59 Bayou Bengals, not the ’58 champions, were “the finest football team ever to represent Louisiana State University.”
***
The backdrop was almost surreal. The brightness of the Tiger Stadium floodlights had increased since the year before. With a 73-degree temperature and 100 percent humidity for the 8 p.m. kickoff, the foggy field took on an unearthly quality under the lights ? a perfect setting for Halloween night.
Early on it looked like Ole Miss was playing Trick-or-Treat. Starting on the game’s fifth play, LSU lost the first of three of four first-half fumbles ? one a Cannon bobble on the LSU 21 that led to the Rebels’ field goal ? and Ole Miss took advantage of the bottled up Tigers to inch to the LSU 20, 20, 3, 5 and 7. After all that, all LSU gave up was the lone field goal by Robert Khayat, who would later serve as chancellor of his school..
Every game of this magnitude has heroes and near-heroes. In an era when players played both offense and defense, one of Ole Miss’ was quarterback/defensive back Billy Brewer (later the head coach of the Rebels). He recovered each of LSU’s lost fumbles. But he missed on one turnover that could have sealed the outcome.
“I could have been the Billy Cannon of that night,” Brewer recalled. “In the third quarter I knocked down a pass on about our 18, but if I had played it for the interception I think I could have brought it back a long way. I was heading toward the Ole Miss bench with the whole field in front of me.”
On the other side, as the half was winding down, with the Rebels on the Tiger 7, Chinese Bandit end Andy Bourgeois threw quarterback Bobby Franklin for a four-yard loss. With seconds to go, Franklin tried to hurry up his team in order to kill the clock by throwing the ball away so Ole Miss could kick another field goal. Rushing in order to get the play off, the snap was bobbled after the harried Franklin lamely flipped the ball toward the sideline time had run out.
“That was crucial,” LeBlanc said in discussing several critical plays obscured by time that could have altered everything that occurred later. “If they had gotten that field goal just before the half, then at the end of the game they could have beaten us with just another field goal. That’s how close everything was that night.”
LeBlanc himself may have been the most important supporting figure in the saga of Halloween Night, 1959.
***
With LSU showing a propensity for dropping the ball, and with the field slick and damp from the high humidity, once he got the lead Rebel coach Johnny Vaught opened himself up to a perpetual second-guess by switching strategies. He started punting early, frequently on third down, but even, maddening to Ole Miss fans, on first down.
Vaught’s reasoning seems to have been two-fold: The Rebels were ahead and he was confident in his defense. Vaught’s angle was to just let the Tigers try to handle the slippery ball. And wait.
Another strong consideration was Vaught thought he could foil LSU with its own innovative three-platoon system. In order to circumvent the restrictive substitution rules of day, in which a player could only enter a game twice in a quarter, Tiger coach Paul Dietzel used one unit to play both offense and defense (the White Team), another for defense (the Chinese Bandits), and a third (the Go Team) strictly for offense. Ole Miss’ chances would be enhanced If Vaught could trap the Tigers with a specialist unit forced to play against its strengths, the Chinese Bandits on offense or, much worse, the Go Team on defense. At worse Vaught might force the White Team to play too much, tire them out.
After Cannon intercepted a third-quarter pass, LSU got to the Ole Miss 20, where to this day the Tigers insist they got a bad spot when the refs measured the ball turned sideways instead the usual point-to-point placement. A long LSU field goal attempt missed.
On the turnover, Vaught then ordered Jake Gibbs to punt on first down. Same thing the next time the Rebels got the ball. And the next, throughout the third quarter.
Events in the fourth quarter changed Vaught’s tactics. He would no longer be willing to give up the ball on any down.
***
From the LSU 20, Cannon punted on third down to the Rebel 39 and Jake Gibbs returned it to the 49.
That was the prelude to the most remembered play in LSU history. What isn’t remembered is what directly led to it.
Ole Miss gained three yards to the LSU 48, making it second and seven. On that down, LeBlanc made the play that made Cannon’s return possible. Gibbs took the snap and rolled out ? all of a sudden there was LeBlanc running him down and dropping him for a 10-yard loss. “I remember it vividly,” said LeBlanc, later an LSU assistant for 11 years under Charlie McClendon. “I thought they were going to pass, I came free and shot straight to Gibbs.”
That made it third-and-17 from the Ole Miss 42. Clearly without that loss the Rebels probably wouldn’t have been kicking on the next play from midfield, or, if they did, the ball would have been spiraling to the end zone. Even Billy Cannon wouldn’t try to return it from there, not in a game like this… . Would he?
***
Part of the legend of Cannon’s run was the fact that he went against one of Coach Paul Dietzel‘s cardinal rules by fielding a punt inside the 15-yard line. Actually, though, Cannon also took one on the LSU 8 on the third play of the fourth quarter. Because it led to nothing significant one way or another, nothing much was ever made of it.
“I had broken three tackles on a previous punt, although I didn’t get much out of it (four yards),” Cannon said, “and it was getting late. I thought, ?If I see a chance I’m going to try to bring it back.”
Gibbs’ kicking was a potent Ole Miss weapon, averaging 48 yards that night, a major factor in keeping the Tigers hemmed in, and he got a good one off here, too, 47 yards.
“I was trying to kick out of bounds,” Gibbs said, “expecting the ball to come down and roll out.” Gibbs did exactly that earlier. “Instead,” he recalled, “ it took a high bounce ? right to Billy.”
Depending on their vantage points, everyone seemed to see things differently. Brewer, who had just left the game and was standing on the Ole Miss sidelines, said, “I thought he was trying to get away. I watched the ball skip and then, almost like fate, bounce right to him.” Tiger guard Dave McCarty, on the LSU sidelines, said from his angle he thought the ball would go to the end zone, not a completely bad thing since the Tigers would at least have operating room, on their 20.
All Gibbs saw through the fog was a jumble of blue-and-red and purple-and-gold colors, then a lone figure busting out of the cluster and streaming right toward him.
Cannon was hit at the 15, almost losing his balance, but shook off the tackle and maintained his footing. LeBlanc threw the first block giving Cannon some room. Two Rebels made futile attempts at bringing him down by the time he reached the 19. At the 25 a mob briefly encased Cannon, but in a millisecond he again came flying out. One Rebel slipped from Cannon’s shoulders to his ankles in a five-yard ride before dropping off at the 30.
Seeing him run straight through the Ole Miss defenders, with the Rebels seemingly grasping at thin air, Hardesty wrote that Cannon resembled “a white-shirted ghost wearing jersey No. 20.”
By the time he passed Vaught at midfield at least eight Rebels had gotten at least a hand on Cannon.
Gibbs was the last man in the way. “I figured Jake was waiting for me to cut back on him,” Cannon said, “so I gave him a little juke and went inside… . I know people say you can’t think like that during the heat of a game, but that’s how I got past Gibbs.”
“I tried to hit him in his upper body,” Gibbs said. “… Not a good thing to do with someone as strong and powerful as Billy Cannon.”
Brewer added, “Only Billy Cannon could run and break tackles as he did. The man was a physical freak.”
Hall of Fame sportswriter Fred Russell of The Nashville Banner summed the sentiments of almost all who witnessed the play when he described it as a “superhuman feat.”
***
There were exactly 10 minutes to play when Cannon crossed the goal line. Ole Miss would retain possession of the ball for an excruciating nine minutes and 42 seconds of that time. Vaught again changed tactics. He inserted sophomore Doug Elmore, and his fresh pair of legs, at quarterback.
Starting at the Rebel 32, Elmore ignited a long, arduous march, flinging his backs against the Chinese Bandits, passing only once, and slowly worming his team into position to snatch away the victory.
“I was getting oxygen on the sidelines,” Cannon said, “watching Doug pick up first down after first down. I thought to myself, ?Here’s the best run I ever made in my life and we’re going to lose!’ ?’
LeBlanc admits he was thinking along the same lines. “The thought (of losing) started creeping into our minds,” he said.
When Ole Miss penetrated the LSU 23, Dietzel sent the White Team back in. But the advance continued. The Rebels picked up their fifth first down of the drive at the 7 with 90 seconds remaining. In the three ensuing plays, Ole Miss worked its way to the LSU 2, forcing a win-or-lose, fourth-and-goal situation.
Ole Miss, of course, had been well-scouted, and the Tigers knew that at pivotal times the Rebels almost always relied on its quarterback. Elmore slammed off-tackle where guard John Langan slowed him, Warren Rabb stopped his forward progress and Cannon finished the job one yard short of the goal. There were 18 seconds remaining.
In the broadcast booth, J.C. Politz erroneously said LeBlanc made the tackle. “How do you like that?” LeBlanc asked Rabb when they heard the replay. “You make one tackle in your life and I get the credit for it.”
***
Almost no one who played in that game can believe it was a half-century ago. Gibbs, who was an All-American a couple of years later, went on to a long career in baseball, as a New York Yankee. He said reflectively, “It seems more like months ago than 50 years.” Dave McCarty said, “Time has a way of getting away from us. It’s really hard to even comprehend it’s been that long.”
Brewer said the elapsed time is almost startling, but there is a good side. “We’ve all become a lot better player (in people’s minds) than we were then.”
Cannon put in a full night. He was the game’s leading rusher (48 yards on 12 carries, a 4.0 average); returned three punts for 102 yards; punted four times for a 42.0 average; and was in on a half-dozen tackles, including the one that saved the gamed at the LSU 1. He, too, is incredulous at the time span, reflecting, “Where did it all go? Little did any of us know we were doing something then that we’d still be talking about 50 years later.”
***
Despite the gaffe, his memorable broadcast, heard across the country and still played and replayed today by Tiger zealots, earned national recognition for Politz, voted by some media outlets as America’s best football announcer of 1959.
His rapid-fire narration continues from the start of the run: “He comes back up-field to the 15, stumbles momentarily… . he’s at the 20… . running hard at the 25! Gets away from one man at the 30. He’s at the 35… . he’s at the 50, he’s at the 45, 40!”
At this point a classic miscue occurred as a technician tried to lower the sound of the crowd while heightening Politz’s voice and ended up reversing the tasks. The roar from the stands drowned out the broadcast until the end of the epic run. Seconds later, when Politz’ rat-a-tat-tat intonation comes in again, we hear:“He’s at the 5, he SCORES! … Listen to the cheers as Billy Cannon comes off the field… . Great All-American.”
Marty Mule’ can be reached at MJM981two@charter.net.