Gators finished hard-luck 1970s with an 0-10-1 season under iron first of Charley Pell — but better days were ahead.
By JOEY JOHNSTON
The Tampa Tribune
(c) Tampa Bay Times. Originally published July 15, 2006.
TAMPA – A decade that was supposed to produce the University of Florida’s first SEC football championship instead devolved into a series of tragi-comic themes – Doug’s Rug, the Gator Flop, the wishbone, Fourth and Dumb, retreating into Bobby Bowden’s rearview mirror.
Then came 1979.
The beginning of Charley Pell.
“I think we saw just about everything that season,” former Gators quarterback Larry Ochab said.
Except a victory.
“It absolutely blew my mind,” said former Gators player Lee McGriff, Pell’s receivers coach in 1979. “I grew up loving Florida football and its history. The players were my heroes. When I went there, I absolutely, positively expected to be walking off that field as a member of the first championship team.
“It didn’t happen. Then there we were on the coaching staff. And we couldn’t win a game.”
The 1979 Gators were 0-10-1, the program’s first winless season in 33 years. They scored 10 offensive touchdowns all season. They averaged 2.75 rushing yards per carry. They threw eight touchdown passes and 21 interceptions. They lost on homecoming – to Tulsa.
Pell, in his first season after serving at Clemson, knew a rebuilding job was ahead after the 1978 firing of Doug Dickey. Disciplinary defections and injuries – notably a collegiate career-ending brain bruise to potential All-American linebacker Scot Brantley – made the task even tougher.
But Pell’s biggest priority was off the field.
The team’s star was wide receiver Cris Collinsworth. Early on, Pell identified defensive tackle Dock Luckie as a leader.
One day, Collinsworth and Luckie strolled into a 9 o’clock meeting. It was 9:02.
“Everyone else got steak and potatoes,” said Luckie, now a lieutenant with UF’s police department. “We got hot dogs and beans – with ice on top – all week. The coaches were waking us up at 4 a.m. to run the stadium steps.
“The people who couldn’t adjust to Coach Pell’s agenda didn’t last very long. And the people who did figured something out pretty quickly. If there was a 9 o’clock meeting, you got there at 8:45.”
Pell instilled an attitude. He recruited ferociously. He upgraded facilities and mobilized boosters (and their checkbooks). By 1980, the Gators were 8-4 (the biggest one-season turnaround in NCAA history) and winners of the Tangerine Bowl.
The Gators were on the move.
In 1979, they were stuck in reverse.
“I won’t discount the effort and how hard we worked that year,” Brantley said. “I will question the strategy. We were not a terrible team. We had talent. We should’ve won half our games.”
An assertion backed by McGriff.
“We could’ve told our guys to draw up their own plays and they probably would’ve won some games by themselves,” McGriff said. “Coach Pell wanted Florida to be the toughest team in the SEC, so we constantly challenged their courage [in practice]. We beat them up, over and over again.
“We’d put 13 guys on defense and challenge the offense [with 11 players] to score on the goal line. We’d do it over and over. At times, I think we forgot there was a real game we had to play that Saturday.”
When No.2-ranked Alabama came to Gainesville, McGriff said a close-to-the-vest Pell went around the room, asking staffers about UF’s best offensive strategy against the Crimson Tide.
Run right at ’em. Option. Be physical.
Then Pell called on McGriff.
“I think they’re vulnerable in the secondary,” McGriff said. “They can’t cover Cris Collinsworth. I think we should throw it a bunch.”
Pell smashed his chalk against the board.
The Gators opened with a two-tight end formation – and Collinsworth in the I-backfield. Not a chance. Alabama won 40-0 and rushed for 453 yards, the most ever allowed by UF in a non-bowl game.
“When you’re in a foxhole with guys, you never forget them or the experience,” said Larry Ochab, who attempted 54 passes in a 27-16 loss to unbeaten Florida State. “That season was the ultimate foxhole.”
It seemed eons from the promising mid-1970s.
“We were a play or two away from something really big,” said Dickey (1970-78), whose teams were three times on the verge of an SEC title, only to lose heartbreaking games to Georgia each season.
“Doug Dickey was a blink away from being the Florida football coach forever,” McGriff said. “Those years are viewed as big disappointments. But man, were we close.”
In 1980, Pell hired Mike Shanahan, who installed a run-and-shoot style offense. The Gators opened it up and began to win again. The foundation was laid – painfully – in 1979.
“Of course it would’ve been better to win a game or two,” Luckie said. “Sometimes, the whole thing has to be torn down before it gets built up again.
“I think that’s what happened to us.”
