by Bert Hancock
As Danny Thomas’ show titled “Make Room For Daddy” debuted across America’s living rooms in 1953, Michigan State’s once fledgling football program had convinced the Big Ten to finally make room for its debut that same fall.
Clarence “Biggie” Munn had coached at Syracuse in 1946 before plying his wares at Michigan State the following season, where he brought along his inevitable successor, Duffy Daugherty. Munn was a broad-shouldered guy with a powerful physique and relentlessly good nature who enjoyed the game more than a lot of his more uptight peers. He even often sat with the players during team meals, and they loved playing for him.
Under the direction of school president John Hannah, Michigan State had already begun a gargantuan growth spurt from a land-grant institution often derisively referred to as a “Cow College” (from its agricultural roots) to a major university with several times as many students (about 20,000) by the mid-1950s.
Hannah, who began his regime in 1941, reasoned that a high-powered football program would bring the relatively unknown school the kind of prestige needed to attract a wondrous and large faculty. “If it meant the betterment of Michigan State, our football team would play any eleven gorillas from Barnum and Bailey any Saturday,” sang the ambitious school president at the time.
Fight for acceptance into Big Ten
As Michigan State College (the word “university” did not become part of its name until 1955) grew, the University of Michigan’s resistance to its striving for Big Ten admission grew as well. As such, a bitter pill was added to a rivalry already formed from the natural in-state battleground setup and near-annual gridiron clashes.
After three rugged years of formal effort following decades of hope and despair, Michigan State was admitted into the Big Ten (aka “Western Conference”) in December of 1948. Though the occasion demanded celebration (and Michigan State students leveraged that to the hilt), one somber note was added. The Spartans would not be allowed to compete for the conference title in football until 1953.
Biggie Munn’s boys in 1949 gave Michigan State reason to be proud despite facing the long delay ahead, playing Michigan to its closest in years, finally falling just short by a 7-3 count.
The Spartans’ program continued making headway on the strength of two main factors: Munn’s staff and the recruiting of black players.
Integration a critical ingredient in giving the program strength
Though the Big Ten area integrated with more aggressiveness than most parts of the country, Michigan State fired it up another notch.
“No school was more receptive to black players at that time than Michigan State,” said former standout Henry Bullough (1952-’54), who also coached under Duffy Daugherty at MSU from 1959-’69. “You look at other teams in the Big Ten in the early ’50s and they probably averaged four or five blacks on their entire team. We’d have five or six starting alone. We wanted to provide an opportunity to those who were denied one.”
Some referred to State as “the Brooklyn Dodgers of college football.” One of the benefactors–who also benefited the school tremendously–was lineman Don Coleman, the school’s first black All-American and inevitable inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame. His head coach Biggie Munn praised Coleman as “the number one blocker and finest lineman, pound for pound, I’ve ever seen.”
Coleman savored the opportunity. “What we did at Michigan State helped everyone take a step closer to better understanding those who before that had no prior contact with one another,” he reflected.
Spartans become national player
In Biggie Munn’s first game in 1947, Michigan had obliterated State 55-0. By 1951, the Spartans invaded Ann Arbor and blasted the Wolverines, 25-0. A perfect season vaulted Michigan State to a heady No. 2 in the country at season’s end.
Despite the loss of the entire offensive line and a number of additional starters, Munn and his top assistant Duffy Daugherty possessed sterling reps for constructing great lines, and they lived up to the billing.
Building off of the glory of ‘51, the 1952 version impressed even more, walloping its opponents by a cumulative 312-84 and capturing the school’s first national championship.
Beyond recruiting talented black players (as well as white ones), Munn’s multifaceted offense, what he deemed the “T double wing,” played a big role. Stated Biggie (named 1952’s national Coach of the Year) following grabbing the national title, “The T double wing has been important in the success of the last three teams at Michigan State. In the last three years we have lost one game. To my knowledge I had never seen this formation before in football.”
At the time, many teams were using some form of the split T with option running emitting from that formation. Munn often took such trends to the next level.
Finally, Michigan State begins Big Ten play
You figure the suspense of actually facing conference competition would be enough, but added to the mystery was the stunning rule change on substitution after 1952. Suddenly, players would need to thrive on offense and defense both, following several years of specialization (like we’re used to seeing these days).
Spartan head coach Munn hated the dramatic change. After carefully building the pieces to a national powerhouse, he feared the new rule would tragically throw the gridiron landscape wide open going into 1953. Magnifying this mess was the reality that 19 of his standouts over the great ‘51-’52 run had completed their eligibility.
Still, in Michigan State College’s Big Ten initiation, it handled Iowa, 21-7. First test passed easily enough. Munn then decisively disposed of his alma mater, Minnesota, and the Spartans’ win streak bulged to 26 games.
TCU’s Fightin’ Frogs came to East Lansing next, seemingly a non-factor for the Spartans’ powerhouse. After all, the visitors had been playing no better than mediocre ball the last few years and, in fact, were on their way to their worst mark (3-7) in seven years.
Incredibly, Michigan State found itself in a huge hole, 19-7, late in the game. Just as it appeared college football’s biggest upset was in the books, the Spartans shot back with 19 unanswered points in a 26-19 triumph.
Two weeks later, Biggie Munn’s unbeatables took on Purdue, another paltry squad on its way to a 2-7 record that season. But stunningly, the Boilermakers took a late lead over the heavily favored Spartans, 6-0, following the fullback’s plunge over the goal.
Lightning struck in the Spartans’ favor on the ensuing kickoff, as super scatback LeRoy Bolden raced 95 yards in an apparent rescue, only to have a penalty bring the ball all the way back deep into Michigan State territory.
That sunk the Spartans, and the “Spoilermakers” had shocked the country while breaking the streak at 28 games in . Biggie Munn also suffered his first shutout defeat since the 1947 Michigan drubbing that began his East Lansing career.
Playing solely for pride?
Though unbeaten Illinois had a clear inside track to the Rose Bowl now, Michigan State refused to lie down. LeRoy Bolden personally bludgeoned Ohio State with three touchdown runs, including ones of 20 and 37 yards. Said a dejected Woody Hayes of Ohio State, “That’s twice now he’s done that (knocked the Buckeyes out of the Big Ten race).”
It still appeared that this standout State program would fall shy of its dream of winning the conference in its first season. There would be others, but the school had waited so long and had come off of two perfect seasons, hoping to continue such a string.
But, just as it appeared that bridesmaid status would be the best in store for ‘53, Wisconsin shocked formerly unbeaten Illinois, 34-7. Meanwhile, Michigan State’s fourth consecutive handling of hated Michigan (on NBC’s nationally televised “Game of the Week”) gave it an unexpected tie for the title.
The league had quandary on its hands in determining the Rose Bowl representative. On the one, this new kid on the block–which had been despised in some quarters–had proved itself fully worthy of membership. Still, residue of the bitterness remained, and Illinois had been a longtime member and was unbeaten most of the season.
The vote was just as close as the conundrum, with suspense mounting as five separate ballots produced a deadlock, 5-5, in votes for Michigan State or Illinois. Finally, Ohio State convinced Indiana to side with the rookie representative, and suddenly the first-year competitors were playing in the Granddaddy of Them All.
The season now had, in many ways, already brought long-starved Spartans more satisfaction than they could have hoped for, having been left out of its Big Ten ambitions for ages. Would it represent the conference well, now, or would it crater on the huge stage awaiting it?
UCLA, the opponent, played its home games nearby, and its program had been through two Rose Bowl’s already.
The Bruins acted like they’d “been there, done that,” in taking and owning a comfortable 14-0 lead late in the first half. Just then, Michigan State’s Ellis Duckett broke through the line to block a UCLA punt, gathered it in and ran for a lead-slicing touchdown. That gave the Spartans the spark they needed going into halftime.
With head coach Munn working them into a frenzy for the second half and Billy Wells busting loose, Michigan State broke out with three more touchdowns.
Halfback Wells, perhaps inspired by a meeting with then starlet Debbie Reynolds earlier, buzzed for 80 yards on the ground and then bolted for a 62-yard punt return to put the Spartans up, 28-20. He followed that with a touchdown saving tackle of a Bruins’ receiver who’d broken loose, putting a close to this great game.
Closed, too, was Biggie Munn’s fabulous career as head coach, opting to focus solely on his duties as athletic director, with his first duty hiring his longtime assistant, Duffy Daugherty. As a result, despite a setback in 1954, Munn was able to maintain the momentum he’d engineered for years to come.
Tags: 1950s football, Big Ten football, Biggie Munn, Duffy Daugherty, integration, Michigan State football, Michigan State football history, Rose Bowl, UCLA football history