GRANTLAND RICE

by Karl Park

There have been many successful years of Eastern Kentucky football, but a few truly stand out as memorable and historic seasons.

Hall of Fame coach Roy Kidd took over an EKU program in the 1960s in need of a spark. In just his fourth season at the helm, the Colonels won the 1967 NCAA Mideast Region championship. A decade later, Kidd led Eastern to four straight national championship game appearances, with bookend titles in 1979 and 1982. In those four years, Eastern compiled a 46-7 record and was continually ranked No. 1 in the nation, finishing at the top spot in the country in both the 1981 and 1982 seasons.

Those championship seasons also set in motion a string of 17 Division I FCS playoff appearances during the next 19 seasons for the Colonels that three times –– 1986, 1988 and 1991 –– ended just short of national title games with close semifinal round losses.

1967 Mideast Region Champions

In the 10 years prior to 1967, Eastern Kentucky managed only two winning seasons. However, Coach Kidd and the Colonels tallied a respectable 7-3 record in 1966, setting the stage for the first EKU championship team. “This team got the championship tradition started at Eastern,” said Kidd, who coached the Colonels to 314 victories in 39 years, won 16 OVC titles and two national I-AA crowns and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003. “They have always been and will always be one of my favorite teams.”

Things started out on a sour note that season when the Colonels opened their 10-game schedule with a 16-0 loss to a tough University of Dayton team on the road in a contest that saw EKU held to just 34 yards rushing, while the Flyers piled up 231 yards on the ground.

This was the last game that the Colonels would lose that year.

“The success for this program really began with the groups ahead of us. Guys like (quarterback)

Larry Marmie and (middle guard) Ron DaVingo ... we learned a lot from them. Coach Kidd had the vision, and we all bought into it.”

- Jim Guice, Grantland Rice Bowl MVP

The second game of the year was a 35-7 decision for the Colonels over OVC rival East Tennessee that produced the emergence of freshman tailback Jack McCoy. He finished the game with 74 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

Sophomore quarterback Tim Speaks, subbing for an injured Jim Guice, directed the Colonels to a 37-0 win over Austin Peay in the third game. The EKU defensive unit, known as the Headhunters, lived up to their moniker by shutting out the Bucs as tricaptain Chuck Siemon and all-conference linebacker Ron Reed combined for 16 tackles and 20 assists in the win.

Eastern’s quality depth at quarterback again proved to be too much for opponent number four that season as Speaks started at signal-caller for the Colonels, while first team All-OVC and AllAmerican candidate Guice was used in passing situations only, as Eastern edged Middle Tennessee 14-7. Eastern’s last nonconference game came the following week when 15 records fell for the Colonels in a 55-0 trouncing of Northwood (Mich.) College. Guice was 17-of-30 for 260 yards and four touchdown tosses.

The stage was set for the game of the year with who else but cross-state rival Western Kentucky, visiting EKU for what would turn out to be its last appearance at the antiquated Hanger Stadium in the middle of campus.

Every seat in the stadium was filled, and many spectators stood on the hillside in the east end zone to form the record-setting 15,000 crowd in attendance that sunny Saturday afternoon.

One of the most memorable goal-line stands in Eastern history occurred in this game as the Headhunters stopped Western’s All-American tailback Dickie Moore six out of seven times from just outside the one-yard line before Moore finally punched it in on the eighth try for a touchdown.

Eastern countered that score when fullback Bob Beck’s 10-yard touchdown run was followed by Guice’s two-point conversion run for the tying points, 14-14. A late would-be gamewinning touchdown pass from Guice to Don Buehler was overthrown by inches as the game ended in a tie.

Three more easy victories and a tie with Morehead State in the regular season finale left Eastern with a 7-1-2 record. The Colonels were then chosen to make the University’s second bowl appearance against Indiana Collegiate Conference champion Ball State University in the Grantland Rice Bowl in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The bowl game would decide the NCAA Mideast Regional Championship, which encompassed 10 states and 100 teams, one of four such college division championships set up by the NCAA that year.

Eastern went into the game shorthanded as the NCAA would not allow freshmen to play, which kept running backs McCoy and fullback Butch Evans on the sidelines. Kidd countered that ruling by moving All-American receiver Aaron Marsh to tailback. This move paid off as Marsh made a huge contribution in the first half, picking up 46 yards on the ground, grabbing three passes and totaling 39 yards on two punt returns before being forced from the game with a back injury.

After the Colonels led 13-7 at the break, it was time for one of the biggest plays in Colonel football history when AllAmerican nose guard Teddy Taylor burst through the line, stole the ball from Cardinal quarterback Doc Heath and ran 39 yards for a score that put Eastern up 20-7.

Ball State, ranked fifth in the nation heading into the Grantland Rice Bowl, responded by reaching EKU’s nineyard-line before the Colonel defense stiffened and stopped the Cardinals’ drive. The next few minutes were vintage Guice. He sliced and diced the Ball State defense, hitting six straight passes for 64 of the 91 yards in the drive, and culminated the back-breaking sequence of events with a 28-yard scoring pass to Ted Holcomb that provided the Colonels with an insurmountable 27-7 lead.

In the jubilant EKU locker room following the 27-13 victory over Ball State, the tri-captains for the ‘67 Colonels –– Harry Lenz, Siemon and Marsh –– presented the game ball to their elated coach, Roy Kidd, signifying his first championship season at Eastern.

“Coach, you are the best coach in the OVC, the Mideast Region and anywhere else that anybody plays football,” Lenz said.

In addition to Guice, Marsh and Holcomb’s heroics and the overall play of the Headhunters in the Bowl victory, John Tazel concluded his fabulous EKU career with a remarkable performance that included 11 pass receptions for 127 yards and a touchdown.

“Ball State was a very good team,” Kidd said. “The thing that bothered me the most was their size. They were not only one of the biggest but also one of the quickest teams we had ever faced.”

Guice, named MVP of the game, set a Grantland Rice Bowl record for passing percentage (15-of-19, .788), throwing for 136 yards and two scores.

“When you talk about what got it all started for the tremendous success this program has enjoyed for the past 40 years, you have to start here with this 1967 Eastern team,” former EKU head football coach Danny Hope said. n