1964 Football Team (Team) (2008) - Hall of Fame - Montana State University Athletics

1964 Football Team (Team)

Induction:
2008
Class:
1964

Camellia Bowl Champion Football Team-1964 Montana State entered the 1964 football season with high hopes, a successful program with 17 lettermen returning under a dynamic second-year head coach. Many people expected the Bobcats to enjoy success. Few expected it to make history. But, the 1964 football team proved to be the only squad in Bobcat history to win an end-of-the-season bowl game when it topped Sacramento State 28-7 in the Hornets’ hometown Camellia Bowl. The victory marked MSU’s third bowl appearance (the 1946 and ’56 teams earned ties), but the program’s first victory. The 1964 season marked Jim Sweeney’s second year as Bobcat head coach, but his fifth year on the Bobcat staff, and he had been around long enough ton understand the difficult challenge ahead of his squad. “The difficulty of the early season schedule is a problem,” the savvy coach told MSU Sports Information Director Ken Nicholson in a conversation between future Bobcat Hall-of-Famers. The comment would prove prescient. MSU split a pair of road games to begin the season, topping South Dakota State before losing at Wichita State. Facing a crucial contest against Fresno State, Ben Vaughn took a handoff on the first play from scrimmage and raced 97 yards for a touchdown, to this day the longest run from scrimmage in school history. That play fired the Bobcats to a 27-13 win over the Bulldogs. MSU lost at home to San Jose State the next week before stringing together back-to-back home wins against Nevada and Idaho State, a 20-0 Homecoming whitewashing, before facing two grueling out-of-league games in the state of North Dakota. The Bobcats lost a 7-0 thriller at North Dakota State before falling to North Dakota 9-7. With a 3-4 record, the Bobcats’ collective backs were to the wall, but the team had plenty to play for because the team had yet to lose a Big Sky Conference contest. With league member Idaho opting out of playing a conference schedule in 1964, only the Bobcats, Grizzlies, Idaho State and Weber State competed for the 1964 league crown. With a win in its hip pocket against Idaho State, the Bobcats traveled to Missoula on November 7 knowing that its season was on the line. Weber State was without a league win, and the Grizzlies stood 1-1 after beating Weber State and losing to ISU. A share of the title was at stake as the teams met in front of an overflow crowd of 10,500 in Dornblaser Stadium. After Sweeney had toured the Bobcats through the UM campus, allowing MSU players to read derogatory signs that dotted the landscape, the boys from the “Cow College” were ready to play. The Bobcat defense did not allow UM beyond its own 25-yard line in the game’s first 19 minutes, and the rout was on. The Bobcats left Missoula with a resounding 30-6 win, rolling up 432 yards to set a new Bobcat record in a game against Montana. One week later, Montana State drilled Weber State 24-0 for its first Big Sky title. That crown was even more impressive when MSU’s dominance is factored in. The Bobcats topped their three league foes by a combined total of 74-6. The 2.0 points allowed over a league season remains a school record. After being derided by the “hicks from Montana” over the course of their time in Sacramento, the Bobcats were again ready to play by the time kickoff of the Camellia Bowl rolled around. A 42-yard Jim Tuss run set up a one-yard touchdown run by Dick Haden, and Foy McClung’s passing set up the team’s next score for a 14-0 Bobcat lead at halftime. On the first possession of the third quarter, MSU marched 67 yards, capped by Dave Miller’s one-yard run, and McClung capped MSU’s 28-7 win with a scoring strike to Tuss. With the win, MSU finished 7-4 and won the Western Small College Championship proving that the difficult early-season schedule was worth it.