Trip Down Memory Lane,...

I remember the year well,...fresh out of high school, first year pre-med at the University of Virginia. My family had moved from Atlanta two years before, and while I attended an ACC school, I was a bulldawg by birth right! The year was 1980, legends, stories and folklore were about to be borne......

1980: On top of the world

onlineathens.com/stories/coach/dog_20040703006.shtml

By Marc Weiszer

From the files of the Athens Banner-Herald

The Easter weekend travel plans called for Vince and Barbara Dooley to head north for a long holiday weekend with their kids to visit her brother in Boston.

One problem. Herschel Walker had yet to sign.

\"Barbara, I can't go,\" Vince Dooley said.

\"What do you mean you can't go?\" she replied.

\"Herschel hasn't signed. I can't leave,\" he said.

\"The heck with Herschel. Who does he think he is?\"

\"That's all, well and good, but I can't go,\" Dooley said.

Georgia had invested too many hours and too much effort to secure what it hoped would be the final recruit of its 29-man 1980 recruiting class.

Walker rushed for more than 6,137 yards and scored 86 touchdowns at Johnson County High School in Wrightsville. Georgia assistant Mike Cavan battled the likes of Clemson and Southern Cal in the small town two hours south of Athens to land the coveted running back.

\"Herschel always had a tough time saying no to anybody and couldn't make up his mind what to do,\" Dooley said.

Word finally came to Dooley in his office on Easter morning from recruiting coordinator Steve Greer that Walker was ready to sign. Georgia had used up all of its official visits, but the coaches drove to Wrightsville and waited anxiously outside Walker's home for his signature.

\"The puzzle was there, it was just this one missing piece,\" Dooley said.

That 1980 national championship puzzle already included quarterback Buck Belue, wide receiver Lindsay Scott, defensive back Scott Woerner, a solid offensive line and All-SEC kicker Rex Robinson.

The team may have bonded more from, of all things, an offseason hijink involving a stolen pig.

The team had a tradition of holding a party after spring practice where a pig would be roasted.

\"Everything was there except the food,\" said linebacker Frank Ros. \"College students with limited financial resources had to be resourceful. Lacking the proper judgment at that age, we made a decision and we paid for it.\"

Ros said he and teammates Hugh Nall, Chris Welton, Nat Hudson and Woerner stole a pig from the university research center at around 1 a.m. Apparently, the pig's carcass was tossed and someone jotted down the license plate.

The head of the university department that owned the pig was livid, but allowed Dooley to handle the discipline. The players were kept off scholarship in the summer of 1980 and were ordered to paint the brick wall around the Georgia football practice fields starting at 1 p.m. every afternoon in the scorching sun.

\"Coach Dooley would drive up in a big Continental he used to have, roll down the passenger window and say, 'Ain't good enough. Do it again,'\" Ros said.

The players were also required to pay reparations to pay reparations to the pig's owner. Teammates contributed. The incident became known as the \"Purloined Pig Party.\"

\"That might have brought the team closer together,\" Dooley said. \"I'm satisfied it did.\"

There was anticipation for Walker's college debut was much anticipated. When he arrived for fall practice, Dooley dismissed the hype surrounding Walker, saying he worried that Walker might be just a \"big, stiff back.\"

\"I tried to temper (the hype) because I thought it was too much,\" Dooley said. \"I downplayed Herschel pretty much. Quite honestly, I didn't think he was going to have the impact. I didn't think he was going to have the chance to have the impact. I wasn't just going to give him the job. He had to earn the job.\"

Walker earned the job in the season-opener at Tennessee before more than 95,000, the largest crowd at that time for a game in the South.

With Georgia trailing 15-2, Walker ran a toss sweep 16 yards for a touchdown, barreling over safety Bill Bates.

\"Vince said he thought Herschel might be able to help us by the fourth game,\" defensive coordinator Erk Russell recalled. \"In the middle of the Tennessee game when he ran over Bill Bates and scored a touchdown, that was an indication that he might be ready now.\"

Dooley said: \"He didn't know where he was going exactly, but he was going somewhere in a hurry.\"

Walker added a 9-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter and Georgia won 16-15.

\"I knew he was going to be good,\" Dooley said. \"I didn't know he'd be good that soon. I knew he was going to be a great player but I didn't have any idea he'd make the impact that he did.\"

The 6-foot-2, 220-pound Walker showed he was muscular with sprinter's speed, rushing for 145 yards and three touchdowns in a 42-0 rout of Texas A&M, including one score on a 76-yard run.

Walker ran for 121 yards in a 20-16 win over Clemson in a game in which Woerner, who led the nation in punt return average, returned a punt 67 yards and an interception 100 yards.

\"We actually survived the first couple of games,\" Dooley said. \"So many of our games we're just nail-biters, tough games. In doing that, we acquired a confidence as we went along, of being in tough games that we could win and find ways to win.\"

Woerner was one of 22 seniors on the 1980 team, including seven who started on defense. Of the group, 17 earned degrees, five received master's degrees and one - Chris Welton - got a law degree, said Ros, the 1980 team captain.

The group had experienced the high of the national title and the low of Dooley's only losing season - 5-6 - in 1977.

\"We probably weren't the most talented class, but we had a lot of drive and determination,\" said Ros, now vice president for Latin American Affairs for Coca-Cola. \"Most of us had to pay our dues and were on th scout team. We had a resolve in ourselves that we were going to be special one way or another.\"

Georgia won virtually without Walker against Texas Christian and Ole Miss. Walker gained 69 yards against TCU before leaving the game with an ankle injury and did not start in a 28-21 win over Ole Miss when Carnie Norris subbed for Walker and rushed for 150 yards.

Before the Vanderbilt game, there were more serious injuries to be concerned with when Vince and Barbara Dooley suffered injuries in an automobile accident.

They had picked up their son Derek from a youth football game and took him to see a Bulldog that was painted in town for Homecoming week. Police were chasing a traffic offender who ran a red light and hit Dooley's car.

Barbara Dooley suffered broken ribs and had spleen removed. Vince Dooley required about 15 stitches in his lip.

Dooley was back on the sideline for Vanderbilt. Walker's health, meanwhile, was no longer a question when he exploded for 283 yards and three touchdowns in a 41-0 blowout of Vanderbilt the next week, setting a Georgia single-game record.

By the time Walker's career was over, he owned 11 NCAA, 16 SEC and 41 school records.

The national media took notice of Walker during Georgia's unbeaten regular season, showing an unprecedented level of interest in the program.

One newspaper writer flew all the way from California for a 15-minute audience with Walker, who was accommodating as many interviews as he could.

A writer from the Northeast phoned Georgia sports information director Claude Felton, pitching an idea that was shot down about wanting to live with Herschel for a few days for a story.

\"What do I tell Herschel's roommate?,\" Felton asked.

\"Can you find him another place to live for three days?\" the writer asked.

After a 27-0 rout of Kentucky, a showdown ensued between Walker and South Carolina star George Rogers, the country's two top running backs. The game between the 7-0 and No. 4 Bulldogs and 7-1 and 14th-ranked Gamecocks did not disappoint.

Walker rushed for 219 yards and a touchdown while Rogers went for 168 yards and eventually won the Heisman Trophy that year, but not this game. Rogers fumbled in the fourth quarter and Georgia recovered at its own 16 and the Bulldogs escaped with a 13-10 victory. Top-ranked Alabama and No. 2 UCLA lost on the same day, elevating Georgia to No. 2, behind only Notre Dame.

Eight games into the season and Lindsay Scott had yet to catch a touchdown pass. Georgia was winning by giving the ball to Walker left, right and up the middle and it was producing win after win.

\"We wanted to get him the ball as many times and as many different ways as you can,\" Dooley said.

Walker was having another big day against Florida in Week 9, a game in which he rushed for 238 yards on 37 carries. Yet Georgia's unbeaten season was about to be ruined in Jacksonville.

The Bulldogs trailed 21-20 and faced third-and-11 at their own 7-yard line in the waning seconds.

Scott went from a forgotten man to never forgotten. His scholarship had been taken away for the semester as punishment for a disciplinary issue and there was a question whether he'd even be able to play after falling asleep at the wheel and crashing his car in the summer of 1980.

The night before the Florida game, Scott pointed out to quarterback Buck Belue that he had yet to catch a touchdown pass that season.

\"When the opportunity finally presented itself, the key for me was I was ready,\" Scott said.

It presented itself in a play called Left 76, designed simply to get a first down.

Scott lined up right and ran a crossing curl route. The play left the backside open for Scott when the flanker ran a deep post.

Belue dropped into the end zone and scrambled away from trouble, and Scott leaped and caught the ball at about the 25-yard line in the middle of the field.

\"I thought I got a first down and we've got a completion and we're going to keep the chains moving,\" Scott said.

Scott spun to his right after he was surprised he did not get hit.

\"Once I regained my balance I had some room to the outside,\" Scott said. \"I just outran everybody.\"

Dooley ran down the sideline with Scott, waving his arms.

Georgia radio broadcaster Larry Munson uttered the famous call that became an unforgettable soundtrack of a championship season: \"Run Lindsay Š Lindsay Scott! Š Lindsay Scott! Š Lindsay Scott!\"

That play, more than any other, won Georgia the national championship.

\"I think it's for the ages,\" Dooley said. \"We couldn't have won (the national title) without it.\"

Georgians voted the play the \"greatest moment\" in state sports history in a poll this year by Sports Illustrated.

\"I will always be linked to that play, that year and that football team,\" said Scott, now a supervisor for Roadway Trucking in Valdosta. \"It's something I take pride in and something I'm proud of. It's not, if not the best, one of the best experiences I've ever had.\"

What made it even better for Georgia fans was that Georgia Tech tied No. 1 Notre Dame that day, giving Georgia the room to move up to the top spot.

Georgia now was two games away from an 11-0 regular season.

Nemesis Auburn, a team that ended Georgia's SEC title hopes a year earlier, couldn't slow down the Bulldogs' run this time in a 31-21 Georgia victory.

The Bulldogs turned back Georgia Tech 38-20 two weeks later as Walker broke Tony Dorsett's freshman rushing record in the first half. He finished the season with 1,616 yards on 274 carries.

Georgia had a date in the Sugar Bowl with Notre Dame for the a chance to win the national championship.

The day before preparations began for Notre Dame, Dooley phoned Russell and asked him to meet for lunch.

\"Everybody left and it was just the two of us,\" Russell said. \"He said, 'You need to make plans to hold practice and take the team to New Orleans because I'm going to Auburn.'\"

\"You're kidding me,\" Russell told Dooley.

\"They've made me an offer that I can't refuse,\" Dooley told him.

Dooley had other overtures during his 25-year career, but the only other job he seriously considered was Oklahoma in 1965.

Auburn was his alma mater and the state's governor, who made initial contact, was Dooley's college roommate. Dooley had been offered the athletic director and head coach positions.

\"I had some emotional pull, so I looked into it,\" Dooley said. \"In the final analysis, I had been here too long. I had too much tied up. All my children grew up here. When I went to the airport to go see the Auburn officials, my son Derek was in the backseat and he was crying. He said, 'I hate Auburn.'\"

\"Somehow, some way, one more time.\"

That became the battle cry of the 1980 Bulldogs. It was a message Dooley had written on things he gave to the team.

Georgia needed to do it one more time against storied Notre Dame, a program the Catholic Dooley grew up pulling for as a kid. \"I used to say prayers for Notre Dame,\" Dooley said.

Dooley provided tickets for the nuns who taught Dooley in grammar school in Mobile. He tells the story that before the game in the New Orleans Superdome he gave them their tickets and told them, \"Sisters, now don't forget to say a little prayer for the Bulldogs.\"

\"Oh, no, Vincent we're pulling for Notre Dame,\" they told him.

Notre Dame entered 9-1-1, but some had perceived Georgia's schedule as soft. The Irish's top-ranked defense had not allowed a 100-yard rusher all season.

\"Notre Dame has the most talent of any team in the college football, and I don't think anyone picked us to win, even though we were undefeated,\" Walker said in 2000.

Georgia trailed 3-0 after Harry Oliver's 50-yard field goal. Things looked bleaker when on the second offensive snap Walker gained 7 yards and left the game with his left shoulder hanging low.

\"I said, 'What in the world?,'\" Dooley said. \"A minute later, the trainer, Warren Morris, who we used to call Dr. Death, comes up and says, 'He's finished. He's out. He can't play.' Here it is our best player playing for the national championship against the best defensive team in the country that year. That was a heck of a way to start the game.\"

It turned out Walker had only a dislocated shoulder that was popped back into place. Walker re-entered the game on the next series.

\"The coaches thought I was not going to play anymore,\" Walker said. \"I remember feeling selfish standing there on the sidelines - hurt and letting my teammates down. So when the trainers popped my shoulder back in place, I went back out there and was fine.\"

Georgia made its first break when an unknown freshman blocked a field goal attempt from 48 yards.

Safety Terry Hoage went on to earn a spot in the College Football Hall of Fame but played sparingly as a freshman. The Texan did not have any other scholarship offers out of high school but caught Dooley's attention in bowl practices when the freshmen were lined up against the kicking team. Hoage ran up and blocked a couple of kicks and Dooley told him he was going to the Sugar Bowl.

His block in the Sugar Bowl set up a 46-yard field goal from All-American Rex Robinson for a 3-3 tie.

\"It was pretty cool,\" Hoage said. \"It was a surprise to everybody else but me. It was certainly a heady experience.\"

Greg Bell would tip another missed field goal in the fourth quarter.

Georgia went ahead after the Bulldogs recovered an improbable kickoff at the Notre Dame 1-yard line after a mixup by the Notre Dame deep men. Steve Kelly raced down the field and knocked the ball loose and brother Bob Kelly recovered the fumble. Walker scored from the 1-yard line for a 10-3 lead.

\"That's a perfect example of how a half-step could be the difference between winning a national championship and not winning one,\" Ros said. \"Everyone took on their roles to the best of their abilities.\"

Georgia, which led the nation in takeaways, again took advantage of a Notre Dame miscue when Ros caused a fumble that Chris Welton recovered at the Irish 22. Walker ran 12, 10 and 3 yards for the touchdown and a 17-3 lead early in the second quarter. All-American Scott Woerner picked off a fourth-down pass with Georgia ahead by seven.

Walker rushed for 150 yards on 36 carries but the rest of Georgia's offense produced minus-23 yards. Belue's only completion came with 2:05 left in the game but was key-going for 7 yards to Amp Arnold to help run out the clock of the 17-10 Georgia victory.

Georgia fans rushed the Superdome turf, and the Bulldogs had their first unbeaten, consensus national championship.

\"It was the craziest thing you've ever seen,\" Ros said. \"At that point you couldn't hardly move. It was unbelievable. Every step you took you felt like you got more crushed.\"

\"That's the ultimate,\" Dooley said. \"We were the undisputed champions. Won them all. That's what you want. That's what you play for.\"

More than two decades later, starting defensive guard Tim Crowe is often asked about the magical season.

\"It's part of our lives,\" said Crowe, a fireman who lives in Watkinsville. \"Still a lot of people talk about it and still want to see the ring. It's a constant thing.\"

Erk Russell hears about it when people recognize him on the golf course.

Fans waited in a line at an Augusta mall this past April for an autograph signing attended by Scott, Belue, Woerner, Robinson and Munson.

\"What makes it so special is I'm able to get with those guys and we're older now with kids and families and all that good stuff,\" Scott said, \"but you can tell even today it was a unique group of people.\"

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, June 27, 2004

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Some say that this was a team of destiny, some say we may never see it repeated again. I believe this was a glorified combination of hard work, outstanding work ethic, unparalleled leadership and sheer, unadulterated luck! We've had many near misses since 1980. A few pundent rich prognostications which failed myserably before a national audience. Several teams that defied the odds, ignored the preseason press and over achieved. We've watched the creation of champions with few \"stars\" behind their name and sat blurry eyed wondering why those that should, never really did! Hell, that's football, SEC football! And I gotta tell ya, I like the chemistry I hearing about in Athens. I believe that last two recruiting classes will prove themselves battle worthy come September. I think CMR closed this years class with significant pick-ups that lofted us well above what many predicted we would achieve....

So with hard work, leadership, team work and a little luck, we just may slip up on a few this year...perhaps many!....Oh yah, that pre-med UVa freshman lasted one year in Charlottesville, took a two year hiatus and enrolled at UGA in the fall of 83...best decision I ever made!

GO DAWGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for that. Great Read.

NC_Dawg wrote:

Some say that this was a team of destiny, some say we may never see it repeated again. I believe this was a glorified combination of hard work, outstanding work ethic, unparalleled leadership and sheer, unadulterated luck! We've had many near misses since 1980. A few pundent rich prognostications which failed myserably before a national audience. Several teams that defied the odds, ignored the preseason press and over achieved. We've watched the creation of champions with few \"stars\" behind their name and sat blurry eyed wondering why those that should, never really did! Hell, that's football, SEC football! And I gotta tell ya, I like the chemistry I hearing about in Athens. I believe that last two recruiting classes will prove themselves battle worthy come September. I think CMR closed this years class with significant pick-ups that lofted us well above what many predicted we would achieve....

So with hard work, leadership, team work and a little luck, we just may slip up on a few this year...perhaps many!....Oh yah, that pre-med UVa freshman lasted one year in Charlottesville, took a two year hiatus and enrolled at UGA in the fall of 83...best decision I ever made!

Lots of memories in the story NC_Dawg. Appreciate your added wisdom. Go Dawgs!

I got chills reading that. I just wished I had been born so I could have been witness to that magical season. 2009 is shaping up to be the year of the DAWG!!!

Thank you NC_Dawg......I remember EVERY moment in that article.......just AWESOME.