football Coach Littlefield 1927-1933
1927- 1933 Coach Clyde Littlefield
During his years as head coach for the Longhorn football team, his record was 44-18-6, with two SWC championships. Littlefield was a disciplinarian who used his foot to butt for players who made mistakes. But in 1933, the team went 4-5-2, and he was fired as football coach but retained the head coach of track and field.
Many athletes did not like wearing helmets.
A link from the Stark Center about Clyde Littlefield is below.
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/326908/Clyde-Littlefield-The-life-of-a-Texas-legend/
According to Kern Tips, offenses continued to force defenses to innovate. Offense Spreads, spins, reverses, and the use of the play-pass forced defenses to probe, hit-and-run, read the blocks, react and pursue, gang-tackle, and to red dog- to wreck the play at inception.
1927- 6-2-1 Clyde Littlefield
bottom l to r Rhoads, Ford, McCollough, Allen, Higgins , Captain, King, Reynolds Estes
second row- James, Beular, Rees, Hammonds Boyles, Tigner, Phillips
third row- Walker, Brown, Sewell, Hughes, Beatty Kelly (trainer)
fourth row- Whitcomb, Rose, Cowley, Littlefield, Baldwin, Wray, Karow
There were 5,545 students enrolled at Texas. At the Aggie-Texas game, 45,000 fans attended, grossing $80,000. Texas lost 28-7
From 1928- 1930 Clyde Littlefield’s Teams accumulate 14 Shutouts In 16 Games. UT’s 10 Shutouts In A Row Remains The Longest Consecutive Shutout Streak In UT History.
He is the most prolific athlete in Texas Sports history.
In four years, he earned 12 letters in football, basketball, and track. In 1914 he was the leading scorer in football and basketball. In track, he only lost one race in four years and tied the world record in the 120-yard hurdles.
Goal Post was moved 10 yards from the goal line.
In the early years of what became the NFL, there were Longhorns who played professional football in America.
1928- 7-2 Coach CLYDE LITTLEFIELD SWC champs
Littlefield discarded the leathery chest patch jerseys.
After dealing with orange and white jerseys fading to yellow for many years after washing, Littlefield changes the colors to burnt orange. It appears that Coach got tired of the competitors calling Texas “yellow bellies”. Burnt Orange is used until WWII causes shortages in the dyes needed to make “burnt orange.”
Bellmont is demoted from Athletic Director to Chairman of the physical education department.
Dexter Shelley was the working horse in the back field. Dexter was a triple threat- punt, pass, and run.
The link below will take you to the The UT History Corner and the first captured audio of the Eyes of Texas and Texas Fight. Please peruse this site for more historical information to UT.
The 1928 and 1929 teams hold the record for consecutive shut-outs. (10)
The largest crowd to see a football game in the Southwest (45,000) attended the Texas and Texas A & M game. The gate receipts were $93, 283.
Texas was once again invited to play in a post-season game against Nebraska but the Texas faculty declined the offer.
1929- 5-2-2 – coach Clyde Littlefield great depression begins
Texas starts the season with 7 consecutive shutouts, but lost the SWC to TCU.
Bottom row- l to R Elkins, Beular, Hawn, Brown (captain) Shelley, Burnett, Meadows, Rees
Second Row – Keel, Nemir, Emerson, Baumgarten, Vining, Nixon, Doell, Kelly
Third Row- Karow, Ettlinger (athletic director), Weaver, Hargrove, Mills, Littlefield.
Fourth row- Perkins, Peterson, Rose, Cheatham, Beard, Craig.
Dixie classic the precursor to the Cotton Bowl begins.
Nona Rees is the Longhorn starting quarterback
The Texas State Fair donates a trophy to the Texas-OU game: the Golden Hat.
Rose makes the All-SWC team
6 members of the team entered the Longhorn Hall of Honor- Stafford, Koy, Elkins, Shelley , Hawn, and Emerson.
1930 – 8-1-1- Coach Clyde Littlefield SWC Champs
1930 SWC champion Quarterback Johnny Craig, and halfbacks Harrison Stafford and Hank Clewis
This was Coach Littlefields best team with the Horns outscoring their opponents 179-20. Unbelievably, the Horns were tied by lowly Centenary out of Shreveport and upset by Rice 6-0.
In the early ’30s, Longhorns such as “Ox” Emerson, “Big ‘Un” Rose and Dexter Shelley played professional football and made a few dollars.
After losing to SMU 6 times in a row, Texas finally wins by changing the defensive alignment from a 7 man line to a 5 man line. It was a first for an SWC team and the defense confused the opposing team’s blockers.
1930 football team
Coach Littlefield won the SWC 2 out of 3 years, but he lost to lowly Rice University and the fans were angry. How could Texas lose to a 6th place team?
SMU beat Texas 10 years in a row, but in 1930 the jinx is broken. Texas wins 26-7.
Texas had 6 all conference selections.
Littlefield uses a five-man line as a standard defense for the first time in the history of collegiated football.
https://www.facebook.com/hornfan1973/videos/10152938400435129/
Not acknowledged by the NCAA or Texas but recognized as a national champion by some national rating services.
Clyde says that “Harrison Stafford says the best All-around he ever saw, and he could play for anybody and that includes all the teams of today.” Joe Utay a consummate judge of football said Harrison Stafford was “the fiercest football player I ever saw.”
Clyde Littlefield’s best team is the 1930 SWC champs with Ernie Koy a great baseball player, Bull Elkins who is a three-sport star and the only UT football player ever offered a Rhode Scholarship.
Harrison Stafford who is is also a member of the track team is part of the winning relay, places 3rd in the broad jump, and 4th in the javelin, and 3rd in the low hurdles. Harrison Stafford is the first Longhorn inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame. Stafford made blocking a spectator sport.
Dana Bible said Ernie Koy was the greatest fullback ever seen in action. In 1933 Ernie served as an assistant football coach for Texas before being signed by the New York Yankees.
In the 45th year of Texas football, UT is searching for its 21st coach.
America is in a depression. Stafford, Koy, Shelley , Peterson, Blanton, and Emerson make the All-SWC team.
1931- 6-4 COACH CLYDE LITTLEFIELD
Texas gets their first break-away runner in Bohn Hilliard, and he should be ranked with the best runners of all time. Koy and Stafford got the press but Hillard got the numbers.
Texas travels to play Harvard
1932- 8-2 COACH CLYDE LITTLEFIELD – Runner UP
1974 chairman of the UT Athletic Council reminisces about playing football at the University of Texas in the early 1930s. “When I played, there were virtually no scholarships,” says Thompson. “Sometimes the coaches could get a job for you, but there weren’t many jobs in the bottom of the depression. If you were lucky to get a job as usual janitorial work.” Harrison Stafford recalls the first job they gave him to help pay tuition’s- cleaning out spittoons in Gregory Gym. There were a lot of spittoons!
After long hard practices, Thompson recalls dinners in a jammed dining Hall where you had to pay your way. You really had to love the game. “I know I was taking engineering; it was extremely hard to play football and keep up with my studies.” Thompson played under Clyde Littlefield and Jack Chevigny, and just about the time he was making an impression with the coach, along comes Ernie Koy. At practice, Ernie ran over Thompson, knocking him out for 5 minutes and breaking his jaw. “The doctor had to wire my jaw shut, and I had to take soup through a straw for weeks.” Littlefield starts his 6th year as a football coach with two conference title-winning 39 of 52 games.
A Daily Texas advertisement uses “Hook’em Horns” for the first time
After Ernie Koy shouted not to pick up the punt, Bohn Hilliard does so and now holds The Record For Longest Punt Return (95 Yards).
Koy and Stafford were a powerful one-two punch for the Longhorns.
Bohn Hilliard came to Texas after playing ball for two years in a junior college. Bohn Hilliard is also a great baseball player. All SWC in baseball batting .356 and is 3-2 as a pitcher. Coach Marty Karow about Bohn “ he can stop and start quickly….., he can change pace and direction, cut back, throw his hips, sidestep and stiff-arm. Bohn is an excellent punter, a fair passer, and a good blocker for his pounds.”
John Henderson is 4th from right on the bottom row. As of September 2016 he is 103 years old in good health and very active. He is the oldest living Texas athlete of all time.
In the early 1930’s two Ox’s led the powerful Longhorn line. Ox Emerson and Ox Blanton made the Longhorns one of the best teams in the nation.
There is an attempt by the faculty to have a post-season game to raise money during the depression.
SWC officials ban broadcasting of games. They fear that people will not attend the games if they can listen to the game on the radio.
1933- 4-5-2 – COACH CLYDE LITTLEFIELD
Total enrollment at Texas was 6000 students.
This was Coach Littlefield’s last team. He ended a 7 year stint which was the longest tenure for a Texas Coach through 1933. His record was 44-18-6.
The 40th anniversary of Texas football is the Longhorn’s first losing season in Texas football history. Luther Stark wants Littlefield fired, but Littlefield wants to remain track coach, so he resigns from coaching football, continues coaching track for 41 seasons, and wins 25 league championships.
Texas plays Southwestern at Georgetown in a Longhorn team’s first night game ever.
Texas lost to Arkansas for the first time in 15 tries dating back to 1894.
Nebraska with All-American fullback George Sauer Sr. destroyed Texas. George Sauer Sr. played professional football and he was the head coach of Navy and Baylor. His son George Sauer Jr. played for Texas and the New York Jets.
Clyde Littlefield in Reflection
In seven years, his teams went 44-18-6. But that was not good enough and Lutcher Stark beat him into submission. Littlefield resigned as head football coach after posting Texas’s first losing season in the history of Longhorn football but remained as the Track and field coach. His track team produced 25 conference championships and he coached the U.S. Olympic track squad several times.
