Sport: The Unbeaten

Four years ago, when rangy Bobby Layne and trim Doak Walker played in the same backfield at Dallas’ Highland Park high school, they were inseparable cronies. Then Bobby went to Texas and Doak to Southern Methodist. Last week, each an All-America candidate on an unbeaten team, the two pals sailed into one another before a full house in Dallas’ Cotton Bowl. It was the game the Southwest had waited for all season.

At 20, Doak Walker is the younger by a year and not quite so famous as pass-throwing Bobby. But on the opening kickoff, 175-lb. Quarterback Walker took the ball, shrewdly smuggled it to a teammate who galloped 84 yards, almost for a touchdown. A Walker pass and a short run made it, and Walker kicked the extra point. Bobby, who plays only on offense, wasn’t even in the game yet.

When he did get in, Quarterback Layne apparently forgot in the pinches that he had one of the most valuable throwing arms in college football. He tried smacking through the rough, tough S.M.U. line. The few times a Texas ballcarrier shook into the clear, Doak Walker, who played the full 60 minutes, was there to help nail him. After four quarters of even-Stephen play, it was sandy-haired Doak Walker’s kicking toe that made the difference. S.M.U. won, 14 to 13, and after the game fans carried both Layne and Walker off the field. The game dumped Texas (rated No. 3 in the U.S.) from a narrowing list of unbeaten, untied teams. The top three:

¶ Top-ranked Notre Dame couldn’t get its running attack going against Navy, but didn’t need to; its two pass-pitching quarterbacks—Johnny Lujack and Frank Tripucka—completed 18 passes in 27 attempts, sank the Middies, 27 to 0.

¶ Michigan’s hocus-pocus offense worked well enough to hurdle hardy Illinois, 14 to 7, thanks largely to nifty, shifty Halfback Bump Elliott, and a pass by Bob Chappuis (TIME, Nov. 3) that set up the game-winning touchdown.

¶ Southern California, which hadn’t beaten Washington on Washington’s home ground in 15 years, went to Seattle and whipped the jinx by a 19-to-0 score, thereby moving one notch closer to the Rose Bowl.