Sport: Oklahoma, O.K.!

The California sun beating down on Berkeley’s Strawberry Canyon was made to order for the visitors from Oklahoma. In town to take on the University of California’s Golden Bears for intercollegiate football’s nationally televised game-of-the-week, the Sooners warmed up fast. By the end of the first half they had a slim lead (7-6). But their outweighed (by some 15 Ibs. a man) line was out charging its opponents, their slam-bang tackling was setting up California fumbles, their split-second ball-handling was beating the Bear line backers to the punch.

Such early-season skill was not easily come by. For two tough training weeks in Oklahoma’s late-summer heat, Coach Bud Wilkinson had been driving his men to the ragged edge of exhaustion. Up each day before dawn, a leather-tough squad of 58 Sooners—including a nucleus of 20 veterans—had been busily belting each other groggy. The Wilkinson split-T breaks down into intricate offensive patterns, but the Wilkinson formula for success is simple: “Sweat, sweat, and more sweat.” The Sooners sweated. Hour after hour. Quarterback Gene Calame pirouetted through a series of fakes to perfect his quick-opening handoffs, painstakingly practiced the famed Wilkinson option play.

Coach Wilkinson’s hard-driving trickery has given Oklahoma one of the brightest records in modern college football (61 won, 3 tied. 7 lost). But getting past “Pappy” Waldorf’s well-coached Californians in the first game of the season still looked like quite a trick. At Berkeley, the Sooners showed that they could do it.

In the second half, the Sooners really got hot. Stubby Don Brown (5 ft. 9 in., 183 Ibs.) barreled out of his left-tackle position and recovered a California fumble. From his own 13-yard line, lean Gene Calame took off in the option play. Circling behind the quarterback. Halfback Buddy Leake caught Calame’s lateral without hitching his stride, raced a couple of steps and whipped a long forward pass downfield. On the Sooner 43, End Max Boydston took the ball easily over his shoulder. A diving defensive back just missed his heels. Running as if he had eyes in the back of his head, Boydston snaked away from the only other Bear in reach and completed an 87-yd. touchdown.

After that, Oklahoma scored twice more. California got another touchdown, mainly on short, sharp passes by Quarterback Paul Larson, but the Bears never got back in the game. Heading home to Oklahoma on the long end of a 27-13 score, Coach Wilkinson wasted no time working out new ways to make his boys sweat. If they could get by the University of Texas next month, they might finish the season undefeated. It was a heady thought.