USD Football 1993

TOUCHDOWN ILLUSTRATED

"V" For Victory

Non·e Dnme lost A11gclo Be1·tclli to the M nri11cs in 1943, but 11ot befo1·e he 111011 the Heismm1 Trophy nnd the Irish the nniionnl ehnmpionship.

of training in football are helping American so ldiers, sai lors and marines in their wartime duties." But the Pre-Flight program was most visible when its varsity football teams, each with a colorful name-North Carolina Pre-Flight Cloud Busters, the Georgia Pre-Flight Crackers, the St. Mary's Pre-Flight Air Devils, the Iowa Pre- Flight Seahawks and the Del Monte Pre- Flight Navy-Gators-played mostly intercollegiate schedules. They were among th e best teams during the 1943 and '44 seasons with Iowa ranked second in the AP poll in 1943 and Del Monte number 8, while the 1944 Iowa team was ranked sixth. When the AP ranked the service teams in 1942- there were dozens of teams around the country on various military bases-among the Pre-Flight teams, Iowa ranked second, Georgia third, North Carolina fourth and St. Mary's fifth. The former college stars serving as instructors formed the bulwark of most teams, and were joined by many NFL players who did not play in games against college teams. Regardless, these teams were great attractions and helped to boost declining football atte ndances, because they played most of their games on college campuses. The real salvation to college football occurred when V-5 was expanded into dozens of universities and was joined with a V-7 program for training line officers for the surface navy. The sport got an even bigger boost in February 1948, when the Navy Department developed a V-12 pro- gram to meet its officer requirements for the Navy and Marine Corps, which were lagging because the military draft was at its apex. Young men cou ld enroll in the

schools with V-12-there were 131 in 1943- and receive Naval Reserve commissions once they received their degrees. The V-12 program, which also encompassed the V-5 and V-7 programs, accounted for most of the 84,018 commissioned officers in the Navy in late 1944. In contrast, the Army, with its ROTC programs, did not allow its enrollees to participate in intercolle- giate athletics until 1944, by which time many schools with those pro- grams were reduced to punching bag status for the "V" schools, curtailed their schedules to play meager com- petition, or di scontinued footba ll altogether. Students entered the V-12 school of their choice, and transfers by athletes from the Army-controlled schools were immediate and cost no eligibili- ty. This kept college football afloat at

Some ofthe coaches included Bernie Bierma11, 111ho hnd won three 11ational titles at the Uni11ersity of Mi1111esota, Jock Sutherland from Pitt, Fordham's Jim Cro111ley, Harold Oliver from Oregon and Ray Morriso11 ofSMU. They were rei11foreed by suchftttttreg reat coaches as Bttd Wilkinson, Bear Bryant, Jim Tatum, Don Farout a11d Woody Hayes. major schools suc h as Michigan, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Southern Cal, Texas, Georgia, Duke, Dartmouth, and elevated small schools to major status. "This is a grand chance to save some little colleges affected by wartime conditions,"· said President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was correct. The North Texas