peruna81 wrote:Interesting that Gregg commented to a Dallas news outlet (WFAA, IIRC) that this put a burr in the saddle regarding a friendship he had enjoyed with Pardee ...this was a follow-up to the return to Houston in 1991, I believe.
Wonder if that ever got fixed...
NTXCoog, it is obvious that the game ( as you stated) intrigues you enough to try to study both pro and con views...not the norm for just any 'ol regular season SWC game 21 years ago...and the very reason that this SMU fan remembers it with such enmity. It was not the norm for a SWC game at that time. It pains to reason the justification you cite, and in particular the idea that SMU's packing 7 or 8 in the box invited a pass.
You have watched enough football, and have seen enough contests where one team is grossly overmatched to no doubt know the difference between victory and mockery... as was the case that day. No idealism here, or requests for 'PC' style football, where everyone walks away feeling like a winner...the game that day branded UH (fairly or not) as bullies in many folks eyes.
I still count it a dark mark against Houston, and the coaches who were part and parcel to it.
I wish you well tomorrow.
I don't know how Gregg and Pardee got along after that, but Gregg got over it enough to hire John Jenkins as coach when Gregg was GM in the CFL. IMO Jenkins would have gone for 100 at the end of the game, but Pardee held him back. No matter what SMU fans may think, Pardee was the class guy. Jenkins on the other hand was more extreme than Leach before Leach came onto the scene. He wanted to score fast, score often, and not stop.
You're right that game wasn't the typical SWC game of the time, but that UH team was very unique in history up to that time. That was the 2nd highest scoring offense in football history behind an Army team in the 1950s. Teams had been blowing out lesser opponents for years. It was not uncommon for OU to put 60 or 70 on teams during that time. There were 2 differences in perception. 1) UH wasn't a "traditional power". 2) UH was a passing offense unlike any other team in NCAA history at the time. A team like OU could continue to run their base offense all game and people didn't freak out as long as they substituted in because they ran the ball. UH on the other hand was expected to completely change out of their base offense and run every down even though they didn't have the personnel to do that. People had to assume that UH was intentionally running up the score because they continued to pass, but UH couldn't suddenly run the I or put in the jumbo package and run the ball.
You're right. Many people did start to see UH as a bully after that game. But the super majority of those people didn't even see the game. Only 20k people saw that game, and most of them were UH fans. Almost everyone else saw the score and the stats and assumed UH intentionally ran it up. They didn't get to see the game and make up their own minds.
And I know you didn't like the 7 or 8 in the box comment, but put yourself in the place of Pardee. You have 1 RB. You're playing 1st place Arkansas next week. You can choose to totally change your normal offense, run your RB 40 times into 2 extra defenders, risk tiring out your RB and risk injury, or you can run some semblance of your normal offense, allow your RB to have an easier assignment, and risk offending some people's sense of sportsmanship? Which is the higher risk to you: injury to your star and only RB or possibly lowering your reputation?
