Roy Exum
It has now been 30 years since the Arkansas football team arrived in Miami, but any Razorback who ever cried, "Soooey, Pig!" will remember it like it was yesterday because this one game still singularly attests what can happen if you can simply change an attitude.
The Razorbacks, the 10-1 regular-season record quickly ravaged by post-season injuries and miscreants, showed up for their Orange Bowl date against mighty Oklahoma as a 21-point underdog so let the facts show the first record the team set that week didn't come on the field.
But of all the college football bowl games ever to be played before or after 1978, this is the one I most remember because less than an hour after being informed the betting line had just drooped to 24, coach Lou Holtz turned to sports information director Rick Schaefer and promised with tears spilling down his cheeks, "We just won this one …''
Holtz' classic comment followed a tsunami of strange events that decimated the Razorback offense after a great regular-season run. The 1977 season would have been perfect for Arkansas had not Texas squeaked past "the squealers," 13-9, and when the match-up was made against Big Eight champ Oklahoma, it appeared a whale of a game would be played in Miami.
But then tragedy struck. The team's best offensive lineman wrecked his leg in a freakish mishap after a play ended during practice, but the darkest veil of doom descended when three players were suspended after a girl was found in their dorm room just before the brief Christmas break.
Two of those suspended, both tailbacks, had scored 78 percent or Arkansas' points that season and, with No. 2 Oklahoma strutting through Miami's pre-game functions like foreign royalty, the faces of the Razorback players got longer and longer as the week progressed.
Midway through the team's final practice, just before the game would be played the next day, Lou Holtz whistled his team together and told them he couldn't stand what he was watching any longer. "Men, we've had seven days of the worst practices that have ever been.
"Ever since we've gotten to Miami all we've heard is why we can't win. A moment ago I was informed we are now a 24-point underdog. That may be true, but let's take just a minute to play a little game. I don't know exactly why, but we aren't leaving here without remembering what got us here in the first place."
The coach then told his players about "Family Time," where in his family anytime someone does anything of note, be it graduating from the eighth grade, becoming president of the PTA or hitting a home run, the rest of the family makes them "king for the night."
Not only does the honoree get to pick that night's menu, they get to watch what they decide on TV and the other family members pour it on thick. The best part is at the dinner table, where one by one each of the other members of the family has to look the honoree right in the eye and salute them with a statement that is positive and truthful.
To this day Holtz can't explain why he challenged his team with something so mundane, so childish, but he will also admit he was never so shocked by what then occurred.
After a moment of discomfort (because football players should never appear soft), one player offered, "You know, we do have some positive things. If we can get it down there close, Steve Little is the best kicker in college and after he hit that 67-yarder against Texas, he's good for three anytime."
Another player laughed as he added, "And all our bad luck has involved offensive players. Right now our defense is the best in America and they'll all play. If Oklahoma is going to score, they'll have to beat the best there is!"
Well, it really got going, guys getting up one by one and saying what it meant to be a Razorback and to be a member of this particular "band of brothers." That's when Holtz, an amateur magician, saw one of his greatest tricks unfold perfectly. And right after he whispered to Schaeffer that Arkansas would indeed win the next day, a hush fell over the room.
"My name is Roland Sales. This time last year I was pumping gas at a filling station and tomorrow I'm going to start at tailback for the University of Arkansas. I haven't played much this year because I haven't felt good about it, but if you guys will help me tomorrow, I'll give it all I've got.
"I've never started in a game, never in my life, but taking the field with you tomorrow afternoon will be the biggest thrill I've ever known in my entire life."
The next day, when 74,425 packed into the Orange Bowl and were joined by 65 million more on the NBC network, they watched in a stunned way as the Arkansas players, in their minds 24-point underdogs without a chance, stormed onto the field.
"What on earth did you say to those guys?" the sideline lovely asked Holtz just before kickoff and Holtz offered back, "I told 'em the last 11 out had to start!"
You and I know different – that was anything but the case.
Oklahoma elected to receive and, with the seemingly-possessed Arkansas defense blitzing on every play, the Sooners lost 11 yards on the first three plays, Billy Sims coughing up a fumble to turn the ball over.
Ron Calcagni, the Arkansas quarterback, made three yards on a simple inside keeper on the first play and then, in the huddle, he called for Roland Sales to take it around the left side. Oklahoma finally stopped him 27 yards later. The next play Roland took it 22 yards around the right, which was all it took to make it "Arkansas 7, Oklahoma 0" with just 1:55 elapsed.
Well, we could go on and on. It was that kind of game and today, if you enter the Arkansas football complex in Fayetteville, there is a huge mural that was painted from an actual picture taken in that game where nine – count 'em, nine - Arkansas defenders are pouncing on a hapless Sooner running back in the 1978 Orange Bowl.
By the end of the day Roland Sales was the game's most valuable player, his 205 yards still an Orange Bowl record, but the bigger deal was that Arkansas, a 24-point underdog, had instead won the game, 31-6, to prove anew you can do just about anything you want to do if you'll simply lead with your heart.
royexum@aol.com