We highlight Army’s back-to-back Heisman winners, Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis, as the central subject. We explain how their teams dominated college football during World War II and in the immediate postwar years. We note that the 1944 team went 9-0 and won a national title while holding opponents to seven points or fewer, and that the 1945 team produced lopsided wins such as 48-0 over Notre Dame and 61-0 over Penn. We describe their complementary styles, with Davis running a quick sweep and Blanchard using a counter out of a full house T. We credit Colonel Earl H. Blake as their coach and explain how Army’s service academy status helped attract talent during the war. We point listeners to footballarchaeology.com for play diagrams and further detail. We invite readers to visit pigskindispatch.com for more positive football history.
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Transcript
Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.
And welcome to another Tuesday where we get to visit with our friend Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com Tim. Welcome back to the Pig Pen, Darren.
Tim Brown:Good to chat with you again. And I think this is going to be story about some pears.
Darin Hayes:Yeah, this is a, a really interesting one. Mr. Inside. Mr. Outside of army, it's a article you titled Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis. What can you tell us about this story?
Tim Brown:Well, before getting into them and no cheating, no looking at the article if you have it pulled up online, there have been six schools that have had back to back Heisman Trophy winners.
Darin Hayes:Okay.
Tim Brown:With army with Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis being the second such school. So let's see if you can guess either the schools or, you know, the individuals, you know, take a shot at it.
Darin Hayes:Well, I know Notre Dame's one of them because. But you have was a Michi and somebody else.
Tim Brown:Nope.
Darin Hayes:No, Because we're. There's a Notre Dame one. I know that in fact. No, there is not.
Tim Brown:Oh, no.
Darin Hayes:Okay.
Tim Brown:At least not, not according to my, my sources.
Darin Hayes:Okay. Well, there is a, an Alabama though, recently. Correct.
Tim Brown:Devonta Smith and Bryce Young.
Darin Hayes:Right. I know that.
Tim Brown:And:Darin Hayes:I, I guess I don't know the other ones then. Okay.
Tim Brown:Another one was, you know, fairly recent. Oklahoma.
Darin Hayes:Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Tim Brown:Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murphy, usc. Now one of these is vacated, so.
Darin Hayes:Oh, that's right. Okay. Reggie Bush and Leiner.
Tim Brown:Yeah. And then Archie Griffin.
Darin Hayes:All right.
Tim Brown:Okay.
Darin Hayes:Yeah, that's back to back the same guy, but yeah.
Tim Brown:And then the first one was. Yeah. Larry Kelly and Clint Frank.
Darin Hayes:Okay.
Tim Brown:In 36 and 37. So they were the third or the second. Third Heisman Trophy winners.
Darin Hayes:All right, interesting. So. Interesting.
Tim Brown:So, okay.
But you know, focusing on Blanchard and Davis, you know, they're, they're, you know, kind of an interesting pair because, you know, I mean, army and Navy too, you know, just had these powerful teams in during World War II, you know, because you could still have, you know, students, you know, they basically were, they could be in the military in the, in, in the sense that they were in one of the service academies and Air Force didn't exist yet.
Darin Hayes:So.
Tim Brown:They, so they were kind of students and you know, I mean, they were students obviously, but it was just like, you know, most schools lost so many of their guys, but because they were army and Navy, they, they actually attracted, you know, players and I think even either Blanchard or Davis actually played somewhere else first and then went to, then went to Army. But anyways, I mean, like they're 44 team, just like they went nine zero, won the national title.
They held all their opponents to seven points or fewer, scored 46 or more seven times, you know, and this is, this is, you know, back in older school football, you know, it wasn't like purely running up the gut stuff, but, you know, like you said, Mr. Inside and outside, the 45 team had wins over 48 nothing win over Notre Dame, 61 nothing over Penn. You know, two powerful teams.
You know, at the time. You know, now exactly what they were like, you know, those warriors, I'm not sure.
And then a 46 team, 901, including the Yankee Stadium tie with Notre Dame, who was then number two. So they ended up winning there, winning the third national championship.
But, you know, so one of the things that's kind of cool in the, this article and it's worth checking out, know, to, you know, click on the link that you provide is that it, it includes the, you know, diagrams of, of the plays, you know, of two plays.
ing thing that Atlas tires in:Like, you know, when I coached, you know, a couple of teams that I coached with, we basically ran wing T. And so some of the blocking schemes, you know, it kind of looks like the Packer sweep, you know, you got the, you know, the guard, everybody's kind of pulling to the play side or not, they're reaching to the play side, you know, and just, you know, just trying to stretch it out. And then these guys just, you know, the whole backfield lead blocks, you know, running the right or to the left.
So I'm just kind of an interesting, you know, it's play design we don't see much of anymore. Right. I mean, we tend to since people have gone, you know, really since the modern key, you know, that's a lot of much more quick hitting place.
You know, we still see sweeps a lot of times nowadays. It's going to ends. But anyway, so you got the quick sweep to him and then Blanchard, you know, it's basically a counter play.
So out of a full house tee, he's the full back and he takes a jab step to the right and cuts back to the left. And that was one of his primary plays. So just know they, you know, they. They had obviously a tremendous coach in, In Blake.
And then, you know, just these two complimentary backs, you know, that just made it really tough, you know, to, you know, how. You know, it's just. It's difficult to, you know, when. When you got a team that has Heisman level. Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.
You know, I mean, just imagine the, you know, what it looked like to, you know, looking down the barrel of that gun, you know.
Darin Hayes:Yeah.
Tim Brown:Because it's just met. Oh, man, they were. They were really good.
Darin Hayes:Yeah. Amazing team. Of course, Bill, we gotta. We gotta think about the two.
Like you alluded to, everybody else in college football was depleted because of the war or the service. Teams were. They were stockpiled, you know, so.
Tim Brown:Yeah. Although, like, you know, in 46, those probably had to.
46, 47 Had to be some of the most talented teams that ever played college football because, like, even in 45, there were guys getting released.
Like, if you were in the US when the war ended, they were looking to get rid of, you know, I mean, the military mustered people out as quickly as they could. And yet they were like, my dad got, you know, drafted later in 45 and then ended up in Japan not too long after that.
But, you know, so they were still pulling new guys in, but a lot of people, they were just get them out. So then in. In. But in 46 and 47, the colleges were just filled with guys who had gone into the military anywhere from 41 through 45. Right.
So they just had a, you know, so many talented players. So I mean, like 46. To have that level of talent and then just beat the snot out of people. I mean, army just had to be unbelievable. Yeah.
You know, and then, you know, they. They played, you know, big high profile games.
You know, the games like the Notre Dame game and in Yankee Stadium and stuff like that, just, you know, you know, one of the greatest games ever, probably.
So I don't know, just really, it's, you know, kind of a just cool thing that they had the two Heisman Trophy winners and then, you know, the nature of the time just made it so interesting.
Darin Hayes:Yeah, I. I look too to see. And you are correct. Notre Dame didn't have. I was. I said amici. It wasn't a Michi. I was thinking of Bertelli, But Bertelli was 43.
But the two that were really close was Lou Jack and Leon Hart. But there was a year there was 47 and 49. They weren't consecutive.
Tim Brown:So yeah, yeah. I mean, she was a badger.
Darin Hayes:Yeah, yeah.
Tim Brown:I've got.
Darin Hayes:Got the Italian name sounding name.
Tim Brown:Yeah, yeah.
Darin Hayes:Mixed up there. Fratelli. But yeah, as long as you bring up.
Tim Brown:As long as you bring up Amici, though, he's the answer to, well, half the answer to one of the great trivia questions of name a set of cousins who were Heisman Trophy winners and Best Supporting Actor winners.
Darin Hayes:Well, I guess Amici's probably gonna be.
Tim Brown:There you go. Yeah. His cousin, Don Amici.
Darin Hayes:Oh, okay. They were. They were relatives. I didn't really.
Tim Brown:Yeah. Put that together. He won Best Sporting Actor for. I'm blanking on the name of the movie.
It's where these, you know, the old guys are swimming and stuff. You know, I mean, they get. Something happens where they become young again or they. They have the. The. It's like cocoon or something like that.
Darin Hayes:Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, you're right. He was in that. So.
But, well, Donna Michi has a connection to football because I believe he was one of the owners of the AFC's Los Angeles Dons.
Tim Brown:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.
Darin Hayes:Yeah. So him and about three other four other stars, Hollywood stars were big sponsors of them.
Tim Brown:So.
Darin Hayes:Yeah. So interesting stuff.
But you have some great stories on these types of things from football's yesteryear that you tell in your tidbits, and maybe you could share with people how they can take in some of these.
Tim Brown:Sure. Just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, so you can.
You can enroll or I should say subscribe, in which case, whenever I publish an article, it'll be sent to your. Sent to you by email. Otherwise, you know, bookmark it or you can follow within the substack app.
And I haven't been publishing as much lately, but I'm hoping to get back on track. Just been lots of things going on, so working a lot and not sleeping very much because my CPAP machine died on me. But I just got a new one today, so.
So I'm going to be in good shape.
Darin Hayes:Well, we're happy to hear that. That you'll get some sleep and it should lead to some more writing, some good football.
So, Jim, we appreciate you coming on here and staying up all hours of the night, literally, to help us and love to talk to you again next week.
Tim Brown:Look forward to it. Thanks.
Darin Hayes:That's all the football history we have today, folks. Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.
We invite you to check out our website pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well as our own football comic strip cleat marks comics.
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Tim Brown:This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yester.
Darin Hayes:Year of your favorite sport.
Tim Brown:You can learn [email protected].