Losing Montgomery reminds me of losing Larry Lacewell....

[K2C Sooner]

Don't ask me why, but I have the same emotions on Montgomery leaving the program that I did when Larry Lacewell left. Monty never even reached Lacewell,'s overall product, but I really thought he could have been the next coming. He was a great recruiter and his DL was highly ranked last year.

I think Larry was the greatest DC in OU history, at least in my generation.

Good luck to yo Coach Monty...............

 

[Plainosooner]

More like losing Jimmy Johnson when Lacewell got the DC job. Jimmy was a better coach, but younger. Lacewell was Barry's lifelong friend. But Jimmy overcame it.

 

[K2C Sooner]

Originally posted by Plainosooner:
More like losing Jimmy Johnson when Lacewell got the DC job. Jimmy was a better coach, but younger. Lacewell was Barry's lifelong friend. But Jimmy overcame it.

Can you expand your thoughts? I really don't even remember Jimmy, except that he was a former OU coach. Thanks.

 

[Plainosooner]

I am on a couple of dating sites. And when we discuss my time at OU, I like to say this: There are two coaches ever, who have won both a Super Bowl and a college national championship. Both were assistants at OU, when I was a very very small part of the program. Jimmy was the reason that we ran a 4-3 in 1971, which was part of the reason that we didn't win the GOTC. OUr talent was much better suited to a 5-2. But we also didn't run the 4-3 the way Jimmy wanted to run it. He wanted the DLinemen to have the freedom to attack the LOS every play, and we didn't play that way. Still, if Derland Moore hadn't been hurt in the game prior to that Nebraska game, I still think we'd have won.

I was assigned to Jimmy the first month he was the DTackle coach in August of 1970. And he was a lot like Montgomery. He was telling the tackles that we weren't going to sit back on the trap play. We were going to make something happen. That was counter to just about everybody in the country in the early 70s. But we weren't athletic enough to make that happen.

Jimmy came to OU with a crew cut. But there was a newish Oline coach who stayed at OU for a pretty long time named Gene Hochevar who had this perfect hair do. Jimmy started that perfect coif that came to be part of who he was for the last 35 years of his coaching career, because of razor cuts on campus corner and Gene's influence. He was confident, young, and obviously headed to be a great coach. Couldn't predict that kind of greatness, but I think even he, now that he's backed away from coaching, would say that back then, he was obsessed. If that's the wrong word, maybe more like intense. Very intense.

I ended up being the manager of the Boomers after they reported and Jimmy got somebody else. The one thing I most remember about the month I worked for him, was the first couple of days of August practice, when no pads were allowed, only helmets, shorts and tee shirts, Jimmy didn't think that DTackles could accomplish much without shoulder pads, so in break down time, they moved down next to the baseball dugout, back when our fall practice field overlapped the baseball infield and outfield, and had the DTackles' shoulder pads in the dugout. They threw them on for three or four periods of specific breakdown time and practiced dodging the pulling guard on the trap play.

Like I said, he was "intense."

 

[Plainosooner]

Jimmy left right at the time I graduated in the spring 1973. I didn't know about it, until I drove to Norman just to be able to listen to the 7-7 tie with USC on the radio. And some friends told me he'd left. I was told that it was because he wanted to be the DC and that wasn't going to happen with Larry being an old buddy of then new HC Coach Switzer.

It's my perception that just about everybody thought Jimmy was a great position coach. I don't think that was the consensus about Larry. It's just that he had in Barry's first year, three Selmons playing Dt, NG and DT. He had Jimbo Elrod playing one stand up end. (equivalent of OLB's in a 3-4) Very underrated Mike Struck, a fifth year senior to play the other side. David Smith who was a beast and all timer Rod Shoate at inside linebackers. Clyde Powers was played five years in the NFL at one corner. Ken Pope, a career college assistant coach at the other. Randy Hughes at one safety, and I think Durwood Keeton at the other safety I think. That was a bunch of studs, including the best player ever at OU at any position.

I'm sure Larry was a good coach. But he wasn't in Jimmy's class and the then future, and the now history would show. Jimmy is a special coach. Larry was a good coach.

 

[stuck in del rio]

Good stuff, Plaino - I guess having three Selmons on the same defensive line would make anyone look great. I always did like Larry Lacewell...that staff from 70-73 was pretty solid with Hochevar, Lacewell, Jimmy Johnson, Proctor, Harper, Switzer, Fairbanks - not sure if Wendell Mosely was on staff then or not - pretty good coaching staff. I don't think Galen Hall joined til later.

 

[Plainosooner]

I was never a big Proctor fan. He was a crazy man. Jimmy Dickey was the db coach in the years you mentioned. Another humorous take on those times. Dickey got to Norman in the spring of 1970 after the defensive disaster of '69 when we went 6-4 with three of the losses against really good passing offenses showing points allowed of 59, 44 and 44. It was the last time a Heisman winner didn't play in a bowl game. Dickey replaced Billy Gray who Fairbanks uh didn't love. DC Pat James, the very old school former Bear Bryant assistant also departed, which was how Jimmy Johnson found a job opening in Norman.

Dickey had this tow headed ten year old son who showed up at practice a lot. He was a cocky, talented kid, but I was working for Jimmy that spring and the kid was a pain in the, uh, neck. A decade later, Darrell, led KState to its first bowl game ever, his dad Jimmy was the HC. But it was their only winning season and I think during the season maybe three or four years later, he got canned.

Darrell did a couple of years as a third quarterback in the NFL and a decade ago, became a very solid coach at UNT before a heart problem caused him to miss time during a season and North Texas let him go. THe great Todd Dodge experiment.

Jimmy was a very good db coach, but I think when Barry got the HC job, he moved on. He didn't get the KState job until about five years later.

Last I heard, Darrell was at Memphis, I think as the OC.

 

[stuck in del rio]

Most of this time frame is a little bit before my time, I was born in 1966 so most of what I know was related to me by my Dad, and now that you mention it, he used to rave about what a great QB Darrell Dickey was. I never saw him play, but he told me stories about him playing at Kansas St.

He used to tell me all kinds of stories about the staff - my Dad had met Barry several times, even had me to lunch with him and Barry sometime in the middle 70s in downtown OKC - what a memory that was. I had to have been 10 or 11. Bet I didn't eat a bite just sat there and listened.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Well, clearly Switzer had it in for Lacewell otherwise he wouldn't have quit...

 

[stuck in del rio]

For Plaino and K2C - what are your thoughts on Gary Gibbs as DC? I guess you think Lacewell first, then who second? These are the only two I come up with in the last 40 years that I would consider 'great'...

 

[veritas59]

Originally posted by stuck in del rio:
Most of this time frame is a little bit before my time, I was born in 1966 so most of what I know was related to me by my Dad, and now that you mention it, he used to rave about what a great QB Darrell Dickey was. I never saw him play, but he told me stories about him playing at Kansas St.

He used to tell me all kinds of stories about the staff - my Dad had met Barry several times, even had me to lunch with him and Barry sometime in the middle 70s in downtown OKC - what a memory that was. I had to have been 10 or 11. Bet I didn't eat a bite just sat there and listened.

You would have been old enough to watch Darrel Dickey play. I'll bet your dad was talking about Lynn Dickey, who played for K-State in the late '60s. He was a great one.

 

[Plainosooner]

Originally posted by stuck in del rio:

For Plaino and K2C - what are your thoughts on Gary Gibbs as DC? I guess you think Lacewell first, then who second? These are the only two I come up with in the last 40 years that I would consider 'great'...

K2C might. But I wouldn't put Lacewell in the top five. He wasn't close to MStoops or BV. Lacewell had great players.I believe as a DC he was very overrated. That 1973 team was remarkably talented. Gomer Jones was essentially the DC. He had remarkable teams for a long time. He ran the D. Bud ran the O, during the one platoon days.

I think Larry was average, and proved it later in his career. He was also the DC in 1971 when OUr defense wasn't good enough to help the best offense in CFB history win a national title. They didn't have to be great, they just had to be good. And weren't.

 

[Gramps]

Originally posted by Plainosooner:
More like losing Jimmy Johnson when Lacewell got the DC job. Jimmy was a better coach, but younger. Lacewell was Barry's lifelong friend. But Jimmy overcame it.

Do you really know why Lacewell left?

 

[Plainosooner]

Of course I know. That really wasn't what I was referencing.

I just don't hold Lacewell's coaching excellence as highly as other Sooner fans. Not claiming to be right. Just saying that when Larry moved on, for me, it wasn't a big deal, because I thought he was an overrated DC.

I believe the biggest negative after the Hula Bowl caused break up of the coaching staff was Jerry Pettibone going to Nebraska. Jerry was an interesting guy. He was also a great recruiting coordinator. When he left OU, for Lincoln, there were several key Husker recruits that changed the game, especially Turner Gill, who'd have been a great candidate to quarterback the Sooner wishbone, but ended up leading Nebraska to greatness, however with no NC. Jerry went to Nebraska in 1979. His first recruiting class were seniors on that great 1983 team and the Sooners and Huskers swapped spots as the best team in the Big 8.

That didn't switch back until Jerry left to join Jackie Sherrill in College Station. He was at A&M from 1982 to 84. And A&M got to be the best team in the SWC when his first class became seniors in 1985. Neither of those were a coincidence.