If Utah State should win Friday's Las Vegas Bowl II against Ball State, it could break Ralph Maughan's heart. Yes, the long-time USU track coach would love it if the Aggies could win, but he was a participant in all four of their previous bowl games - the New Year's Day 1947 Raisin Bowl, 1947 Grape Bowl, New Year's Day 1961 Sun Bowl and 1961 Gotham Bowl - but because of prior commitment, he'll have to miss this one.
"I'd like to be there," says Maughan, still a Logan resident who was center/defensive lineman on the Raisin and Grape teams and assistant coach for the Sun and Gotham teams.A win in the one he missed could be a little bittersweet. Maughan has never seen the Aggies win a bowl game. Going into Las Vegas, USU is 0-4 in bowls.
"Well, we've gotta get it done," says coach Charlie Weatherbie, whose team tied for the Big West Conference title and got USU's first bowl bid since 1961 in his second year as a head coach.
"We've done some other things they haven't done around here in a while," says Weatherbie.
One of those things was to beat Brigham Young for the first time since 1982. That emotional victory on Oct. 30 kicked off a five-game Aggie win streak that made them one of perhaps two teams in the country to reach a bowl this season after starting out 1-5.
The last time the Aggies had a five-game win streak was 1978. The last time the Aggies won more than five in a row (seven straight) was 1965.
The Aggies went into some of those old bowl games as favorites, or at least thinking they were favored, communications in 1946 and even 1961 not being what they are now. Yet the closest Utah State has gotten to winning a bowl was the 20-13 loss to New Mexico State in the Sun Bowl 23 years ago. The Ags were 9-2 that season, but New Mexico State's win was its 15th straight. The Grape Bowl Aggies were an off-and-on team all season that came back to outscore College of the Pacific 21-7 in the second half but lost 35-21.
In the Gotham Bowl, the 9-1-1 Ags were playing a Baylor team that was 5-5 going into the game but dominated them 24-9. "We were rated much higher," says Maughan. Merlin Olsen was the toast of the town, All-American and Outland Trophy winner who was feted often during the Aggies' visit to the big city for the inaugural Gotham Bowl, which lasted one more year. Gotham officials hoped for an exciting game to spur interest in their new bowl, but Baylor and future pros Ronnie Bull and Bobby Lane took advantage of Aggie errors (two fumbles, pass interference) for a 10-0 lead.
"I don't know if we overlooked them or were mystified by being in New York," says Maughan.
In Utah State's first-ever bowl appearance, the post-war Raisin Bowl, San Jose State walked all over them, 20-0, though the Aggies were said to be favored in all the press from Utah.
Deseret News sports writer Les Goates wrote this for his lead on a dispatch with the dateline ABOARD THE UTAH AGGIE FUNERAL TRAIN, En Route From The Raisin Bowl: "If all the experts who have explained what happened to the Utah Aggies in the Raisin Bowl Game were placed end to end - it might be a very good idea."
Goates speculated that the Aggies were so taken with the pregame attention - they were called Dick's (Romney) Darlings for their exemplary manners in Hotel Californian - that they "left their game in the hotel dining room, the lobby and on the sight seeing tour."
Weatherbie says he's well aware Utah State thought a little too well of itself in a couple past bowls. His two USU teams have shown that trait at times, too, but he says it's not likely this week against 8-2-1 Ball State. "This team knows it only won six games," he says. "They want to win seven."
Raisin Bowl, Fresno, Calif.
San Jose State 20, Utah State 0: "We didn't have much of a scouting report," recalls Maughan, who was officially named the game's second-best all-around player by the media. "We went into it kinda blind." In more ways than one. "It was a cold and foggy day in Fresno," he says. When the Aggies first took the field, they couldn't see the goalpost at the other end.
San Jose was, Maughan says, one of the country's better teams, one that the legendary Pop Warner had helped build.
The Ags had won the Mountain States Conference championship and chose the Raisin Bowl over the Dixie Bowl, which would have paid $20,000. The Raisin Bowl take was $10,000 plus expenses.
(The Las Vegas Bowl share is $150,000 including expenses, and athletic director Chuck Bell says it will actually cost USU extra to play, but the exposure on ESPN will be worth it.)
Many Raisin Bowl players were World War II vets. Maughan remembers they were happy USU allowed married players to take their wives on the trip.
Grape Bowl, Lodi, Calif.
College of the Pacific 35, Utah State 21: It was the first year for the short-lived Grape Bowl. "There wasn't quite as much interest" as there had been in the Raisin Bowl, Maughan recalls.
Maughan remembers that the first time the Aggies saw tiny Pacific quarterback Eddie Le Baron, "We thought he was a cheerleader." Le Baron, later a pro, "was the best ball-handling quarterback we ever saw. He befuddled us the first half," Maughan says.
According to the Associated Press account of the game, Pacific's Little All-American QB "kept the Aggie defense guessing with clever manipulations of the handouts" in a 278-yard Tiger rushing game.
Down 28-0, USU started a comeback with a recovered fumble that led to its first TD. The second score came four plays after halfback John Worley, now the USU team doctor, ran a kickoff back some 60 yards. An interception led to the fourth-quarter score.
Sun Bowl, El Paso, Texas
New Mexico State 20, Utah State 13: The Skyline Conference co-champion Utah Aggies were a six-point underdog to New Mexico State, which led the country in total offense and scoring while USU was the nation's top rushing team with Tom Larscheid and fifth-best on defense. Coach John Ralston said he hoped for rain to slow the Las Cruces Aggie passing game triggered by QB Charley Johnson. Utah State did hold UNMS to half its usual offensive yardage while running for 268 yards, but the Southern Ags scored twice on their passes.
Utah State was up 13-6 at the half. Its first touchdown was set up when Ernie Reese returned a Johnson punt 52 yards for a Sun Bowl record. New Mexico State took the lead for good just 2:40 into the second half.
Gotham Bowl, New York City
Baylor 24, Utah State 9: The Deseret News front page - A1 - carried Dec. 9 stories about gunfire in Katanga and Nikita Khrushchev boasting of a super bomb more powerful than 100 million tons of TNT. Right next to the bomb story was "Baylor Smothers Aggies 24-9 in First Gotham Bowl."
Front page. Bigger play than the Gene Fullmer/Benny Paret title fight in Vegas. In the storied Polo Grounds.
It could have been a huge day in USU history; instead, wrote the News' Dee Chipman, "They may have set Skyline football back a decade with their disappointing performance. The Farmers, billed as the best football team in high-mountain history, never got it off the ground as they absorbed a bruising defeat from a supposedly inferior bunch of Baylor Bears."
Maughan still has fond memories of that New York experience, saying that was the bowl that treated USU the best. "They really showed us the city."
Now the Aggie team is in another glitzy place - Las Vegas - for yet another attempt at winning a bowl game.
Will they come alive in five, or will it - again - have to be enough to just get to the bowl? As Weatherbie says, they've done some things nobody else had done around here in quite a while.