Bryson Crimmins, left, and his dad, Ryan Crimmins, share the experience of playing on Baylor football teams that made a run at a state championship. The Red Raiders take on Ensworth tonight for the Division II-AA title.They won’t be flying this time, but Baylor was the first and perhaps the only team to fly to a Tennessee state championship football game.
The Red Raiders will leave after lunch today for Cookeville for their Division II-AA championship game at 8 tonight against Ensworth, but the 1973 team, the last Red Raiders to win a TSSAA football championship, flew to Memphis.
Local dentist Dr. Frank Trundle was a member of that team and remembers that the trip, over and back in the same day, was the first time he had flown. Trundle also played a big role in the team’s 6-0 title win over Memphis Hamilton at the Liberty Bowl.
“It was freezing cold and they had spray-painted the field green. They must have used a water-based paint because it was like playing on needles,” he recalled.
Trundle, a sophomore tight end, was one of the players legendary coach Red Etter used to shuttle plays in to quarterback Bobby Worthington.
“I took the play in but then ran the wrong route. However, it freed up [Tim] Tucker because the man that was supposed to cover him covered me, leaving him free [for Worthington’s TD pass]. Coach Etter — he was one who was quick to point out your mistakes — told me I had run the wrong route but it was OK because it worked out well,” he said.
The 1977 team also flew to Memphis for its state championship game but this bunch of Red Raiders, the last to make a football final until last year, wasn’t so lucky. They lost 22-19 to Christian Brothers on another cold Liberty Bowl night.
It isn’t that title game, though, that 1977 team member Ryan Crimmins remembers most.
“My first thoughts are playing here in the semifinals and beating Oak Ridge in the semifinals, then probably the [7-0] win over McCallie at Chamberlain Field. It was a dogfight and the rain was pouring down,” he said.
And then his thoughts turned to the championship game, a game in which Baylor fumbled twice inside Christian Brothers’ 10-yard line and a game he and his teammates now recall as the “fluke pass game.”
“We were ahead 19-15 late in the game and they got a couple of pass interference calls. They got it down to the 15- or 16-yard line with 22 seconds left. They ran an end-around and he launched a moon shot to the quarterback. We had it perfectly covered and somehow he caught it. Coach Etter later said it was like a five million-to-one shot,” said Crimmins, whose son Bryson is a sophomore quarterback this year.
There were similarities to last year’s game, which Crimmins and some of his teammates who were in Cookeville, recalled.
“It was eerily similar. In [last year’s] case it wasn’t a desperation pass but [Baylor] had a Mr. Football [Jacob Huesman] out there covering their guy,” he said. “Everybody knew it was going to this tall tight end. Your newspaper ran the picture and Jacob had the ball in his hands and somehow it was called a touchdown. But just to have a pass in the end zone late that sealed the game was so similar it was eerie.”
There are other similarities between the 1977 and 2011 seasons. Baylor played each year at Bradley Central and won and Baylor played Columbia Central each year and won.
“There was a spirit of believing you could win when you took the field, and I believe there is a direct link between the two right there. Coach [Phil] Massey and his staff have got these kids believing that they should win when they get on the field,” Crimmins said.
Of course, as Trundle pointed out, Baylor teams these days are so much bigger.
“We didn’t have guys like [offensive tackle] Barrett Gouger,” he said. “I was a 200-pound tight end when I went to Auburn and they had safeties that big. I think our biggest players were probably David Hannah (220), Clay Crumbliss (220) and Blake Moore (225).”
Hannah, bad knees and all, went on to play at Alabama and Moore played at Wooster College, before making the pros with the Cincinnati Bengals as a center.
Trundle also remembers the size of Baylor’s teams.
“We had a huge number of players, and that’s not dressing freshmen. Sam Stewart wore zero and we had a Number 99.There were that many guys,” he said. “We had some good athletes from Chattanooga — Worthington, Jeff Aiken and Andy Rutledge among them — but it seems like back then we also had a lot of good athletes that were dorm students.”
Baylor faithful hope the similarities with that 1973 team continue.
Gene Etter actually arrived at Baylor before his legendary father but he was on Red’s staff in 1972 and 1973.
“I remember we got to the championship game in 1972 and lost to Bristol [and future Baylor coach David Bibee, who was a quarterback on that team] and then we came back and won it in 1973,” he said.