Reading the comments, mostly skeptical at best, about Will Healy got me to thinking about a Mizzou coaching search over a half century ago.
And before I go any further, I will absolutely acknowledge that college football (and the whole world) was incredibly different in the mid to late 1950s than it is today.
After the 1957 season and only one season at MU, Frank Broyles left CoMo for a lifetime gig at Arkansas. AD Don Faurot set out to find a replacement for the second time in two years.
I don’t know who his other targets or candidates were, but he set his sights primarily on a young up-and-comer at what today would be considered a mid-major.
The school, which today is a huge institution and member of the PAC 12, was Arizona State College (originally Tempe Territorial Normal School) a teacher’s school in the old Border Conference. In fact it was the on-the-field football success of this coach that led to the elevation of the institution to Arizona State University.
The coach led the previously mediocre-at-best Sun Devils to seasons of 8-2-1, 9-1, and 10-0 from 1955 through 1957, before being reluctantly persuaded by Faurot to come to Boone County.
That coach was THIRTY-THREE year old Dan Devine.
And before I go any further, I will absolutely acknowledge that college football (and the whole world) was incredibly different in the mid to late 1950s than it is today.
After the 1957 season and only one season at MU, Frank Broyles left CoMo for a lifetime gig at Arkansas. AD Don Faurot set out to find a replacement for the second time in two years.
I don’t know who his other targets or candidates were, but he set his sights primarily on a young up-and-comer at what today would be considered a mid-major.
The school, which today is a huge institution and member of the PAC 12, was Arizona State College (originally Tempe Territorial Normal School) a teacher’s school in the old Border Conference. In fact it was the on-the-field football success of this coach that led to the elevation of the institution to Arizona State University.
The coach led the previously mediocre-at-best Sun Devils to seasons of 8-2-1, 9-1, and 10-0 from 1955 through 1957, before being reluctantly persuaded by Faurot to come to Boone County.
That coach was THIRTY-THREE year old Dan Devine.
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