Word: split-t
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Navy T-Time. By 1942 he was head coach at North Carolina (5 wins, 2 defeats, 2 ties), soon went on to help the Navy with its Iowa Pre-Flight team. There, along with Bud Wilkinson, Tatum learned the secrets of the split-T offense from Head Coach Don Faurot, who had dreamed up the system at the University of Missouri. After the war, the big man with the bull-bellow voice lost no time building a football winner and a 'Gator Bowl victory at the University of Oklahoma. He was big time and growing bigger. When the University...
...Glory Days. At Maryland, Jim Tatum became the most successful major college coach in the game. Witty and winning, he was a tireless recruiter, prowling the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia night after night for the agile, brawny kids he needed to make the split-T work. In nine years his teams won 73, lost only 15, tied 4, and went to five bowl games. In the glory days of 1953, while the stands chanted "We're number one!", Maryland was undefeated, was judged the national champion by wire-service polls, and Jim Tatum was coach...
...Fundamentals. He started slowly, worked on fundamentals all spring, did not even introduce his offense (split-T with variations that include a double wing belly series) until pre-season practice started in August. Says he: "I had to create a happy atmosphere. The game should be fun-relaxed, happy, undrudge-like. We don't berate the boys for failures. There are no horsewhips around here...
Though the Crimson line held the Columbia offense well, the Lions themselves often seemed to make the defensive job easier. Coach Buff Donelli introduced a few surprise formations in the game--the split-T with a man in motion and a variation of the single wing which he calls the X formation--but they seemed to confuse his own men more than the Crimson. Several big losses and a few of the fumbles were due to missed backfield connections on these plays, flashy as they semed when they worked, and Donelli probably wishes he had given his team more practice...
Lehigh will charge out of the huddle and group into a Split-T formation probably under the direction of quarterback Bob Scheu. The team sorely misses the flashy control of Little All-American Dan Nolan, who has joined the pro football rosters, and hopes that Scheu will become a similar giant. So far the left-handed sophomore seems to be on the way; against Gettysburg last weekend he completed 9 out of 16 passes for 133 yards...