1958: Jayhawks vs. Wildcats in the Eisenhower Era
Fifty years ago this weekend, the Kansas Jayhawks and the Kansas State Wildcats played their annual intrastate football game. Each team had won two games and lost four at that point in the 1958 season, making the contest a clash of mediocrities. In the middle and late 1950s, that was not unusual for either team.
Unlike most other football games of the time, a series of pictures shot by a Star photographer have survived a half-century later. The images, preserved on negative film and stored for years on a remote shelf in The Star's library, show a somewhat different game from the one that will take place this weekend between the 2008 versions of the two teams.
On Nov. 1, 1958, the intrastate rivalry was played inside limestone-faced Memorial Stadium, capacity only 20,000, on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan. Attire of the spectators ranged from casual to standard business attire - jackets or suits and ties for many men, dresses or skirts for women. As the photos show, helmet facemasks were simple, yard lines were thinner and goalposts were shorter and narrower. In the stands, K-State students used flip cards to form words such as "Cats." No advertising appeared, and the sidelines contained only a fraction of the squadrons of support staff and hangers-on that patrol a typical major-college game in the 21st century.
In 1958 KU -- propelled by the running of halfback Homer Floyd and two field goals by John Suder - won, 21-12. K-State relied on the passing of quarterback Les Krull. He ignited the game's most spectacular play from the Wildcat 27-yard line, arcing a pass to Ben Grosse, who made an over-the-shoulder catch at the Jayhawk 25 and ran into the end zone.
Most of the participants played on offense and on defense. Besides scoring a touchdown, KU halfback Floyd also intercepted a pass on defense. KU back Bobby Marshall also scored a touchdown and intercepted a pass. NCAA rules in the 1950s and early 1960s severely limited substitutions, which kept coaches from fielding entirely separate offensive and defensive squads.
Nineteen fifty-eight marked the first season of KU head coach Jack Mitchell, a Kansas native who had been quarterback at ever-powerful Oklahoma. He would coach the Jayhawks until 1966, recruiting stars such as Gale Sayers, John Hadl and Curtis McClinton. Coaching Kansas State was Bus Mertes, who would be fired one year later after the Wildcats won only two games.
It also marked the first year of the two-point conversion after touchdowns. The play was introduced to add to scoring and in 1958 coaches tried it often instead of kicking for a single extra point. Against KU in 1958, K-State attempted a two-point conversion after its first touchdown, but failed, leaving the score 6-3. In later years, use of the two-point play diminished as coaches decided that the kicked extra point had a much higher potential to succeed.
