ilki 1950 SCHEDULE SE PT .30 BOSTON COLLEGE AT NORMAN OCT. 7 TEXAS AGGIES AT NORMAN OCT. 14 TEXAS AT DALLAS OCT. 2I KANSAS STATE AT NORMAN (HOMECOMING & BAND DAY) OCT. 28 IOWA STATE AT AMES NOV. 4 COLORADO AT BOULDER FOOTBALL LETTER NOV. I1 KANSAS AT LAWRENCE NOV. 18 MISSOURI AT NORMAN Mailed Only to Paid Members of the O.U. Alumni Association (DAD'S DAY) Nov. 25 NEBRASKA AT NORMAN DEC. 2 OKLA . AGGIES AT STILLWATER 1950 SEASON FORECAST 1918 and 1943. We lose l0 of the 11 men on when three teams tied for the champion- our 1949 starting team. Graduating are ship. The poorest team will be capable of Ends Jim Owens and Bob Goad, Tackles heating the best team. Except for Okla- Wade Walker and Leon Manley, Guards homa, the Big Seven teams last year were Dee Andros and Stanley West, ( ;enter very evenly divided. Missouri, the 1949 Charley Dowell, Quarterback I)arrell Roy- runner-up, had several close calls, 21-20 al and Halfback George Thomas . Halfback over Nebraska, 20-13 over Colorado, 34-27 Lindell Pearson, a good student only three over Kansas State and 34-28 over Kansas. years out of highschool, has been banned And now that we have suffered such tre- from further conference football by the lnendous casualties in experienced players, Big Seven Conference because he attended no team in the league has superiority of the University of Arkansas three weeks as playing talent . Any team in the league a freshman. could win the Big Seven championship in 1950. We also lost Ken Tipps, our alternate line left end who did our conversion kick- Fortunately, our coaching staff of last ing and kicking off last year . Also Backs season remains intact for the coming cam- George Brewer and Charles Paine are gone. paign . I feel most fortunate to have a staff So is Delton Marconi, who played a fine made up of such fine, capable assistants . game for us against Texas last year, as well Again this season Gomer Jones will coach as Kenneth Parker, our No. 1 linebacker, our line, Frank "Pop" Ivy our ends, George BUD WILKINSON and Bob Bodenhamer, our center who was Lynn our backfield and Bill Jennings the a fine linebacker and also threw back all freshmen . In addition Dee Andros, who Norman, Oklahoma the long center snaps on punts and con- played on last year's team, will be a part- August 1950 version kicks. time assistant while he is studying for his Sooner : master's degree . [)car The situation is far more serious than a Since practically all of our 1949 regulars year ago when we came into our 1949 sea- I liked our new squad's fighting spirit have graduated, I know you are eager to son losing only four starters from 1948- in the alumni game at Taft stadium in know something about the new football Jack Mitchell, Buddy Burris, Horner Paine Oklahoma City, played on the last day of team we will have at Oklahoma this fall. and Pete Tillman . And our reserves a year our 1950 spring practice . Our alumni beat I think we will have a hustling, interest- ago were so experienced that only two us, 20-14 . They had practiced only four ing aggregation that should get better as sophomores, Tackle Jim Weatherall and days, consequently weren't very sharp. we go along. We could lose all of our early Halfback Dick Heatly, could make our They fumbled seven times or they might games-one or two of them by big scores- alternate team. have licked us worse. The outran us 350 and never had to punt. but we are hoping that our improvement Comparative player losses from each of to 176 net yards each week will enable us to play a close the 1949 starting teams of each Big Seven And yet it was a close game and we very game with all our late season opponents. school are as follows: Kansas State lost two nearly won it. Six 01' our boys who will The morale of our sophomoric squad starters, Colorado five, Kansas and Nebras- play for us this fall-( ;o-captain Norman was excellent in spring practice . If we ka six each, Missouri seven, Iowa State McNabb, Frankie Anderson, Dick Heatly, should make a good record in 1950, we will eight and Oklahoma ten . Jack Lockett, Ed Lisak and Buddy Jones- were out of action, most of them because achieve it on hustle and morale, and not on And yet I expect a close race in the Big of injuries, so we didn't do too badly. The smooth play. Seven for 1950, probably just as close a race split-T formation is new to all our soph- Lack of experience in all departments is as in the recent Big Seven basketball season our No. 1 problem . We will have a good omores, but they are learning to understand potential depth. But our starting team won't and execute it. be nearly as good as last year's and behind it 1949 RECORD The Oklahoma freshman team won we will use reserves composed almost en- SOONERS 46, BOSTON COLLEGE O both games that they played, but we were SOONERS 33, TEXAS AGGIES 13 tirely of sophomores. One of our toughest SOONERS 20, TEXAS 14 only one of five Big Seven schools to com- SOONERS 48, KANSAS 26 jobs is building a second team line. Our SOONERS 48, NEBRASKA O pile a similar record . The Kansas freshmen and slower than SOONERS 34 . IOWA STATE 7 12- 1950 line will be lighter SOONERS 39, KANSAS STATE O defeated Kansas State 25-G and Missouri last year's with far greener reserves. SOONERS 27, MISSOURI 7 7. The Colorado freshmen drubbed Colo- SOONERS 28, SANTA CLARA 21 I am told that our losses are the most SOONERS 41, OKLA . A.&M . 0 rado A.&M. 57-9 and Scottsbluff Junior SOONERS 35, L. S. U . O terrific in the history of football at Okla- (SUGAR BOWL) College 20-14. Iowa State's frosh defeated homa with the exception of the war years Drake 20-7 and Missouri 28-27. Nebraska's AUGUST, 1950 7 NouNm\ M~ :NAas Lro\ III rcni CLAIR MAYES ta .m ut. ARNoru I)r:A .v Ssirrtt H.ARBN MUUILP. yearlings defeated Kansas State 14-0. Eval- most passed-on team in the history of uating our freshmen, they were unbalanced Editor's Note : Bud Wilkinson's American football, our opponents throw- Football letter is included this month with the quality of our backs far outrank- in Sooner Magazine so that all Asso- ing 290 forward passes at us, an average of ing that of our forwards . ciation members may have a chance 29 per game . Yet only four went through Oklahoma again will be a home state at previewing the 1950 football crop. for touchdowns and Buddy's intelligent club. Of the 58 players on our 1950 squad, Bud's letters that follow each game safety play had a lot to do with it. in the 10-game schedule will be 48 are from Oklahoma, nine hail from Our mailed out of the alumni office in 1950 squad by positions: cities in the neighboring state of Texas and their usual 4-page form no later than ENDS-Jack Lockett, Frankie Ander- one comes from Michigan. No other states 72-hours after each game to paid son, Bill Price, Troy Keller, Ed Sampson, are represented. members. This is the only letter that Jennings Nelson, Fred Smith, Bill Beck- will Also, we like the way our boys shoot for be published within Sooner man, John Reddell, Bill Coffman, LeeRoy Magazine-D . B. degrees that will give them the opportunity McElwain . for a fine career after graduation. Scan- TACKLES-Jim Weatherall, Dean ning the major subjects of our 1950 squad, Smith, Art Janes, J. W. Cole, Eugene Ball, there are 18 of our players in the business Joe Horkey, Charles Goodmiller, Melvin school, seven in geology, eight in education, Brown, George Cornelius, James Holder. four in petroleum engineering, four in GUARDS-Norman McNabb, Clair physical education, two in pre-law, two in Mayes, Bert Clark, Ed Rowland, Bob Gaut, pre-medicine and one each in industrial Jim Davis, Neil House, W. D. Goins, Dick psychology, art, pharmacy, architecture, Bowman, Raymond Powell. radio speech, industrial arts, psychology, CENTERS-Harry Moore, Tom Catlin, industrial engineering and geological en- Kent Braden, Floyd Murphy, Sam Carna- gineering. han, Jerry Ingram. Our expanded stadium, which now seats Dk :r. IIEArIN FRANRIE ANDEIMN QUARTERBACKS - Claude Arnold, 60,000 with the addition of bleachers at the Eddie Crowder, Bob Ewbank, Bill Blair, south end, will be entirely ready for the contact at once Kenneth Farris, our busi- Jack Santee, Bill Doty. home throngs this fall . Official attendance ness manager of athletics. Although our HALFBACKS-Dick Heatly, Frank for our five home games last year in the or- advance sale is already our biggest of all Silva, Bill Vessels, Tom Carroll, Gene der of greatness was: Santa Clara game, time, we still have thousands of good seats Cook, Bob Pyle, Tommy Gray, Dale Craw- 60,145 ; Oklahoma Aggie game 47,937, available for the public, owing. to the fact ford, Merrill Green. Iowa State game 38,149, Kansas game our seating capacity is now double what it FULLBACKS-Leon Heath, Buck Mc- 37,660 and Texas Aggie game 34,685 . was two years ago. All the seats are sur- Phail, Jimmy Patterson, Ed Lisak, Sam Dates of our five home games this fall are prisingly good.