January 3

On this episode of the Football History Headlines, we discuss Head Coach Hank Stram and the Conference Championships the season right after the Merger Realignment as well as many more HOF Legendary stories. 

The photo in the banner is called "Football Game" and is circa 1902. It was kindly donated to the US Library of Congress. We love the rich history of the Gridiron and old photographs that were generously donated to the LOC so everyone could admire them!

January 3, 1971 - Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium - The first ever played AFC Championship game took place. Before we dive into this game let’s talk a little bit about the 1970 NFL realignment. This the first season when the AFL and the NFL truly merged into one league rather than having separate regular seasons and then having their champions square off against each other. This merging and reagning was not an easy process as the AFL bright 10 teams into the fray while the NFL had 16 franchises. In essence three NFL teams had to join the AFL clubs in order to create balance in the new NFL. Finally a decision was made to transfer the Steelers, Colts and Browns and mix them with the AFL clubs to form the American Football Conference of the NFL. One of these old NFL squads the Baltimore Colts survived the rigors of the new conference to battle the old guard of the AFL the Oakland Raiders for the right to play in Super Bowl V. The Pro-Football-Reference shares via the boxscore that the favored Colts jumped out early and hung on to defeat Oakland 27-17. Colts runner Norm Bulaich scored twice and a Unitas to Ray Perkins TD pass sealed the deal in the fourth to place the Colts in the Big Game!

January 3, 1971 - The first NFC Championship game took place at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium. As we just discussed a second ago the 13 teams of the National Football Conference of the NFL had all been in the NFL in the years prior to the merger. The folks at Pro-Football-Reference.com tell us that the Niners were entertaining the Cowboys in the contest to see who would face Baltimore in the Super Bowl. At the half the game was knotted at 3 but coming out of the locker room it appears that Dallas had made the better adjustments as they scored two 3rd quarter TDs and then held on to win as they beat San Francisco 17-10 to advance.  

January 3, 1983 - Generally when the offense runs a play with only ten players on the field from their own one yard line it will end up in a disaster. That was not the case when the Cowboys played the Vikings on a cold January day in 1983 according to ESPN.com.  When Dallas had a Heisman winning running back named Tony Dorsett they had no worries. The Pitt product used his talents to set an NFL record with a 99-yard scamper in the Cowboys' 31-27 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

January 3, 1987 - Fiesta Bowl -  This Penn State/Miami game changed the way Bowl games were scheduled. A bidding war started as at the time both Penn State and Miami were both independents and had no affiliation with a conference. The LA Time archived story from the day tells the tale well. The Bowls were waging war against each other trying to get the rights to have these two top teams meet at their venue. The Fiesta Bowl won out and then became a high-profile bowl. The 1987 Fiesta Bowl became the highest rated championship game in history, recording a 24.9 Nielsen rating as more than 70 million viewers had the game on their home sets. No college football game has gotten that kind of rating, before or since. The game was pretty good too but the difference was the Nittany Lions defense thwarted much of the fire power of the Hurricane offense as Penn State's defense intercepted Heisman Trophy winner Vinny Testaverde five times including one with 18 seconds left near the end zone. Penn State hangs on tight with the 14-10 victory.

January 3, 1993 - I can remember watching the first half of this match up as the Houston Oilers dominated the first half of their wild card weekend game with the Buffalo Bills. I man it was an utter drubbing and unless you were an avid Oilers fane it was extremely uninteresting watch the blood bath. The score was 28-3 at the half and it felt even worse than that. The Oiler scored on a pick six coming out of the break to make the score 35-3. The whole complexion of the game changed though at that point in the third quarter as the Bills led by backup QB Frank Reich scored four TDs in the quarter to get back into the game. Reich led the Buffalo Bills all the way back from a 32-point deficit, to defeat the Houston Oilers 41-38 in overtime in a wild card playoff game, the greatest comeback ever in NFL history per Pro-Football-Reference.com.

January 3, 1994 - Candlestick Park, San Francisco - The Philadelphia Eagles and the San Francisco 49ers finished the season by going into Overtime. The Eagles Quarterback Bubby Brister completed 26 of 43 of his passes for 350 yards and three touchdowns.  Steve Young, the southpaw signal caller of the San Francisco 49ers was used sparingly as the team prepared for the playoff in this meaningless game. Per the Pro-Football-Refence website, Young did throw 15 of 19 for 165 and 2 TDs to become the first quarterback to win 3 straight NFL passing titles and  the first to put up 3 consecutive seasons with a passer rating of 100 or more. The Niners, with Steve Bono in relief, suffered the OT loss to the Philadelphia Eagles 37-34.

January 3, 2001 - Pro Player Stadium, Miami Gardens - College Football ‘s 3rd BCS National Championship pitted the #1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners against the #2 Florida State Seminoles per the American Football Database. This was a defensive lovers game! The Sooners kicked a field goal early in the game and held onto that 3-0 lead for most of the game until the third quarter when they booted through another 3 pointer.  Finally in the fourth Quentin Griffin scored on a 10 yard run to give  Oklahoma a bit of a cushion to pad the lead. The Noles only scoring came on a final stanza safety. The Sooners won the BCS Trophy with great defense 13-2, at the Orange Bowl.

January 3, 2002 - Rose Bowl, Pasadena -At the fourth BCS National Championship the #1 Miami Hurricanes led by back Clinton Portis and quarterback Ken Dorsey faced a stiff challenge from the second ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers and their outstanding signal caller Eric Crouch. The ‘Canes used a combination of offensive and defensive flurry of scoring in the first half of 34 unanswered points to cruise to a 37-14 National Championship victory at the 88th Rose Bowl per ESPN.com.

January 3, 2003 - Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, Arizona - The University of Miami made another appearance a year later at the 5th BCS National Championship. The Hurricanes were still atop the college football world and this year they faced a stiff challenge for the title from the number 2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. The FiestaBowl.org website gives us the details of what many claim may be one of the top games in NCAA football history. Miami came into the game with a 34 game unbeaten streak in hand as they defended their title. The Canes roster included stars like QB Ken Dorsey. Willis McGahee, Kellen Winslow Jr., Sean Taylor, Antrel Rolle and Jonathan Vilma. The Buckeyes countered with sensational back Maurice Clarett, Craig Krenzel, Chris Gamble, Will Allen, AJ Hawk and Michael Doss. These rosters were stacked with stars! The difference of th game was a critical goal line stand in the second quarter when the Buckeyes defense held after Miami had the ball first and goal at the OSU two! Clarett and Krenzel each ran in a couple of touchdowns and Ohio State’s defense held the powerful Miami offense in check just enough for the Buckeyes to unseat Miami, 31-24 in a thriller.

January 3, 2004 - Charlotte, North Carolina - The setting was the NFC Wild Card weekend as the home crowd was out to support their Carolina Panthers against the visiting Dallas Cowboys per the Pro-Football-Reference. The Panthers jumped out to a 13-0 lead early and never looked back. Panthers kicker John Kasay tied an NFL-playoff record with 5 field goals to lead Carolina to a 29-10 win over Dallas Cowboys to advance in the playoff tournament.

January 3, 2007 - We all know that Nick Saban is the face of modern University of Alabama football as he churns out a top notch team to compete for national titles on an almost yearly basis. Do we remember though that he left another great College program in LSU to go into the NFL as a head man? Well he did, a year after winning the BCS Title in 2003 with the Tigers Saban was hired by the Miami Dolphins to guide their team according to an APNews.com story. The Saban led Miamiteams finished with a 9-7 record in 2005 and then the Fins registered a 6-10 record in 2006. Many experts speculate that Saban was upset not only about the losing season he had just suffered through but also the fact that in early 2006 he could not win a recruiting war for the signing of Quarterback Drew Brees with the New Orleans Saints. He was used to signing top prospects at the college level but when it came to the NFL game of landing players it might not have been his cup of tea. It was on this January 3 day in 2007 when the high profile head coach Nick Saban resigned his position with the franchise to return to college football and take the head coaching job at Alabama.

January 3, 2021 - The Jacksonville Jaguars earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first NFL team since the 2001 Carolina Panthers to win their first game of the season and then drop 15 straight to go 1-15. 

January 3, 2021 - Josh Allen became the first player in NFL history with at least 4,500 passing yards, 35 touchdown passes and five rushing touchdowns in a single season as he led the Buffalo Bills to a 13-3 record.

January 3, 1924 - Chicago, Illinois - Hank Stram, the former head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, was born. Hank got his feet wet in coaching as an assistant at the University of Miami. Lamar Hunt, the owner of an AFL start-up team, and the Dallas Texans hired Stram to lead the new franchise. The Texans played only one year in Dallas and then moved to Kansas City, where they changed their nickname to the Chiefs. Stram was an offensive innovator, and a Super Bowl winning Head Coach.