Charley Trippi and the 1947 Sugar Bowl

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Timothy P. Brown shares the story of the Big New Years game in 1947 between #3 Georgia and #9 North Carolina and the star players, like Charley Trippi and what happened in the Sugar Bowl.

At the 1947 Sugar Bowl, Charley Trippi was a dynamic force, but his impact transcended mere statistics. While he carried the ball 14 times for 54 yards and threw a game-changing 67-yard touchdown pass, his true contribution was a masterclass in offensive agility and leadership.

Shifty Running: Trippi frustrated the North Carolina defense with his signature moves, dodging tackles and keeping plays alive with his deceptive jukes and spins. He wasn't just a powerful runner, but a magician with the ball in his hands.

Clutch Pass: When Georgia needed it most, Trippi stepped up as a passer. His 67-yard touchdown to Dan Edwards was a thing of beauty, showcasing his underrated arm strength and ability to read defenses. This play shifted the momentum and ultimately secured the Bulldogs' victory.

-Transcribed Conversation on Charley Trippi & the 1947 Sugar Bowl with Timothy Brown

Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes of PigskinDispatch.com. Welcome again to The Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history. And welcome another day to visit with our friend Timothy P. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com. Tim, welcome back to The Pig Pen.

Darin, it's good to be here with you, and I'm looking forward to going on a little trip with you. It is a little Trippi, indeed. That's pretty good stuff.

Yeah, that's digging deep for that segue into our topic tonight. Of course, Tim is talking about a recent tidbit that he wrote about the famous football legend Charley Trippi and a college football game that he played. And we know him as a great college and professional player.

But Tim loves to focus on, especially on those college games. And you've got some interesting items on Mr. Trippi that you'd like to discuss. Yeah.

So this one, I kind of, this particular tidbit, I was hoping to draw kind of two issues. One is how much of a stud Trippi was, right? And he was just a tremendous player. But the other thing was just kind of the messiness of determining the national championship back in the day.

You know, and if anybody thought it was bad past 30, 40 years, back in 1946, when he was getting out of college, it was worse. So, you know, he, as a senior, his senior season was 1946, he's playing for, you know, University of Georgia. And they ended up the year ranked number three.

And so, right, I ended the regular season ranked number three. Number one and two were the Army and Navy, who had tied zero to zero, you know, in the last game of the season. And so, you know, they're, you know, they weren't going to win the national championship, in all likelihood, you know, meaning Georgia wasn't.

And, you know, back then, the Big Ten for the 1947 season, the Big Ten still, maybe, they had just started. But anyway, you know, there were, you know, Notre Dame didn't go to bowl games. And, you know, we were still in an era where entire conferences didn't go to bowl games.

So it's, you know, who was going to finish the season national championships? It's kind of a mess. But so they end up with, you know, Georgia ends up being invited to the Sugar Bowl. And they play; they're number three, and they play number nine, North Carolina.

And so Trippi, who had finished second in the Heisman Trophy, voting to Glenn Davis, you know, of Army. And Trippi was this, you know, quintuple and maybe even a septuple or whatever, you know, threat, because he, you know, he was a passer, he was a runner, punted, he returned kicks. And, you know, in the 47 seasons, he led the nation, or at least tied to the in the nation for most interceptions, so he's just this all-around player who's just, you know, just tremendous.

So he ends up, you know, in the Sugar Bowl. North Carolina takes a seven-nothing lead at the half. And then Georgia ties it up, you know, early in the third quarter.

UNC gets a field goal. So now they're down, you know, Georgia's down 10-7, and they're thinking we're at least the third team in the nation. So then I think it was the next series, Trippi faked a run and then executed one of those old style jump passes, you know, jumps up right behind the line of scrimmage, hits a guy who's running a crossing pattern.

And the guy, boom, to the races, you know, get a touchdown. And then they score another touchdown and win the game. And, you know, one of the cool things about that particular tidbit is just that I had, you know, these old college composite schedule, you know, booklets.

And so one of them had that play. And, you know, the coach described the play, it's got the play diagram. And, you know, it's a neat illustration of that jump pass play.

But so they end up winning. And, you know, here it is, right after World War Two. So the AFC and the NFL are battling for, you know, contracts.

So this guy signs, he can sign a four-year $100,000 contract, which was the biggest contract for a pro football player to that point. So, I mean, just the bargaining power he had, and yet, you know, it's just nothing compared to today's four-year $100,000 contract. And then he goes on, in the NFL, he's into the all-1940s team.

When he retired in 57, he was the NFL's all-time yardage leader because he was a multi-threat player. Then, he died in 1921 or 2021. He was the second NFL player to live to be 100 years old.

So, the guy had a pretty good life. Yeah. Wow.

Can't complain about that one. No. And what an interesting, you know, time when his senior season, you know, World War Two is just over, and that 46th season is sort of, I always look at it, it's almost like a line of debarkation of like, you know, the single wing is ending its run, and they're going into, you know, some T formations, some more modern formations that we're familiar with.

And, you know, single platoon football is, you know, right at its edge of doing. So it's a lot of interesting things that era, and all the different things that if you're a football fan, you go to the stadium, you're going to see, you know, everything coming out of the woodwork in those years. And as you said, the AFC and the NFL are doing battle, and Paul Brown is, you know, getting his glory on and at the pro level and just a cool era.

Charley Trippi is a part of that. Well, Trippi, like a lot of the guys, you know, he was. I think he left college. He was 44 and 45, so I could be off on that. But, you know, like a lot of these guys, they were getting drafted, you know, and so he was out of the game.

Now he played service football, like a lot of these guys did. But, you know, the other thing about 46 was just, I mean, if there was an era with more talent, now, this is pre-integration, so it's all white guys, right? But, you know, you had rosters filled with these returning vets, you know, so guys who had been in the service for two, three, and even four years coming back to college. And, you know, all these guys with playing experience, all these guys who'd started are now all of a sudden on one roster.

And it's just that even though teams were starting to run, you know, two-platoon, most still ran one platoon. So just, I mean, there was just some tremendous talent in the 1946 season. Yeah.

And they got that extra training if they played military ball, it's like an extra couple of years of college football to get trained for the professional level, which wasn't that developed yet. The college game was a much better game at that point in time too. So just, you know, just all the stars aligned for football with all the world events and everything that was going on.

And man, a special time is definitely a golden era of football, like they say. And it's very enjoyable to read about it and to see these heroes like Charley Trippi and others who played the game so well during that era. Yeah.

And I mean, you just think about the changes in the game that he saw in his lifetime; just incredible. Yeah. You'd have to pick up a new copy of that rules book and study it really hard every time the new season comes along because that's definitely a time of change.

Now, speaking of changes, your tidbits now cover changes from all eras of football, from the 1800s to the 20th century and beyond, even into today's game. And they're really interesting, and they're not focused on one thing. You take us on a journey every single evening into something new that maybe we never really thought about.

So how can people enjoy your tidbits on a daily basis? Yeah. It's real simple. Just go to footballarchaeology.com. You can subscribe.

And then, you know, if you subscribe, you get an email with that story every night at seven o'clock Eastern. If you, you know, you don't have to read them right away. They're just; you can let them sit near your inbox and read them on the weekend.

If you don't want to subscribe, you can follow me on Twitter, on threads, or on the Substack app. Or you can just go to the site whenever you feel like it. Excellent.

Well, Tim Brown is his name. Footballarchaeology.com is his website. And you've got all the other information there too.

It's in the show notes of the podcast as well. Tim, thank you for joining us here. And we'll talk to you again next Tuesday.

Yep. And what a long, strange, Trippi it's been. Sorry for my dad jokes.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.