A November To Remember For Young Don Meredith
With a sensational, record-setting sophomore at quarterback, the Mustangs of SMU liked their chances against archrival TCU on Nov. 2, 1957.
With a sensational, record-setting sophomore at quarterback, the Mustangs of SMU liked their chances against arch-rival TCU on Nov. 2, 1957.
“Jeff and Hazel’s baby boy and Billy Jack’s younger brother,” as Joseph Don Meredith never tired of telling the Monday Night Football television audience, was born and raised in Mount Vernon (2004, pop. 2,316) in northeast Texas. An all-state star in two sports, he played quarterback and linebacker on the football team and scored 52 points at the Dr. Pepper high-school basketball tournament his junior year.
At six-foot-three and 210 pounds, Meredith was much bigger than the typical college quarterback of his day. But more coaches, like Sleepy Morgan at Southern Methodist, were waking up to the fact that a tall passer could see spot potential receivers over onrushing linemen. For that reason as well as the promising prospect’s natural ability, the freshman coach offered him a scholarship.
Meredith surprised many people by choosing SMU over several other interested schools. Since the departure of Heisman Trophy winner Doak Walker and All-American Kyle Rote, the dominant football program in the Southwest Conference had been on the decline. In the past six seasons, two different head coaches had succeeded in winning only 26 of 60 games.
Hoping for a swift return to the glory days of Walker and Rote, Southern Methodist hired Bill Meek away from the University of Houston. The new coach saw Meredith as the signal-caller of the future but believed the 19 year old, who had yet to play a down of varsity ball, needed on-the-field experience before taking charge.
With that in mind, Meek put Meredith in for just two plays in the final seconds of the Ponies’ season-opening upset of the University of California on Sept. 21, 1957. The next week in the rain, mud and wind of a scoreless tie at Georgia Tech, he took four snaps only to fumble the wet pigskin on the last play.
A shoulder injury kept Meredith on the sidelines of what could have been his Cotton Bowl debut. He watched helplessly from the bench as the Missouri Tigers, two-touchdown underdogs, edged the Mustangs by a point.
In a close contest the following Saturday with Rice, destined to come out of nowhere to win the conference championship, Meeks abandoned his go-slow plan and inserted Meredith in the fourth quarter. The lanky youth responded to the challenge with three picture-perfect passes that covered 72 of the 84 yards to the Owls’ end zone. The boys from The Institute still prevailed 27-21, but “Dandy Don,” as everyone soon would be calling him, had proved he was ready.
Meredith played the Nov. 2 game against Texas on from start to finish leading SMU to a 19-12 victory over the Longhorns and a first-year coach named Darrell Royal. He connected on six of nine passes, two for touchdowns, and showed he could run with the ball by gaining 72 yards on 10 carries.
Next on the Ponies’ schedule were the Texas Aggies, the number-one team in nation and winners of 14 in a row. Prognosticators predicted a rout, but the first half ended in a 6-6 tie. However, Meredith’s eight-for-12 passing could not compete with John David Crow’s powerful running, and A&M came out on top 19-6.
Two out of every three seats were empty in the Cotton Bowl on Nov. 16, but those that showed up for the SMU-Arkansas shootout witnessed “one of the most exciting games in Southwest Conference history” according to the Dallas Morning News. The lead changed four times before the Mustangs pulled ahead to stay for a 27-22 triumph.
Meredith put on a dazzling display of pin-point accuracy with 19 completions in 25 attempts for 230 yards and two tallies. He accounted for the other two TD’s on ground, part of his 67-yard rushing total for the afternoon, and also kicked an extra-point.
Good as he was against the Razorbacks, Meredith was even better seven days later in Waco. He threw 20 passes against the Baylor defense and missed the target just three times. With the score deadlocked at seven apiece, he rallied his teammates for a 67-yard march in the final six minutes that produced the go-ahead touchdown.
But the Bears were the last opponent the Mustangs would beat that season. Abe Martin, the head Horned Frog, limited Meredith to nine completed passes with a six-man rush and TCU shut out SMU 21-0. And Notre Dame was simply too much for the Mustangs to handle as the Irish scored at will in a 54-21 blowout.
In spite of sub-par performances in the last two games, Meredith finished his sophomore campaign with 71 completions in 102 attempts — a 69.6 percent success rate that was the best ever by a college passer.
With Meredith returning for two more seasons, expectations were through the roof at SMU. But football has always been a team sport, and “Dandy Don” never had a strong supporting cast. Yet, even though the Mustangs managed to win only six games in 1958 and five in 1959, Meredith placed third in the Heisman Trophy balloting as a senior.
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