What Would You Do? Here’s What Bo Would Do (1932)

Check this out from the 1932 Youngstown Vindicator newspaper.  It’s a feature called ‘Football for the Fan’ by coach Howard H. Jones.   Coach Jones was a legendary coach at USC with many other stints including Ohio State in 1910 (3-3 tie in Columbus vs. Yost if you need it—the Buckeye fans went wild.)

In the FFTF feature, Jones lays out an in-game scenario and asks readers, ‘What Would You Do?’:

football_for_the_fan

It appears as Jones had different coaches suggest a play to “answer” the question, and this one was addressed by then-Kansas State coach Bo McMillin. And don’t knock McMillin—after leaving Kansas he went onto Indiana where he bested Crisler in Ann Arbor & led the Hoosiers to the 1945 conference title!  A football title in Bloomington is a one way ticket to the college football HOF, yes sir.

After that McMillin went on to coach the Lions and the Eagles before dying prematurely of stomach cancer.

Update:  Here’s McMillin’s answer:

4 Comments

  • Duffy

    Well, since it's 1910, I'll do a drop kick field goal and then count on my stout defense to hold their run only offense to a 3 and out and have to use some sort of double reverse on my first play to get the ball within range of another drop kick field goal.

    There's no mention at all of time outs or anything so I'm guessing you may not have those which probably completely nullifies my answer. If that's the case, I have a sudden brainstorm and come up with the novel idea of what I'm going to call a "forward pass" , and use that to stun my opponents with a quick touchdown.

  • Duffy

    Well, actually I see it was posted in a1932 paper, should of read a little closer, I'm still sticking with my answer.