MAJORS’ MASTERPIECE
Fifty years ago, Johnny Majors, Tony Dorsett, and a hard-nosed band of Panthers went 12-0, flattened Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, and completed one of college football’s great rebuilding stories.
DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor
Georgia came to New Orleans with a simple idea.
Stop Tony Dorsett.
The Bulldogs crowded the line of scrimmage, committed their defense to Pitt’s Heisman Trophy winner, and dared somebody else to beat them.
Matt Cavanaugh accepted the invitation.
The Pitt quarterback ran for the game’s first touchdown, threw a 59-yard scoring pass to Gordon Jones, and helped stake the Panthers to a three-touchdown halftime lead. Once Georgia loosened its grip on Dorsett, he went to work.
By the time the Sugar Bowl was over, Dorsett had rushed for 202 yards. Georgia had completed three passes. Pitt had forced four interceptions and rolled up 480 yards of offense.
Pitt won, 27-3, completing a 12-0 season and securing the national championship on Jan. 1, 1977.
Dorsett owned the Heisman Trophy and college football’s career rushing record. Majors had completed one of the finest rebuilding jobs the sport had seen.
Four years earlier, Pitt had been 1-10.
Now it was No. 1.
Tony Dorsett
Majors rebuilds the house
Pitt had history, but history does not make a tackle, sign a recruit, or fill a stadium. By 1972, the Panthers had become an afterthought in their own city and finished 1-10.
Lynchburg native Johnny Majors arrived in 1973 with a Tennessee drawl, a recruiter’s energy, and little interest in hearing why Pitt could no longer win.
His first recruiting class included Dorsett, a quick, slender back from nearby Aliquippa. Some schools wondered whether he was big enough to withstand major-college football.
Majors wondered how anybody planned to catch him.
Dorsett rushed for 1,586 yards as a freshman as Pitt went 6-5-1 and reached its first bowl in 17 years. The Panthers improved to 7-4 in 1974 and 8-4 in 1975, finishing with a Sun Bowl victory over Kansas.
Majors had not rebuilt Pitt with tricks or slogans. His teams ran the football, controlled the line of scrimmage, and made opponents earn whatever they got.
By the fall of 1976, the foundation was set.
Dorsett entered his senior year as one of the finest backs in college football. He had rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons and had run for 303 against Notre Dame the year before.
Everybody knew No. 33 was getting the ball.
It did not seem to matter.
An opening statement in South Bend
Pitt opened Sept. 11 at Notre Dame, which was no place for a team still trying to discover itself.
The Panthers arrived knowing exactly what they were.
Dorsett broke loose for 61 yards on his first carry and finished with 181 on 22 attempts as Pitt beat the Irish, 31-10.
A three-touchdown victory in South Bend announced Pitt as more than a good team with a great running back.
A week later, the Panthers won at Georgia Tech, 42-14, but lost starting quarterback Robert Haygood to a season-ending knee injury in the second quarter. Junior Matt Cavanaugh took over and threw two touchdown passes to Gordon Jones.
Pitt had lost its starting quarterback and still won by four touchdowns, the first sign that this team could absorb a hard blow without losing its footing.
The season turns rough
The Panthers defeated Temple, 21-7, then survived their loosest afternoon of the season in a 44-31 victory at Duke.
The road soon grew rougher.
Cavanaugh suffered a hairline fracture in his left ankle during a 27-6 victory over Louisville. With Haygood already out, Pitt turned to third-string quarterback Tom Yewcic against Miami.
Yewcic protected the football and let Dorsett carry the load.
Dorsett rushed for 227 yards and two touchdowns, caught a 40-yard scoring pass, and finished with 267 all-purpose yards as Pitt won, 36-19.
The Panthers were halfway through the regular season. They were unbeaten, playing without their first two quarterbacks, and offering no excuses.
Dorsett passes them all
Pitt traveled to Annapolis on Oct. 23 with Dorsett closing in on Archie Griffin’s NCAA career rushing record.
The record fell during a 45-0 victory over Navy.
Dorsett rushed for 180 yards and three touchdowns, moving past Griffin’s career mark of 5,206 yards. He finished the regular season with 6,082 career rushing yards and left Pitt with 6,526 including bowl games, becoming the first major-college runner with four 1,000-yard seasons.
Records, though, did not win the next game.
Syracuse came to Pitt Stadium and made the Panthers work. Dorsett carried 34 times for 241 yards and two touchdowns in a 23-13 victory.
Defenses no longer bothered hiding their intentions. They crowded the box, chased Dorsett from sideline to sideline, and forced him to earn yards through traffic.
He kept earning them.
Johnny Majors
Pitt reaches No. 1
Pitt entered its Nov. 6 game against Army ranked second in the country.
The Panthers won, 37-7, with Dorsett rushing for 212 yards and three touchdowns.
Then the public-address announcer reported that Purdue had beaten top-ranked Michigan, 16-14.
Pitt was going to be No. 1.
The ranking carried no trophy. It merely placed a target on the Panthers with two rivalry games left.
West Virginia came first.
The Mountaineers arrived with five losses and played as though none of them mattered. Pitt won, 24-16, with Dorsett rushing 38 times for 199 yards and all three Panther touchdowns. The Panthers outgained West Virginia 399-169.
One regular-season game remained.
Penn State.
The day Majors moved Dorsett
Pitt and Penn State met Nov. 26, the Friday after Thanksgiving, at Three Rivers Stadium.
The game was tied 7-7 at halftime, and Penn State had held Dorsett to 51 yards—against him, a small victory.
Majors made his move.
He shifted Dorsett from tailback to fullback, changing his angle to the line of scrimmage and complicating Penn State’s pursuit.
Dorsett rushed for 173 yards after halftime. He finished with 224 on 38 carries and scored twice as Pitt pulled away, 24-7.
The Panthers gained 419 yards, intercepted four passes, and completed an 11-0 regular season.
Dorsett finished the schedule with 1,948 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns. Over Pitt’s final seven regular-season games, with every defense built to stop him, he averaged 215 yards on the ground.
Four days later, Dorsett won Pitt’s first Heisman Trophy in a landslide, receiving 701 first-place votes and easily outdistancing Southern California’s Ricky Bell.
Pitt had its Heisman winner.
It also had one more game to play.
Tennessee calls Majors home
While Pitt prepared for the Sugar Bowl, another story followed the Panthers.
The University of Tennessee needed a coach.
Majors had been an All-American Tennessee tailback and the 1956 Heisman runner-up. Knoxville was home ground, where he had played for Gen. Robert Neyland.
Tennessee hired Majors on Dec. 3, 1976, before Pitt’s season was finished.
The timing could have unsettled Pitt, but Majors stayed for the bowl and his players stayed with him.
They had one last piece of work to finish together.
Georgia, the Southeastern Conference champion, waited in New Orleans.
The Bulldogs were 10-1 and carried a defense known as the Junkyard Dogs. Pitt’s seniors had begun their college careers with a 7-7 tie against Georgia in 1973.
Now they would finish against the same program with the national championship at stake.
The last word in New Orleans
A sellout crowd of 76,117 filled the Louisiana Superdome on Jan. 1, 1977.
On Pitt’s second possession, Cavanaugh directed an 80-yard touchdown drive. A 36-yard pass to Elliott Walker moved the Panthers to the Georgia 10. Two plays later, Cavanaugh ran 6 yards for the score.
In the second quarter, he rolled along the line, stopped, and found Gordon Jones for a 59-yard touchdown. Dorsett added an 11-yard scoring run late in the half.
Pitt went to the locker room leading 21-0.
Dorsett had 65 rushing yards at halftime. He added 137 after the break.
Georgia managed only a field goal. Pitt kicker Carson Long answered with field goals of 42 and 31 yards.
The Panthers’ defense finished the job. Georgia had averaged nearly 280 rushing yards during the season. Pitt held the Bulldogs to 135 on the ground and 181 yards overall.
Georgia completed three passes. Pitt intercepted four.
Cavanaugh completed 10 of 18 passes for 192 yards and was named the Sugar Bowl’s most valuable player. Dorsett rushed 32 times for a bowl-record 202 yards.
Pitt had met the SEC champion and settled the matter emphatically.
Matt Cavanaugh
More than one great runner
Dorsett remains the face of the 1976 Panthers, and rightly so.
He was the best player in college football and one of the finest running backs the game has produced.
But one man did not go 12-0.
Cavanaugh stepped in after Haygood’s injury and became the quarterback Pitt needed. Jones and Willie Taylor gave defenses something to fear when they crowded the line. Jim Corbett provided a dependable target at tight end.
The offensive front kept opening holes even when everybody in the stadium knew where the football was going.
Al Romano anchored a defense that allowed only 133 points in 12 games. In the Sugar Bowl, that unit did more than protect a lead. It took Georgia’s offense apart.
Three of Pitt’s five scoring drives followed turnovers. The Bulldogs did not cross midfield until well into the second quarter. Their three points were their fewest in 52 games.
Dorsett was the star. Pitt was the champion.
There is a difference.
Twelve games, twelve victories
Pitt scored 381 points and allowed 133.
The Panthers beat Notre Dame, Penn State, and Georgia by a combined score of 82-20. They lost two starting quarterbacks and kept moving.
Dorsett finished the 12-game campaign with 2,150 rushing yards and 22 touchdowns on the ground. Majors was named national coach of the year.
Then he left for Tennessee.
Majors departed Pittsburgh with the work complete: a fallen program rebuilt, a Heisman Trophy winner developed, and a national championship secured.
There was no playoff or selection committee. A team climbed the polls one Saturday at a time, won its bowl game, and waited for the voters to settle the matter.
Pitt made the voters’ decision easy. The Panthers played everybody on the schedule. They beat them all.
They went to New Orleans and finished the job.
Fifty years later, the record still reads the same: Twelve games. Twelve victories.
No argument left.