Dropping the Ball: The 1977 USM-Troy Game
Charlie Bradshaw’s 1976 Trojans made waves, tying defending national runner-up Western Kentucky, ending the season ranked No. 6 in the country, and marking the program’s third one-loss season since World War II.
Despite its success, the Trojans missed out on the eight-team playoff. The reason? Troy had five players who failed to meet the requirements for the playoffs.
The Trojans were required to list these players as ineligible, or they would get a two-year probation.
The players were able to compete in the regular season and Gulf South conference play… but not NCAA Division II championship events.
They were also eligible to play in the NAIA championship… but Troy would have been suspended if it took part. Troy had no other option but to stay home that postseason.
Someone dropped the ball.
The Trojans weren’t alone though. Reports mentioned another team in consideration… with four ineligible players.
Alcorn State was tied for eighth that season, and the Braves also missed the playoffs.
Troy’s problem was no doubt connected to the Gulf South Conference’s fluid status. When it was formed in 1970, the GSC sat in a void, with teams in different sports participating in NAIA and NCAA tournament events.
In 1973, the NCAA’s University and College Divisions gave way to Divisions I, II and III, divided by the number of scholarships each team allowed. The Gulf South then began bringing its NAIA programs to Division II.
As that happened, Troy President Ralph Adams, a close friend of Alabama Governor George Wallace, wanted exposure for Troy’s up-and-coming program. He tried getting Alabama and Auburn to schedule Troy as its first Division I opponent.
Obviously, he failed, but he persisted. In 1975, according to a Pensacola News Journal report, Adams is rumored to have met with a president over coffee to discuss the game.
The school was 200 miles away in Hattiesburg.
Troy and Southern Miss played a five-game prewar series, as members of the SIAA, and the Trojans went 1-4. After the war, USM joined ULM, La Tech, Louisiana, Spring Hill College and more in the Gulf States Conference, a member of the College Division.
After winning the 1958 and 1962 College Division championships, the Golden Eagles were effectively promoted, moving into the University Division.
More than a decade later, Troy State University came calling, and though Southern Miss agreed to a game, the Trojans’ second-year head coach wasn’t thrilled about it.
“Southern Mississippi was none of my doing, I assure you,” Charlie Bradshaw told the Pensacola News Journal. “Getting them on the schedule was not very intelligent.”
His main beef was that scholarship difference. Bradshaw’s logic was more players on scholarship means more competition for a starting job, making the team better as a whole.
Bradshaw said a larger coaching staff would develop players better, and playing in front of larger crowds would do more for the team’s excitement.
Finally, he didn’t see any benefit for the team, as a Division II program.
“We’re not looking on this as a make-or-break game for our season,” Bradshaw told the PNJ. “This game isn’t our normal level of competition, so we can’t measure our program’s progress.
“That’s what we aspire to do with the rest of our schedule. We have a demanding Division I schedule, including Northern Michigan, which was second nationally last year, and Nevada-Las Vegas, which was seventh.
“That’s the sensible approach to upgrading a program. Playing Southern Miss is not. Unless we decide to improve our own facilities and turn Division I, I don’t foresee us playing a Division I school again.”
The “David vs. Goliath” view wasn’t shared by the team to the west.
For one, the game was going to be played in Montgomery’s Cramton Bowl, which, for all its neutrality, sits in Trojan territory. At the time, it was 9,000 seats smaller than Faulkner Field in Hattiesburg.
Also, the Golden Eagles were 3-8 the year before, and one of those wins came on a forfeit a year and a half later. It was USM’s first losing season at the Division I level.
The Eagles did carry a two-game win streak into this season. Riding the momentum, third-year Southern Miss coach Bobby Collins vowed his team wasn’t overlooking the upstart Trojans.
On the first drive of the game, “equal ability” seemed to be an accurate description. The Trojans held USM to a three-and-out, and Mike Wright came on to punt.
He booted it to Troy freshman Sherman Wilkinson, standing on the 25-yard line.
Wilkinson dropped the ball.
Four plays later, Ben Garry took the pitch into the end zone, putting USM on the board first.
The next drive, Troy held onto the ball for three plays, but the Eagles kept the Trojans from picking up the first down.
Freshman punter Mike Quinn called for the snap, and Randy Eberhardt sent it back.
Quinn dropped the ball.
Thinking quickly, Quinn picked it up to pass. He dodged a defender, but the ball fell incomplete.
Troy’s defense held yet again, forcing a three-and-out. The Eagles lined up for the field goal, but kicker Randy Boyette shanked it to the right.
At this point, Troy was amazingly still in the game.
Then quarterback Phillip Brazell dropped the ball.
Southern Miss stripped it, recovered it and made it 14-0 after one quarter.
The nightmare continued to get worse for Troy.
On the next drive, someone dropped the ball.
Thankfully, the defense held Southern Miss to a punt.
On Troy’s next drive, the offense finally woke up. Brazell drove the Trojans down the field 80 yards on ten plays.
That included a 12-yard pass to tight end Billy Dixon, which put Troy on the board with fewer than 11 minutes in the half.
The PAT was good, but Troy was flagged for illegal procedure. The second kick attempt sailed wide.
Southern Miss responded in kind, driving 72 yards in five plays. It was 21-6 with 9:42 left in the second quarter.
On the next drive, Troy exploded. Brazell hit Dixon at midfield, who turned and took it the rest of the field, putting Troy back on the board.
The two-point conversion failed, but Troy was back in striking distance, 21-12, with 5:18 left in the game.
All Troy needed was a defensive stop.
That’s what the Trojans got.
Troy stopped USM’s offense once again, forcing a punt and picking it up at the Trojan 15.
Troy carved through the Eagles defense after that, running twice for 25 yards, passing for another 30 and pitching it to freshman Tony Devazan, who took it 35 yards for another Troy score.
This time the PAT was good, and the Trojans made it 21-19 with about five minutes left in the half.
Both teams missed field goal attempts, so the score held into the break. Division I Southern Miss was on upset alert.
The Trojans began the second half with energy and momentum.
Then someone dropped the ball.
Brazell muffed the handoff, and Southern Miss landed on it. The very next play, the Eagles extended their lead.
Garry took it 30 yards, scoring and taking the title as Southern Miss’s all-time leading rusher. He finished his career with 3,595 yards, which is still third-most all time.
His record wasn’t surpassed until Damion Fletcher in 2008 (who ended the season with a win over Troy), and Ito Smith in 2017 (who lost to Troy the season prior).
The Eagles made it 28-19, a still manageable score. Troy fielded the kickoff, and lined up to run it.
Devazan dropped the ball.
Southern Miss again added to the score on the next play, this time with a 40-yard pass. The extra point made it 35-19, and the upset threat was finally dead.
Southern Miss added another touchdown early in the fourth, and the final score was 42-19.
Troy added another fumble somewhere along the way to make it seven total, with only five lost. Brazell threw two interceptions and the Trojans committed 14 penalties for 112 yards.
Amazingly, Troy out-gained USM 415-321 and converted 19 first downs to the Eagles’ 16.
Bradshaw said he actually thought Troy could pull out the win after the second quarter.
“I just told them at halftime to settle down and stop beating themselves,” Bradshaw told the Montgomery Advertiser. “We had a great chance to win. In fact I thought we were going to win at that point.”
As it turns out, the only team who overlooked the Trojans… was the man leading the Trojans.
Numbers don’t lie, and when you give up four fumbles that lead directly to points, it’s impossible to win games.
Bradshaw’s frustration with scheduling a Division I opponent likely didn’t impact his approach to preparing the players, but his assessment of the matchup wasn’t accurate. Collins’ was.
Troy had several opportunities to take the game, something that absolutely happened in the second quarter. The two teams were on equal levels in terms of talent, but the difference was executing and making fewer mistakes.
For what it’s worth, Bradshaw realized it too.
“You know what really hurts, though,” he told the Advertiser. “It hurts to come out and get great effort from a good bunch of kids and then leave the ball rolling around on the ground and just not give yourself a chance to win.”
He knew that on a literal and figurative level, Troy dropped the ball.