Huntsville, Decatur meet for 92nd time in rivalry that altered football in state permanently in '41

Oct. 28—When Jere Adcock came to Decatur in 1994, he had to learn some things about his new school. One was the importance of the football game with Huntsville.

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Two years later when he became the Decatur head coach, Red Raider fans again stressed the meaning of the rivalry.

"Trust me, you didn't have to go far to find somebody that would be willing to explain how much this game meant to them," Adcock said. "To people of a certain age, it's the only game."

When Huntsville and Decatur play Friday at Ogle Stadium, it will be the 92nd meeting in a rivalry that started in 1922. Decatur holds a 52-33-6 advantage. It's the longest rivalry with the most games for both schools.

"This game is so much about history, and I love to talk with our team every year about how important it is," Adcock said. "I tell them it's bigger than any of us and it's an honor to be a part of it."

One of the biggest years for the rivalry came in 1941. The teams played twice that season. Huntsville took a 7-6 victory in the River City on Oct. 3. Six weeks later, Decatur left Huntsville with a stunning 47-6 victory.

That one game changed football in the state. Three weeks later, the world changed when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and brought the United States into World War II.

While the front pages of The Decatur Daily that fall were covered with reports of the raging war in Europe, the main local topic on the sports pages was Decatur football. Could the Red Raiders top Huntsville and Athens for what was then a mythical Tennessee Valley championship?

H.L. "Shorty" Ogle was in his ninth season as head coach at Decatur. The Red Raiders played home games at Benson Field, which is now where Rhodes Ferry Park provides a grand view of the Tennessee River.

Huntsville head coach Milton Frank was in his eighth season leading the Crimson. Huntsville played home games at Goldsmith-Schiffman Field, which still stands today, but is no longer used for high school football games.

The Red Raiders beat the Crimson in Ogle's first three years in 1933-1935. Huntsville won 19-18 in 1936 and 7-0 in 1937. The 1938 contest was played to a 7-7 tie.

Because of the popularity of the rivalry, the teams decided to play twice starting in 1939. Huntsville won the first meeting in 1939, 13-0. Decatur took the second game, 12-0. The teams split again in 1940 with Decatur winning the October meeting in Huntsville, 7-6, and losing the home game in November, 7-6. — Eligibility issue

Expectations were high for both teams in 1941. Decatur started on Sept. 19 with a 69-0 win over Elkmont followed by a 25-0 victory over Ensley. According to articles in The Daily, neither opponent even got a first down. Huntsville opened its season with a 57-0 win over Joe Bradley.

That set the tune for the first meeting between the rivals on Oct. 3 at Benson Field. Kickoff was scheduled that evening for 7:30, but the real action got started earlier that day. In an afternoon meeting of the eighth district board of athletic directors, star Decatur halfback Sonny Todd was declared ineligible.

The ruling was based on a report that Todd, who was a senior, had played on the varsity in 1938. Rules at the time allowed a player to only play three seasons on the varsity.

Todd was a huge part of Decatur's offense running and passing. Without his star back, Ogle had to quickly adjust his lineup, and end Red Kimbrell moved to Todd's halfback position.

A crowd reported to be at just over 4,000 saw a scoreless first half. Decatur drove into Huntsville territory five times and even got to the Huntsville 2, but could not cross the goal line.

Huntsville broke the tie in the third quarter after a long pass from star player Billy Joe Rowan put the ball at the Decatur 13. Rowan, who later played at Tennessee, ran it in for the touchdown on the next play. The PAT made it 7-0. Decatur scored in the fourth quarter on a pass from Kimbrell, but the PAT by Clyde Wright was no good and Huntsville took a 7-6 victory.

That Sunday's Daily had two stories about what happened. One was about the game. The other tried to explain to Decatur fans why Todd did not play. There were a lot of questions concerning the suspension.

"Why the action of the board was taken at such a late hour, three and one-half hours before game time, too late for any Raider attack to be built around any other man, remained in the collective craw of Decatur fandom."

Decatur bounced back with wins over Phillips, 19-7, Cullman, 46-0, Athens, 19-0, and Coffee, 45-0. Huntsville rattled off wins over Central of Nashville, Sheffield, Albertville, Madison County and Fayetteville, Tennessee, by a combined 201-13. Up next for both teams was the rematch with Huntsville on Nov. 14.

Since the loss to Huntsville, Ogle had appealed the Todd suspension to the district board, which upheld it, and on to the state board, which agreed with the initial ruling. Todd's high school career was over.

That was not the only suspension of a star player in the Tennessee Valley that season. Huntsville center and team captain J.W. Daye and teammate Albert Huffman were both ruled ineligible. So was Athens star running back Ken Cooper. Some questions about Decatur's Clyde Smith's eligibility forced Ogle to announce he would not play again that season. — New formation

By the time of the rematch in Huntsville on Nov. 14, the war in Europe was making an impact in the Tennessee Valley. Military production work in the area put a strain on the Tennessee Valley Authority's ability to provide electricity. The Federal Office of Production Management ordered a rationing of power throughout the Southeast.

The order forced round two of Decatur vs. Huntsville to become a Friday afternoon game with a kickoff at 2. Both schools took half-holidays to accommodate the game. Many businesses in Huntsville closed from 1:45 to 4 so employees could attend the game. Athens moved its game vs. Falkville from Friday to Thursday so fans could attend both games.

A packed house at Goldsmith-Schiffman saw a first half of football that looked like a continuation of the first meeting. Huntsville's Rowan scored in the first quarter on a short run, but the PAT was no good. Decatur scored in the second quarter on a short run by Kimbrell. Bud Lee's PAT gave Decatur a 7-6 lead at halftime.

No doubt most of the spectators expected more of the same in the second half. What they got was one of the more amazing games in the rivalry. Decatur scored 40 unanswered points on the way to the 47-6 victory. Kimbrell passed for two touchdowns and ran for another just in the second half.

There has not been a larger margin of victory in the series since that day.

How could this tightly fought rivalry produce a blowout half with one team scoring 40 unanswered points?

Look no further than the genius of Ogle. For weeks he had been preparing his team for a switch in offensive formation. The Red Raiders lined up in a T-formation in the second half with a quarterback under center and three backs lined up left to right behind the quarterback.

The new formation was a dramatic switch from the Decatur formation with the center snap going back to the halfback deep in a box formation with three other backs.

The box formation used deception to confuse the defense on which back had the ball. The T-formation allowed the offense to strike quickly and use power by outnumbering defenders at the point of attack.

The story goes that Ogle read a magazine story about the T-formation after it made a big splash in the 1940 NFL championship game when the Chicago Bears unveiled it in a 73-0 rout of the Washington Redskins.

It's important to remember that there was no television broadcast at the time. Few people had heard about the T-formation and fewer had seen it.

According to the late Charles Riley's book "Shorty's Boys," Ogle liked the T-formation because it "kept the ball hidden from the defense during the development of quick plays as the quarterback took the ball from under the center."

Ogle wanted to make the change in a game when he thought his team was ready. That was in the second half that day in Huntsville.

"When I got to the dressing room at halftime a bunch of the boys were asking for it," Ogle is quoted as saying in Riley's book. "The boys wanted to use it, but I wasn't sure they were ready.

"I went outside and smoked a cigar. Shortly, the official came over and told me it was time to get back on the field. I threw my cigar down and went inside. I told the boys to use it."

Decatur took the second-half kickoff and started at its 40. Six plays later, Decatur had a touchdown. It was 20-6 at the end of three quarters. Decatur tacked on three more touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

Word of what happened quickly spread. Coaches across the state started learning about the T-formation. The same thing was happening across the country. The T-formation is the basic formation that is used today on all levels of football.

The introduction of the T-formation to Alabama is one reason why Ogle was the first high school coach inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1979.

"It just shows how smart a coach he was to be on the cutting edge of something like that," Adcock says. "It takes a lot of guts for a coach to change his offense in the middle of a game. Probably only a genius like Ogle could make that work."

The next Thursday saw Decatur beat Hartselle 40-0 on Thanksgiving Day to finish 8-1. Huntsville and Athens met that same day and played to a 6-6 tie. Both teams finished with 7-1-1 records.

Over the next 22 years as Decatur's head coach, Ogle's record vs. Huntsville was 15-6-3.

— david.elwell@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2395. Twitter @DD_DavidElwell.