Thursday, September 23, 2010

Iconic Shot: The 1959 Ole Miss Rebels

(click to enlarge)
Led by All-America selections Marvin Terrell and Charlie Flowers, the '59 Ole Miss Rebels allowed a scant 21 points all season and finished the year with a 10-1 record.  The only mark on the Rebels' schedule, a 7-3 defeat in Baton Rouge against the defending national champion Louisiana State Tigers, was avenged at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans with a dominating 21-0 victory on New Year's Day.

Although both the Associated Press and the UPI ranked Syracuse #1 at season's end, the Rebels were crowned national champions -- the first of three for legendary head coach John Vaught -- by Berryman, Billingsley, Dunkel and Sagarin.  Jeff Sagarin, an MIT graduate whose method of ranking sports teams has been featured in USA Today for a quarter-century, also rated this squad as the third-best college football team from 1956-1995.

2 comments:

Holly said...

This photo looks younger than 1959 for some reason. It would be cool to have a "where are they now" photo.

AMW said...

Aside from my devotion to Ole Miss, I like this picture because most of the shots in color (as opposed to the usual black and white) from this time in history are uncommon. But even more, there is something about the 42 faces in this picture that grabs my attention.

Beside the fact that each guy is a Southern-born Caucasian amid the pre-integration era, I feel like I'm looking at something deeper. I'm not sure what it is. They weren't angels, I suppose, but they were real men.