Sports Hall of Fame to celebrate 1980 upset of Bama

Contact: Zack Plair

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Of all Mississippi State football traditions that have developed since the land-grant university first fielded a team in 1895, one game has come to represent a pinnacle of the program’s heritage.

On Nov. 1, 1980, the Bulldogs shocked the sports world with a 6-3 upset victory over top-ranked Alabama at Jackson’s Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. Emory Bellard was the Bulldogs’ head coach, while the Crimson Tide was headed by the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant.

The MSU victory both snapped a 28-game Tide winning streak and broke State’s 22-game losing streak to their cross-border Southeastern Conference rival. It also helped MSU to a 9-3 season record, including a 5-1 mark in SEC play.

To help celebrate the game’s 35th anniversary and the 1980 season, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson is sponsoring a Wednesday [Sept. 23] banquet at its 1152 Lakeland Dr. facility. The event will kick off with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by the dinner program at 7.

Tickets are $100 each and may be reserved at www.msfame.com or by calling 601-982-8264.

“I still get chills when I think of some of the things that happened that day; I believe it’s the greatest victory in Mississippi State history,” said Rick Cleveland, a retired Clarion-Ledger sports reporter now serving as the Hall of Fame executive director. “I can’t believe it’s been 35 years. To me, the memories are as fresh as they can be.”

Now is in his fourth year with the Hall of Fame, Cleveland said fall fundraising events such as this are critical to help cover operating and program costs for the only venue of its kind in Mississippi.

He recalled how a crowd of 50,891—the largest at the time ever to attend a Mississippi sporting event—had seen the Bulldogs take the game’s lead early in the fourth quarter and hang on until the clock ran out.

Bellard, credited with inventing the then-widely popular wishbone offense that Alabama also ran, had worked throughout the preceding week to teach his defensive coaches and players how best to stop it, Cleveland said.

MSU’s defense stifled the Tide for most of the game, but the previously unstoppable team from Tuscaloosa successfully drove down the field in game’s final minutes and reached the Bulldog four-yard line with only seconds to play.

Happily for MSU, defensive end Tyrone Keys forced a fumble that his maroon-and-white-clad teammates recovered to secure the victory.

Cleveland said the 35th anniversary celebration will feature video highlights from the epic upset as described by Jack Cristil, legendary Voice of the Bulldogs.

The evening also will feature a panel of four former players, including Keys, defensive tackle Glen Collins, middle linebacker Johnie Cooks and freshman starting quarterback John Bond. Cleveland will serve as panel moderator.

All names in MSU’s pantheon of football heroes, the panelists will share personal perspectives of that long, hot afternoon struggle and take questions from the audience.

Cooks, a longtime Starkville resident, went on to a 10-year career in the National Football League and played for the Super Bowl XXV champion New York Giants in 1990. He said he relishes the opportunity to gather again with former teammates and recall the Bulldogs’ victory over Alabama.

“What I really got out of that game was what it did for the MSU family,” Cooks said. “I got more pleasure from that than I got for myself in winning the game.”

Keys also enjoyed a long NFL career and helped the Chicago Bears win the 1985 Super Bowl. He said he regularly utilizes the 1980 experience against Alabama in his current role as director of the All Sports Community Service in Tampa, Florida. The organization helps high school students develop a successful “game plan” for their adult years, he explained.

“It will be great to go down memory lane to see how a group of guys and the coaching staff came together to be a part of history,” Keys said. “We’re still talking about this game 35 years later, and that shows how important it was.”

Another longtime NFL player who also starred for the Bulldogs in 1980 was offensive lineman Kent Hull. A Pontotoc native who died in 2011 in Greenwood, he went on to become an all-time great center for the Buffalo Bills and was key to the team’s four Super Bowl appearances.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.