It was the kind of matchup which made fans of good, tough smashmouth football salivate.
Two future NFL Hall of Fame running backs, Floyd Little of Syracuse and Gale Sayers of Kansas, who died Wednesday at the age of 77, squared off at SU’s Archbold Stadium on Sept. 26, 1964.
“Old fashioned, and usually successful power football will be the order of the day tomorrow afternoon when the Orangemen of Syracuse and the Kansas Jayhawkers meet,” wrote the Post-Standard in a preview the day before the game.
The Orange had begun the season ranked ninth in the nation, but a disappointing loss at Boston College the week before in the opener had dampened some enthusiasm.
Little, in his first ever college start, was held to a pedestrian 82 yards rushing.
The fact that Syracuse had injuries along the right side of its defensive line, right where the All-American Sayers preferred to run, seemed to indicate that it would be a big day for the “Kansas Comet.”
Syracuse running back Floyd Little in 1964.
Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder, according to the Post-Standard, “hustled his squad through another lengthy (practice) session yesterday, stressing defense against an expected Kansas ground attack.”
He also practiced the normal “coach-speak,” declaring that Syracuse was playing against an entire team, not just the great Gale Sayers.
“Sayers isn’t the only fellow we have to stop,” the coach said.
Despite the intriguing matchup, Syracuse’s let-down performance in Boston the week before had quieted some of the excitement for the team’s home opener.
Just 23,000 tickets had been sold at Archbold 48 hours before the game and the newspaper said that there were still plenty of “good concrete seats” remaining.
Local sports columnist Bill Reddy wrote that a home loss to the unranked Jayhawks would be a “near-catastrophe.”
A late surge in ticket sales boosted the attendance to 28,000 people. Many in the media wrote that the late-arriving crowd had come to see Sayers.
In an interview with Bud Poliquin in 2014, Little agreed that he was almost an afterthought before the game started.
“Everybody came to see the guy who was going to win the Heisman Trophy,” he said. “Everybody came to see Gale Sayers. The press box was full because of Gale Sayers. And it should have been. He was the man.”
Maybe they did. But they went home talking about Floyd Little.
Little’s performance was called by the Post-Standard to be the “finest by any sophomore in the 55-year-old history of Archbold Stadium.” And it was Little, not Sayers, who “sent 28,000 into a roar of wild approval yesterday.”
Syracuse' win over Gale Sayer's Kansas Jayhawks on Sept. 26, 1964 made the front-page of the Post-Standard along with news from Vietnam, the Warren Report and riots in cities.
Little rushed for 159 yards on just 16 carries and scored five touchdowns in SU’s 38-6 win. He added another 95 yards in receiving and kickoff return yards.
In one of the most incredible stats in Syracuse football history, Little scored those five touchdowns on his final nine carries of the game.
His longest touchdown run was 55 yards.
Here is how the Post-Standard described it:
“Floyd went through them all, as each clutched him but couldn’t hold him. Little had left the last Jayhawker behind him after less than 30 yards, and nobody could come close to him the rest of the way.”
Little himself seemed in awe of his achievements that day.
“I just couldn’t go down,” he told newspaper reporters afterwards. “It seemed sometimes I was even stepping on my own toes. But even when I was starting to tumble somebody would hit me and straighten me up again. I just managed to keep my feet on the ground most of the time.”
Kansas coach Jack Mitchell was awestruck by Little’s play that day.
“That was the greatest performance by a back that I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“Floyd Little was worth a million dollars today I didn’t think anybody could do what they did to us. That was the best Syracuse team I’ve ever seen.”
Gale Sayers was held to just 86 yards on 16 carries, much of it coming in the fourth quarter against Syracuse defensive backups.
Sayers would recover from his bad day in Syracuse.
He was again voted an All-American and his 93-yard opening kickoff return for a touchdown would help spur Kansas' upset of mighty Oklahoma that year.
Drafted by the Chicago Bears, Sayers won Rookie of the Year in 1965 and was a five-time First-team All-Pro.
Both Sayers and Little would go on to have All-Pro NFL careers and both have been inducted into the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
READ MORE
1934: Syracuse football loses to Colgate, then watches its goalposts get chopped and sold
This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-427-3958.
The Link LonkSeptember 24, 2020 at 01:32AM
https://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/2020/09/1964-in-a-battle-of-running-back-greats-sus-floyd-little-outduels-gale-sayers.html
1964: In a battle of running back greats, SU’s Floyd Little outduels Gale Sayers - syracuse.com
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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