Welcome to installment No. 4 of our countdown series featuring the five players I consider to be my Sooner football favorites of all-time.
Minus-six and counting until the 2015 season-opening game with Akron, set for 6 p.m. next Saturday at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
For those of you who are picking up on this series for the first time, we are down to No. 2 on my all-time favorites list of Oklahoma Sooner football players. So far that list has included No. 5 Sam Bradford (2007-09), 4) Tommy McDonald (1954-56) and 3) Greg Pruitt (1970-72).
No. 2 Joe Washington
As much as I liked watching Greg Pruitt making a mockery of opposing defenses, the player who followed him in the Sooners’ “catch us if you can” explosive Wishbone attack, I have to admit, was even more exciting to see in action.
“Little Joe” Washington, as he was known from an early age, was a major reason that Barry Switzer’s Sooners’ won back-to-back national titles in 1974 and 1975, which just happened to coincide with Washington’s junior and senior years at OU.
Washington tells the story in the book “What It Means to Be a Sooner,” about how All-American running back Greg Pruitt wanted him to come to Oklahoma and play in the same backfield. Pruitt told him they could room together on road trips.
As a Texas native, Washington dreamed of playing football for the University of Texas, but that all changed after his recruiting visit to Oklahoma. Everything seemed to fall into place, and the Sooners ended up winning the recruiting battle for Washington.
“When I got to Norman, I checked into my room at the Washington House,” Washington said in “What It Means to Be a Sooner. “I thought it was pretty cool (having) a dorm named after me, and then I looked at the depth chart and saw I was on the 12th team. It didn’t bother me too much because they were 15 deep at some positions. I just thought, ‘Damn, they got this many guys?'”
“I looked at the depth chart and saw I was on the 12th team. It didn’t bother me too much because they were 15 deep at some positions.” —Joe Washington, on his arrival at Oklahoma
Washington rushed for 3,995 yards in his career at Oklahoma, which at the time made him the Sooners’ career rushing leader. A two-time First Team All-American (1974 and 1975), Washington easily made a name for himself at Oklahoma, but he may best be remembered for the silver shoes he wore in games. A pair of those shoes are on display in the trophy case at the Switzer Center on the OU campus.
Before the Colorado game in 1974, Coach Switzer reportedly pulled Washington aside and told him that people were giving him the business about “Little Joe’s” silver shoes. As the story goes, Washington asked Switzer what he wanted him to do. Switzer’s response: “Just put a couple hundred on them today.”
Washington’s rushing total in a 49-14 win over Colorado: 211 yards.
The game I will always remember, however, when I think about Joe Washington came a year later at Missouri. Oklahoma had lost at home to Kansas the week before, snapping a 28-game winning streak and dropping OU from No. 2 in the nation down to No. 6.
In 43 games at Oklahoma, heading into the 1975 contest with Missouri, Washington had experienced just two losses total in the three and a half seasons as a Sooner.
Oklahoma marched out to a 20-0 lead at halftime in the Missouri game, but that advantage quickly evaporated in the second half and Mizzou went ahead at 21-20 with a little over eight minutes remaining in the game. The Tigers stretched their lead to 27-20 with another scoring drive three minutes later.
On OU’s possession after Missouri had opened up a seven-point lead, and with under five minutes to go in the game, the Sooners faced a fourth-down-and-one at the Tiger 29-yard line. Switzer chose to go for it, even though deep on his own side of the field. Mizzou stacked the line to stop what they almost certainly anticipated would be a run play.
Oklahoma quarterback Steve Davis took the snap and pitched the ball back to Washington, who, in the words of one sportswriter “outcheetahed everybody” on his way to a 70-yard touchdown gallop, bringing the Sooners within in an extra point of tying the home-team Tigers. Relive that memorable play in this YouTube video.
OU elected to go for two points and the win on the extra point try. Washington got the call on the two-point conversion try as well. “I remember taking the pitch (on the two-point try) and thinking, ‘I am getting into the end zone no matter what happens.'” He did make it into the end zone, albeit just barely, and the Sooners averted a second-straight loss.
Like so many Sooner All-Americans before him, Washington followed his sensational career at Oklahoma with an accomplished NFL career. The No. 4 overall pick in the 1976 NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers, Washington spent 10 seasons in the NFL.