50th anniversary celebration of Vince Dooley’s first UGA team on Saturday
Try to imagine Georgia football before 1964…before Vince Dooley.
Georgia won a total 7 games in the three previous seasons combined.
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In the previous decade, Georgia’s winning football percentage was 53%.
Georgia lost to each and every of the Big Three – Auburn, Florida and Tech – in 7 of the 10 seasons before 1964.
The Bulldogs lost 8 of 10 to Tech.
It was a miserable Bulldog life.
The men that started Georgia on the road from a no name, washed up football program of no consequence to a national power were the young men of Vince Dooley’s first team, the 1964 Georgia football team.
Keep your seat at halftime this Saturday and join in the 50 year celebration and reunion of Vince Dooley’s first Georgia Bulldogs, the 1964 Sun Bowl Champs.
The start of the 1964 season was inauspicious. Coach Dooley’s first squad opened the season in Tuscaloosa and welcomed Joe Namath to the SEC. Namath torched the Bulldogs for 222 yards of total offense and three touchdowns on the way to a 31 – 3 Alabama trouncing of the Bulldogs.
(Legend has it that after returning home in the wee hours of the morning, Coach Dooley tried to slip into bed as wife Barbara slept. Just as Dooley laid his head on the pillow Barbara popped her head up to ask, “So, how’d it go.”)
The men that started Georgia on the road from a no name, washed up football program of no consequence to a national power were the young men of the 1964 Georgia football team.
Review of the 1964 Alabama-Georgia film revealed a rough night, but also a Georgia team with ability. Coach Dooley and his first staff showed their skill and grit, making the adjustments necessary to finish the season with 6 wins against 2 more losses and a tie. The wins include victories over ninth ranked Florida (video) in the Gator Bowl and Texas Tech in the Sun Bowl. And with a win over Tech to finish the regular season, the Bulldog Nation hailed Vince Dooley as Georgia football’s savior.
Saturday’s 50th anniversary half-time will include a Redcoat Band show simply titled, 1964, featuring popular tunes from Dooley’s first year on campus. A ceremony will then reunite Coach Dooley with his first team on the Sanford Stadium turf.