The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
National Championship memories: Duke Carlisle
08.29.2013 | Football
QB Duke Carlisle was on the 1963 National Championship team and shared his memories of that season with MB-TF.com.
Editor's Note: Duke Carlisle is a three-year letterman (1961-63) who played quarterback and safety on the 1963 Texas Longhorns National Championship team. That season he was named an Academic All-American, the team's MVP and the Top Back in the 1964 Cotton Bowl when he threw for 213 yards and two TDs and rushed for 54 yards and another TD. Carlisle was inducted into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 1979. Here he recounts some of his memories of the 1963 season and of the 1964 Cotton Bowl when Texas beat Navy and their Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, Roger Staubach, 28-6, to win Texas' first national championship in football.
In those days, most of the services, the people that named the national champions, the leading drivers of polls or that had polls that awarded national championships, did it after the regular season before the bowl games. So, in most of the important groups we were declared number one after the regular season, which was great. The only thing is it started to build up. Particularly there was talk that we didn't deserve it and that they really did - and Navy happened to be our opponent and [ranked] number two. So I think that gave us the little extra incentive we needed to go ahead and say, "Well we are number one, but we won't have a good taste in our mouths about it unless we finished it off."
So I think that gave us more incentive than we would have normally had to go ahead and finish it against Navy. And it felt good. It felt good when that game had ended and you could really finally celebrate, which was the only time you can. There was no time after any other victory because there was another game coming up. It felt good, and we were a very happy bunch.
We didn't really know what their thinking was and we were prepared to throw it more if that is what the circumstances called for, and it turned out that it did. So we did throw it more than we normally would. We weren't sure going in how much that we would be throwing it. We didn't throw it a lot during the year so nobody had a large number of receptions. [WR] Phil [Harris] had a few but there weren't many touchdown passes thrown so he wouldn't have had many before that game.
Well, we put in a play for that game that involved him as a receiver and we hadn't used it in the past and used it several times that day, so he would've had the opportunity to receive more than he would have prior to that.
We threw it more that game than we probably had thrown it in the prior four games, but it was a good victory that Cotton Bowl. It was a good way to finish our careers. Not [just] of the season, but that finished it up for the seniors.
It didn't surprise me that they didn't score more because we had such a great defense that year. Probably when you look back, interestingly, during that year the two greatest margins of winning were against Navy and Oklahoma which were expected to be the two toughest games and expected to be the two closest games. So that was interesting, but our offense worked well those two games and as I said, our defense shut down everybody that year.
I think it made everyone, all the seniors particularly, more aware of how totally prepared you have to be and how the bump in the road can come at the most unexpected time from the team that would not be expected to give much of a challenge. So we did discuss how we had to be really focused and be ready every week and not let that happen to us again. Particularly in '61 when we were, after eight games, number one in the country and lost it all by being upset by TCU.
I think every week, some weeks we played better than we did other weeks, but the important thing was that we got it done every week. Some weeks it looked prettier than it did in other weeks and some weeks we were maybe playing at our best and others not quite. But the main thing was that we were able to get through every one of those weeks with a win. There were some games that stacked up to be bigger games, but as I said in the beginning, you couldn't think of it in those terms because the ones that you are not expecting can also beat you.
That was a good bunch of guys that came together that Coach [Darrell] Royal rounded up, but the key to all this is Coach Royal. Coach Royal came on the scene in the late 50's and it took him only a few years to get the program in shape and then he began to put together teams that were able to do what they did. So it was exciting to be on a national championship team. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of and remember, but the important thing is that Coach Royal came in and accomplished that.
Every game, every season was the same for him. He had the ability to prepare teams for what was ahead of them. He also had, I think, a knack for selecting the best assistants available and with all of them working together, I always felt we were better prepared than the team we were playing. He was an outstanding motivator and had a smart football mind. I told him that he could have been a great success at anything he chose to do because he had that kind of ability and qualities. And I am glad he chose to be a football coach because he certainly was one of the best ever.
On his game and season saving interception against Baylor
It was a surprise to be in the game at that point because we had the substitution rule[s] [which] were evolving so you couldn't substitute an entire team at anytime. But we were able to switch certain players when we were on offense and when we were on defense. So I always went out of the game when we switched to defense. And we fumbled the ball near Baylor's goal line towards the end of the game and I started to leave and they motioned me back. So that was the only defense that I played that year - it was the end of the Baylor game.
People say,"Why was that?" And the first thing that comes to mind was that I played safety for the prior two years, so from that standpoint maybe that would make sense. That was our eighth game of the year, and Jim Hudson who had played safety, had had a great game that day and a great season leading up to it. So it is still to this day not totally explainable, and [defensive coordinator] Coach [Mike] Campbell made that decision. I don't know exactly what he was thinking, but I was in there for Baylor's last drive. They were close enough to our goal line that we didn't have as much field behind us to defend, so that was one of the things that made it possible to get to the ball. It was exciting - obviously an exciting play and the timing made it more memorable because it is at the end of a game that was a one-touchdown game. I have tried to remind people that when we talk about it - and not trying to be overly modest - but it was an incredible achievement that our defense held that offense scoreless that entire day and that was one of the most high powered offenses in the nation that year and they had not been able to get a point against us. So I have tried to keep that one play from obscuring the fact that that was a great game by our defense.
It was an unusual situation when you think about it, and I wonder if Coach Campbell didn't sometimes think to himself after that if the guy had caught the ball, people would've said, "What on earth were you thinking that you had that great safety that you took out of there" if they [had] completed the touchdown. So it was not an easy thing to figure but it worked out well and, yeah, Jim would've made the play and has told me many times that he would've made the play. [laughs]
