KSU

The hiring of enthusiastic Vince Gibson brought a new era to Wildcat fans and to their credit, they remained as enthusiastic as their new coach. With two consecutive head coaching hires of men who were zealous and exuberant over K-State football, this would have to do until more good players could be brought to the campus. Gibson had the pedigree of having been one of the many assistant coaches from Bill Peterson's early Florida State staffs to later become a head coach. He had become a top assistant at Tennessee before taking the K-State job and perhaps made a bigger mark during subsequent stops at Louisville and Tulane as a head coach but with the 'Cats he instituted "Purple Pride" an expression of Wildcat support. Silver became the helmet's primary color, an allowable decision as royal purple and only purple was the school's official color, opening up any number of "trim" or augmentation possibilities. With a purple one-inch center stripe on the silver shell and two-and-a-half inch "Charger-style" rounded numbers at the rear, Gibson took to the field, recruited well, and began to change the perception of K-State football. His initial game against Colorado State was a 17-7 winning effort but that would be the extent of his on-the-field victories for the '67 season. However, the 1-9 record did not reflect the true progress the Wildcats were making. RB Cornelius Davis became the school's leading career ground-gainer running behind the blocking of Dodge City CC transfer Larry Brown. End Dave Jones emerged as an All Big 8 choice falling but 130 yards short of becoming the all time leading receiver in the conference. Wearing the same headgear in 1968, Gibson's aggressive junior college recruiting began to pay dividends with an improved 4-6 record that included a shocking 12-0 win over Nebraska. After the first four games, new QB Lynn Dickey stepped in and the receiving of Dave Jones allowed Dickey to lead the conference in passing and Jones to go on to a three-year career with the Browns. Larry Brown and Cornelius Davis flip-flopped between fullback and tailback with excellent results and they were assisted by exciting Mack Herron with Brown later winning acclaim with the Redskins under Lombardi and George Allen as a hard-charging All Pro running back. John Stucky, a JC All American noseguard at Hutchinson (KS) CC was a two-time All Big 8 pick and later became one of the best-known and highly respected strength coaches in the nation, at K-State, Arkansas, and Tennessee after two-years of play in Canada.