Adding a one-inch burnt orange center stripe and one-inch forest green flanking stripes to the white helmet with a one-inch white gap between them, Gustafson entered the 1954 season upbeat and with good reason. His backfield of captain Gordon Malloy, FB Don Bossler, HB Whitey Rouviere, and QB Mario Bonofiglio finished sixth in the nation in rushing while end Frank McDonald was the first Hurricane to be named All American on more than one team. On October 24th, Coach Gus was informed that the program would immediately be placed on probation for paying travel expenses for campus visits to prospective players, a sanction that would last until 1957. At 5-0, the players knew this would cost them a bowl bid and thus decreed that they would now play hard enough to prevent anyone else from going to a bowl game if possible! They beat down the 1954 defending national champion Maryland, rang up seventy-five points against Fordham, hastening the demise of that proud program, and lost only to Auburn in a 14-13 thriller, finishing a great year with an 8-1 record.