The "Vaught Method" that was widely copied throughout the south, culminated with the 1959 team, designated by the Associated Press as the SEC Team Of The Decade. Vaught recruited and played "locals" and actively sought family and "neighborly" connections. He had five Pooles on the squad at the same time, all from Gloster, MS, and there were four Kinard brothers who wore the blue and crimson and this was typical. His teams were extremely well-conditioned, a carry-over from his military experience, and for the key tackle positions in his innovative Split-T Roll Out Offense he chose tall lean players that he knew would fill out with the challenge of the physical demands placed upon them at Ole Miss. Though it wasn’t his intention, he was perhaps the first to consciously produce prototype tackles for the pro game and he was establishing a pipeline of linemen to the NFL. Only Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson closed the fifties with a better winning record or percentage. Stability and continuity in the staff, most of the coaches having a Mississippi background and only two coaches leaving in Vaught's twenty-four years at the helm, was reflected in the precision of the offense and defense. Despite the national stereotype and perception of the poor, hillbilly Mississippian, Vaught wanted good students and he had numerous honor students on the field, especially in '59. Flowers was an Academic All American and a first team consensus All American fullback and was joined on the first team by guard Marvin Terrell. Both went on to the pros, Flowers as the first choice of the L.A. Chargers although his career was cut short by injury and Terrell as the Dallas Texans first choice where he played for them there and in Kansas City when they moved and became the Chiefs, for four years. The 1959 team scored 329 points and gave up but 21! The team was three-deep "up the middle"with QB Bobby Franklin (later to star at DB for many years with the Browns) pushed hard by future N.Y. Yankee baseball catcher Jake Gibbs, Doug Elmore, and Billy Brewer. Brewer was versatile, played DB with the Redskins in 1960, and returned to Oxford in 1983 as the Ole Miss head coach in a tenure that spanned eleven seasons. Fullback Flowers was backed up by tough Jim Anderson with rushing aid from James “Cowboy” Woodruff. Larry Grantham, the great AFL Jets linebacker was a captain and two-way star at guard with Bobby Crespino, another future Browns player, and soph Ralph "Catsfish" Smith handling the receiving and blocking chores from the end position. Johnny Brewer’s return from injury solidified the line. Khayat enjoyed the attainment of a Yale degree, tenure as a professor of law, and three seasons with the Redskins, kicking well and honing his "cool" under fire, a trait he would later need for his future position as Chancellor of the University Of Mississippi. Their 7-3 loss to LSU, won by the Tigers' Billy Cannon on his immortal Halloween Night punt return, cost the Rebels the National Championship in what almost all experts considered to be not only the game of the year, but the game of the decade. That heartbreaking loss was avenged when the clamor for a rematch of these two great squads was arranged for the Sugar Bowl. With Larry Grantham shadowing Cannon and the Heisman Trophy winning Tiger held to but eight yards on the ground and the entire LSU rushing total coming to minus fifteen for the day, the Rebels more than atoned for their earlier loss with a sound  21-0 drubbing of LSU in the re-match game. 1959 was the season that stamped Ole Miss on the national consciousness, a football power that attracted students from many parts of the country due only to its football reputation. In a five year span of excellence that went from 1959 through 1963, the Rebels of Johnny Vaught compiled an enviable 43-2-3 record with both losses coming at the hands of their LSU rivals and the 1959 squad was voted by the Associated Press as the SEC Team Of The Decade.