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Spartan greats remember Darryl Rogers, a polarizing mastermind

Darryl Rogers coached at Michigan State for a short time, but had a seismic impact on Spartan football and the Big Ten during his time in East Lansing.

Those years were remembered with fondness on Wednesday, amid news that Rogers passed away at the age of 83 in Fresno, Calif.

Former Spartan greats Kirk Gibson and Dan Bass flourished under Rogers’ coaching. Rogers was an innovator, bringing the aerial game and deep downfield passing to a league known for ground-bound offenses. And he did it with intellectual guile and calmness at a time when Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler ranted on sidelines and embarrassed the conference in bowl games.

Gibson and Bass praised Rogers during guests appearances on the The Drive with Jack and Tom radio show, which airs weekdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on 92.1 FM in Lansing.

“Darryl kind of let the coaches coach and would come around and take our temperature and let us play ball,” said Bass, MSU’s all-time leading tackler who played at Michigan State from 1976-79. “He was very level-headed and that’s why we loved playing for him.”

“The emails among the Sparty teammates are flowing,” Gibson told radio host Jack Ebling. “It’s really cool stuff. Fortunately, we got to spend a lot of time with Darryl when we were at Michigan State, but as of the last three or four years, we’ve reconnected. We’ve all gotten to see Darryl and spend a ton of time with him before his passing.

“His passing is disappointing but I can tell you I feel so good about Darryl. I had great talks, great closure, and his spirit is so powerful that he will continue to work magic with it all, and I hope everybody recognizes that and celebrates his life.”

Rogers coached at Michigan State from 1976-79, posting a 24-18-2 record for the Spartans, including winning the 1978 Big Ten title. He coached three first-team All-Americans at MSU, including Gibson, tight end Mark Brammer and punter Ray Stachowicz.

After leading MSU to the conference crown in 1978, Rogers was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year. The Spartans reeled off seven-straight wins to finish the season, starting with a 24-15 win at Michigan, ending 1978 with an 8-3 overall and 7-1 Big Ten record.

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ROGERS’ ARRIVAL SHAKES UP BIG TEN

When Rogers was compiling a 22-9-3 record at San Jose State from 1973-75, USC’s John McKay - arguably the best coach in the nation at the time - called Rogers the best young coach in America.

University of Washington athletic director Joe Kearney took notice.

Meanwhile, Michigan State fired athletic director Burt Smith and head football coach Denny Stolz as a result of a pay-for-play scandal in the Michigan State football program. An NCAA investigation uncovered a few hundred dollars in payments and clothing being given to Spartan football players. Michigan State was slapped with three years of probation, preventing Michigan State from playing on television or in bowl games - still one of the harshest penalties the NCAA has ever levied.

Michigan State president Clifton Wharton sought to replace Smith and Stolz with people who had no previous connection to Michigan State. Wharton hired Kearney away from the University of Washington. Kearney hired Rogers, who was 41 at the time and had gained respect in the coaching ranks for his aggressive passing offense.

He had a fresh, brilliant angle on x’s and o’s. He won the hearts of his players, and he stunned Midwestern media with his clever, frank pokes at the establishment.

ROGERS INSULTS WOODY

In the summer of 1976, Ohio State coach Woody Hayes claimed he blew the whistle on Stolz and Michigan State, turning them into the NCAA for improprieties. Hayes revealed this at the annual preseason Big Ten press conference in Chicago. He stunned media and coaches at the event by roaring, “If I catch any of you cheating, I’ll turn you in. Did I turn in the team that cheated in our league? You’re damn right I did, and I’ll do it again.”

He was referring to Michigan State.

Hayes’ OSU program, by the way, was busted in the late 1950s for funneling money to players through a booster group.

But by 1976, Hayes liked to think he was above the law, or at least a branch of it.

Rogers took the microphone to speak immediately after Hayes.

“I would like to thank Woody for turning us in because I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t,” Rogers quipped.

“I heard a lot about him on the West Coast and I didn’t hear anything good.

“This is the first time I ever met Woody Hayes and I’ve never been to Columbus and I don’t like either of them.”

Spartan fans knew right away they had a fearless new leader. He proved to be a football innovator and a keen evaluator.

Legend has it that during one of Rogers’ first practices at Michigan State, he lined up players on the field and made them play catch. He watched them all, and pointed at a short athlete from Pennsylvania and said, “He’s going to be my quarterback.”

That quarterback was Eddie Smith. Rogers liked the throwing motion and sensed leadership.

By the time Smith graduated, he held the Big Ten’s record for career passing yardage with 5,706.

Initially, Rogers had Gibson pegged for the other side of the ball.

“He was thinking about making me an outside linebacker,” Gibson told Ebling on Wednesday. “Then he said, (faking Rogers’ high voice), ‘Holy cow, this guy can really run. I’d better keep him on offense.’”

Bass was a lightly-recruited player from Bath, Mich.

“It was unlikely for a kid coming out of a small town like Bath, Michigan to go to Michigan State,” Bass said. “But he (Rogers) did not care where I came from. He just looked at what I could do and he gave me the opportunity and we never wanted to let him down.”

THE ’78 SEASON

Innovation and evaluation had an impact on the entire roster. In the memorable fall of 1978, Rogers’ Spartans stunned the Big Ten by finishing the season with eight straight convincing wins. It began with a landmark 24-15 upset at Michigan, a rival the Spartans hadn’t defeated since 1969.

Michigan State was 1-3 when it traveled to Ann Arbor, with losses to national powers USC and Notre Dame and an inexplicable loss at Purdue in the season opener. Michigan was ranked No. 5 and boasted September Heisman hype magnet Rick Leach at quarterback. But MSU’s offense was perfectly balanced in beating the Wolverines, producing 248 yards through the air and 248 on the ground. Leach threw three interceptions.

The first play of that game remains a footnote in Spartan lore.

“(Rogers) had a good game plan,” Gibson said. “It was innovative. (First play of the game,) we went for the bomb. It was play action off the right tackle and I come out and I just ran right by the defensive back. I mean it was about as close to my hands without me touching it with my finger tips.

“Darryl knew he wanted to come out that way, they knew that I was fast and they probably couldn’t cover me.”

After that play, Michigan played even more conservatively than usual with its coverages for the rest of the day. Michigan was built to beat Ohio State’s ground-oriented offense. Michigan, like the rest of the conference, was remedial in pass defense in 1978.

“After that play, myself, Braemer and Eugene Byrd, we all ran hard and curled up in that little zone and Eddie got it to us,” Gibson said.

Smith, Gibson, Brammer and Byrd ripped through the remainder of the schedule, becoming the highest-scoring offense in Big Ten history - a mark that would last until 1994.

The results:

Michigan State 49, Indiana 14.

Michigan State 55, Wisconsin 2.

Michigan State 59, Illinois 19.

Michigan State 33, Minnesota 9.

Michigan State 52, Northwestern 3.

Michigan State 42, Iowa 7.

“We understood what he (Rogers) wanted to do, and he was balls-out to push the ball down the field in the air,” Gibson said on The Drive with Jack and Tom. “We knew that and we practiced it, and practiced it and practiced it.”

Said Bass: “Our best friend was our offense, when you’ve got Gibby, Smitty and Brammer. That took a lot of pressure off of us (on defense). And it put teams off-rhythm. They maybe wanted to run the ball, but they felt they had to throw the ball to catch up. And that made our defense a lot better.

“He liked to work with Ed and Gibson. He loved those two guys. You could just see it in his face. And Gibson was a guy that was a pretty fired up type of player, and Darryl would try to get him riled up a little bit, and you would see Gibby go off on the sideline and have a rampage, and he (Darryl) knew he did his job.

“With Smitty, it was just, ‘Okay, here’s what they’re doing: boom, boom, boom. Do you see that?’ And then he’d just let him play.”

There were only two regrets that year: Michigan State was unable to represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl due to probation. And the schedule makers didn’t allow the record-setting offense to get a crack at Hayes and the Buckeyes.

ROGERS, KEARNEY HEAD WEST

In a disappointing 1979 season, Michigan State began 3-0 and vaulted up the rankings, but finished 5-6. Two months after the season ended, Arizona State lured Kearney away from Michigan State to become the Sun Devils’ athletic director. Kearney hired Rogers to come with him, three days later.

Rogers told friends he wanted to stay at Michigan State, but instability at MSU was a concern, with the school set to hire a new president and athletic director. ASU, with Kearney, was attractive.

Kearney and Rogers had West Coast origins and loyalties,” Fred Stabley, MSU’s sports information director at the time, wrote in his 1988 book The Spartans. “They had never become totally acclimated to the Midwest.”

Rogers once joked that he left his first Michigan State hockey game after the second period, unaware that a third period was to be played. But he later was known to say that Michigan State was his favorite place he ever coached.

Rogers was a native of Los Angeles. He starred at wide receiver and defensive back at Fresno State. He played played three years in the NFL as a defensive back for the Los Angeles Rams and Denver Broncos from 1958-60.

He was head coach at Fresno State from 1966-72, and at San Jose State from 1973-75.

Rogers went 37-18-1 in five years at Arizona State, including seasons of 7-4, 9-2 and 10-2 in his first three years. His 1982 team beat Oklahoma 32-21 in the Fiesta Bowl and finished No. 6 in the final AP rankings. Meanwhile, his successor at Michigan State, Muddy Waters, went 3-8, 5-6 and 2-9 during that period. Michigan State fans were angry with the way Rogers left, and the state of Spartan football that followed his departure.

Rogers left Arizona State in 1984 to become head coach of the Detroit Lions. He went 18-40 with the Lions, and humorously stated after being retained in 1988 following a 4-11 season, “I don’t know what you have to do to get fired around here.”

In the meantime, the 1986 Arizona State Sun Devils, led by second-year coach John Cooper, went 10-1-1 and defeated Michigan in the Rose Bowl with a core group of players that were recruited by Rogers.

Rogers didn’t return to East Lansing until 1998, for the championship team’s 20th reunion. When introduced at halftime, he was mostly cheered, although there was a smattering of boos, as some Michigan State fans hadn’t forgiven him for leaving the Spartans so abruptly.

Rogers was inducted into the Arizona State Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012. He was recently nominated to the National Football Foundation’s 2019 ballot for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, with results scheduled to be announced in January.

The ASU community seems to remember him with the most fondness. Nearly four decades later, older Michigan State fans have either gotten over their anger for Rogers, forgotten about the circumstances, or simply forgave him. He’s remembered in East Lansing as a championship coach, one who referred to the University of Michigan as those “arrogant asses in Ann Arbor” during his speech at the 1978 team banquet. No one can find audio or video of the remark, but that phrase has resonated with Michigan State fans for years, including younger fans who weren’t around to witness Rogers’ departure.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to Darryl Rogers and his family at this most difficult time," Mark Dantonio said in a statement, Wednesday. "Coach Rogers won the 1978 Big Ten Championship at Michigan State and was, in many ways, an offensive pioneer in college football. I was honored to have had the opportunity to talk to him a number of times throughout my time here and he was always very supportive. He loved Michigan State and will forever be a Spartan."

Rogers didn’t touch Michigan State athletics for long, but made an indelible image on Gibson and a legendary ’78 team.

Rogers made a final trip to East Lansing last October to attend Gibson’s Gibby & Friends vs. Parky fund-raiser, which was held at the Kellogg Center and raised more than $1 million for Parkinson’s Disease research. Rogers spoke at the event.

“He was special,” Gibson said. “His spirit will certainly be strong within us all forever.”

A GIBSON STORY ON ROGERS

“It was a great break for me and a lot of the other guys when Darryl came in because he was so offensive-minded," Gibson said on The Drive with Jack and Tom. "But my junior year, I was getting ready for spring practice and Darryl came up to me and he asked me if I wanted to be a first-round draft pick in the NFL.

“I said, ‘Of course I would.’

“He said, ‘How about a top three?’

“I said, ‘That would be even better.’

“And he said, ‘Then go out for baseball.’

“I said, ‘Go out for baseball? What does that have to do with me playing football?’

“He said, ‘Trust me. Just go out for baseball.’

“So I went out for baseball and many years later won two World Championships and had some great moments, and he was right. He knew he may lose me, he didn’t care. He saw something in me that I probably didn’t see, or anybody else. Nobody had really scouted me at that point. But you always knew that Darryl was looking out for you.

ANOTHER GIBSON STORY

“Darryl and I would stick around and talk and he would say, ‘Let design a play. Let’s think of some plays.’ He would dream up plays and say, ‘How about this, how about that?’

“And I had an experience with Coach Dantonio this year. We were playing golf in Atlanta with Morten Andersen’s group, and it kind of reminded me of spending time with Coach Rogers. We were talking a little bit about passing and I said, ‘Hey coach, let’s make up some offensive plays.’

"And he says, ‘No, defense.’

"Coach Rogers was so offensively (minded), and Coach Dantonio is defense, and they’re both just great men, great leaders.

"It’s just special getting time to spend time with Darryl and all the guys that ever played for Darryl are so grateful. We know he’s at peace now and his family is wonderful and beautiful. We were all just very fortunate to have him and his family touch us while we were there at State.”

A DAN BASS STORY ABOUT ROGERS

“I remember Darryl came up to me the week before we played Ohio State and he goes, ‘Okay kid. We’re going to start you against Ohio State.'

“I said, ‘Sure, no problem.’

“He said, ‘No, do you understand what this is like?’

“I said, ‘This is no different than playing in Bath, Michigan.'

“He looked at me and just shook his head and said, ‘Okay, kid, promise me one thing.’

“I said, ‘Sure, what’s that?’

“He said, ‘Promise me you won’t piss your pants in front of 85,000 people.’

“I never will forget that. I took it like it was no big deal. But it was a tough place to go play your first game, but you learn from that, and he gave me the opportunity to go out and do that.”

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