Full circle for Broyles
Frank Broyles came to Arkansas in 1957 after one season at Missouri. Fifty years later, the face of the Razorbacks’ athletic program will ride off into the sunset with the Hogs facing No. 6 Missouri in the Cotton Bowl.
Vahe Gregorian of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch takes a look at what could have been had Broyles decided to stay at Mizzou:
As it is, in only one year in Columbia Broyles was part of a significant moment in MU history.
And no, not for signing CBC’s Mike Shannon to be a Tiger for a year before Shannon left for his future with the baseball Cardinals.
“At a banquet a few years ago, he (joked) that if I’d have stayed he would have stayed and won the Heisman Trophy,” Broyles said.
And not by what he jokingly calls finishing off Oklahoma’s 47-game winning streak.
“We were (the) last victory,” Broyle said, laughing as he referred to Notre Dame defeating OU a week after the Sooners’ 39-14 romp over MU in 1957. “That ended the streak. You can’t say it any other way.”
More seriously, Broyles integrated MU football by recruiting Mel West and Norris Stevenson (Vashon High). And he brought in a number of other players who formed the nucleus of MU teams that played in the 1960 and 1961 Orange Bowls.
“(Dan) Devine came in, and he had some ready-made players,” said John Kadlec, the MU announcer and former Tiger who coached under both. “I think that if Frank had stayed here, he’d have done every bit as well as Coach Devine.”
But after his lone MU team went 5-4-1, Broyles said he was wooed by Arkansas — where he had interviewed twice before.
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