Russell Erxleben, 1977
Dropbox link for the 1977 Texas Longhorns for Start-O-Matic College Football
A Lookback at the Time When Kickers Were Legends
(Note that Arkansas (Orange Bowl) and Texas A&M (Bluebonnet Bowl) are already published here)
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Texas had Earl Campbell, but some people believed that the most potent weapon in burnt orange was the tall dude with the three shoes and the Martian surname Erxleben. Actually, the name is German, and Russell Erxleben did not have three feet. On his left foot he wore a regular white football shoe, and on his right, depending on the situation, a regular shoe for punting, or a square-toed one for place-kicking, both of which he did exceedingly well.
On an October Saturday in 1977 in Austin's packed Memorial Stadium, Texas beat 13th-ranked Texas Tech 26-0 and took another giant step toward the Cotton Bowl. Campbell rushed for 116 yards against a defense keyed to stop him; the defense, aided by a holding penalty in the second quarter and the fact that injured Tech Quarterback Rodney Allison was in for only four plays, got itself a shutout.
And Erxleben, trotting into the game for just 15 plays, was devastating.
He punted five times for a 44-yard average. Two of his six kickoffs landed beyond the end zone. With Texas leading 7-0 near the end of the first half, a Longhorn drive stalled on the Tech 44. Coach Fred Akers sent in Erxleben wearing the placekicking shoe. In the first quarter he had missed a 56-yard field goal into the wind. This time he had the wind with him, and he kicked it through the goalposts from 60 yards away.
It seemed as if a fellow who can kick 60-yard field goals should be allowed to mail in his extra points, but Erxleben blew the try after Texas' second TD. He made up for it with a 35-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter. "You know what that guy does to you?" asked Oklahoma Assistant Coach Larry Lacewell, whose Sooners lost to Texas 13-6 as Erxleben made good on attempts of 64 and 58 yards. "He puts you in a goal-line defense on the 50-yard line."
Tony Franklin, 1977
Meanwhile, over in College Station, Texas A&M's Tony Franklin was helping the Aggies beat SMU 38-21 by kicking a 54-yard field goal and five PATs (he had not missed an extra point this season). Like Erxleben, Franklin was a junior, but he used only one shoe; his kicking foot he kept bare.
And against Rice, Steve Little of Arkansas, a sidewinder, kicked field goals of 52, 44 and 29 yards, punted three times for an average of 52.3 yards, and six of his seven kickoffs could not be returned as the Razorbacks won 30-7. Little was a senior and the three field goals brought his career total to 46, just five makes short of the NCAA record, which he later set with 53.
Steve Little, 1977
Just another typical Saturday in the Southwest Conference, where between 1976 and 1977 had produced the five longest field goals in modern NCAA history. This era is enshrined in history, as the tees they kicked off were outlawed in 1989. But in Texas and Arkansas in 1977 "being in field-goal range" meant a team had stepped off its bus outside the stadium. It was such a competitive league for kickers that Texas Tech's Bill Adams, who made 47-and 52-yard field goals against Rice, and Baylor's Robert Bledsoe, who had a 47-yarder against SMU, were considered mere chip-shot specialists.
It was the barefoot booter, Franklin, who in 1976 boomed the opening shot in the long-range barrage. Against Baylor, on a wet field with about a six-mph wind at his back, the Aggie sophomore followed his usual routine. He stared at the maroon spot painted on his white, hard-rubber tee. The holder placed the ball straight up on the tee with the laces facing the goalposts, and Franklin, approaching from the left side like a soccer sidewinder, kicked it through from 64 yards away, an NCAA record. But not for long. A while later Franklin kicked one from 65 yards out.
All told, Franklin made 17 of 26 field-goal attempts last year and 30 of 32 extra points to rank second in scoring in the SWC. In 1977 he hit on 16 more three-pointers, including four in the final quarter against Texas Tech to give the Aggies a 33-17 come-from-behind win. He had also kicked a 76-yarder in practice.
In the summer Texas' Erxleben, a good friend of Franklin's, ran three or four miles before work and again after work every day, training to top Franklin's distance record. As he ran, he kept repeating to himself, "I'm going to get Tony this year. I'm going to run and run until it hurts so bad, but I'm going to get him." Get him he did early in 1977, against Rice. With the score 54-7 in the third period and the ball on Texas' 49, Coach Fred Akers called for the punting team, but Erxleben persuaded him to try a howitzer-range field goal. Erxleben took off his punting shoe and put on his square-toed placekicking shoe (the toe is tied up slightly to give his kicks more loft). He wanted to get a two-yard margin over Franklin, so he moved the tee one yard farther back than usual, to 67 yards. The ball sailed "dead through the middle" with the help of an eight-mph wind.
Two weeks later it was Little's turn. Against Texas, with a 20-mph wind to his back in the second quarter, he put his size-seven shoe and all his body whip and hip rotation into a kick from his 43 and made it, to tie Erxleben's record. That prompted Erxleben to send a note to Franklin: "Don't you think it's your turn to kick a 67-yarder? Remember, no farther!"
For his part when he was a sophomore Tony Franklin kicked a city-record 51-yard field goal. The record was broken two years later with a 52-yarder by the star kicker at rival Eastern Hills High School, a German immigrant named Uwe von Schamann, who now was Oklahoma's field-goal specialist in 1977. "Von Schamann didn't kick anything farther than that during the year, and I didn't either," says Franklin. "Then in the playoffs our teams met. On the fourth play of the game I twisted my right ankle and kept it in an ice bucket. Right before halftime the coach said, 'Well, it's fourth down and we've got a little wind, you want to try it?' I said, 'Yes, sir, it's probably the last time I'll have a chance to get my record back.' "
With a sore ankle, Franklin went out and kicked a field goal from 58 yards, not only surpassing von Schamann but setting a state record as well. The Texas high school field-goal record is now 62 yards, held by Russell Wheatley from Odessa. "Tony could have kicked 60-yarders in high school," says one of the coaches at Arlington Heights. "Every Thursday at the end of workouts we'd finish up with field goals, and Tony would kick 50-and 60-yarders. It really gave the team a big lift to see the ball go through."
All three college kickers needed to make adjustments when they reached the pros. Without the placekicking tee, they lost between 10 and 15 yards on their kicks. "It's just like hitting a golf ball," said Kansas City Chiefs Scout Tommy O'Boyle. "You can hit it a lot farther off a tee than off the ground." They also aimed at a smaller target. College goal-posts are 23'4" wide (they were widened about five feet in 1959), while in the NFL they are only 18'6" apart. Erxleben, along with all the other straight-ahead kickers, was not able to tie up his toe or wear a square-toed shoe; he was successful as a punter but not as a kicker. Franklin was the only kicker to see extended success in the NFL.
Probably the most important rule difference, however, was that in the NFL in this era, after a failed field-goal attempt, the ball came back to the line of scrimmage, thus discouraging long tries until the final seconds of a game. In college the ball comes out to the 20, and thus missed 60-yarders are the same as long punts—with the exception of coffin corner kicks.
Fred Bobberts, Initial Date of Publication 9/4/2022 (Reprinted with Permission)
Special Thanks to Chris Stewart
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