PAINFUL losses drive ‘Cats to future wins
Part of special News-Register series: Remembrance of Games Past
By Rusty Rae, McMinnville N-R/News-Register, Fri., Nov. 6, 2020
(Note: For clarity, Wildcatville made a couple minor edits to the text.)
There are losses, as the coaches say, you must flush out of your mind, and simply move on. Some, however, stick like a hangover from a weekend beach party, purged solely after an appropriate period of suffering, though never totally obliterated.
Even today, 50 years later, the bitter taste of the 19-17 loss to the University of Hawaii still hangs thick in retired head coach Ad Rutschman’s throat. The game ruined a perfect season and erased a chance for Rutschman to take what he characterizes as one of his best teams to the national playoffs.
Picture this: UH was on its way to Division I status. Linfield entered the contest in Honolulu after sailing through the Northwest Conference. Rutschman and the coaching staff devised a clever strategy to negate the Rainbow’s vaunted offense.
Linfield’s offense featured a pair of horses in the backfield, Jim Massey, who would later play in the National Football League, and Dennis Davidson, a battering ram fullback. The ‘Cats backfield included Dave White at QB, and a pair of sure-handed receivers in Bob Murphy and Sonny Jepson.
Rutschman’s particular agony over this loss concerns the home cooking officials infused, costing the Wildcats at least one score, while also seemingly giving the UH team a 12th man on the field.
Although the litany of official transgressions has long faded into history books, Rutschman says, “This one really stung because I feel we played well and deserved to win. When I watched the game film, we should have won by a 14-7 score. “I don’t like to put the blame on officials until I’ve coached the perfect game. They’re human and they make mistakes and that’s part of the game at times,” he said
However, the officiating scenario in Hawaii in those days involved one crew of striped shirts working every game. In 1970 Rutschman recalled the Rainbows played 11 games, nine at home on the Island.
If an official needed those paydays, he didn’t dare make decisive calls against the home team and expect to officiating the following season.
To say the game was upsetting to Rutschman is understatement to the nth degree. The officiating highjinks were distressed to the normally composed head coach who regularly preached the advantage of keeping one’s poise. Rutschman lost it in the locker room … — if just for a moment.
Remembers QB Dave White, “Coach Rutschman was as steamed as I have ever seen him. When we returned to the dressing room after the game, there was a pop can on the table — a can of Coke I think.
Rutsch took out his frustration on the can with a karate shop and the can kind of took off like a rocket. That’s when I thought it would be a good idea to put my helmet back on.”
White added, “One of the reasons we didn’t make the playoffs that year was, I think, purely financial. There were three or four other one-loss nationally ranked teams and they were all back east, much closer to each other. It was just a pragmatic decision based on what would cost the association the least amount of money,” he said.
As bitter as this loss was to the staff and team, it didn’t result in any great shake-up in coaching philosophy. Rutschman recalls, fondly, the opportunity to play in Hawaii gave him a chance to recruit the Island state heavily. As more Hawaiian players joined the Wildcat squad, the team became a favorite for local fans.
One year in fact, Linfield counted more Hawaiian players than the Rainbows, who by now were searching stateside for talent to move to the NCAA DI division. As few years later, UH, an underdog by more than 40 points, defeated the University of Washington in Seattle, 10-7.
There have also been losses motivated both to coaches and players alike. Back in 2001, the ‘Cats were coming off one of their worst losses, a 29-0 thumping by Southern Oregon in Ashland. The following week they matched up with then arch-rival Pacific Lutheran in McMinnville.
Two years earlier, the Lutes had won the NCAA DIII national title, and the Linfield-Lute game always brought out the best in both teams. PLU led late in the game, 24-20.
But the ‘Cats were driving. They appeared headed for the winning touchdown with a few minutes left. QB Blake Kluse flipped a pass into the flats near the 10-yard line. The PLU defensive back jumped the route and sprinted 90-yards for the score. Linfield fell for the second consecutive week, by a 31-20 margin.
Head coach Joseph Smith, then an assistant coach, remembers, “It was a devastating loss on a number of levels. It put us in a poor position to make the playoffs and obviously it was an emotionally difficult game for us to overcome.
“But it was also motivating in many ways. We had our backs to the wall and the team came together and resolved to finish the season strong,” Smith said.
Linfield subsequently ran off a string of six victories and ended in a tie for the league championship with two others. In the three-way tie, the NCAA chose the other two Northwest Conference squads for the playoffs, and the ‘Cats were the odd-man out.
Smith added, “The team was disappointed, obviously, but it led to the team adopting the slogan for the following year, ‘Leave no doubt’. We didn’t want to put our future in the hands of a committee.”
Indeed, over the next four years, Linfield went 44-3, making deep runs in the DIII playoffs, including the national championship in 2004.
Two years later, in his first season as head coach for the Wildcats, Smith watched as the ‘Cats lost a 17-13 tussle to Whitworth in McMinnville, finishing with a 6-3 record. The next season, the Pirates won again, a 10-7 victory in the Pine Bowl in Spokane.
“The loss in McMinnville was particularly frustrating. We held Whitworth to 86-yards of total offense — our defense crushed them and somehow we lost the game,” Smith remembers the pain of the event evident in his tone.
The reason for those defeats: turnovers. “We had five in the ‘06 game and four or five in the ‘07 game. Those turnovers either stopped drivers for us or allowed them easy scores,” Smith said.
At the time, Linfield’s turnover ratio ranked as one of the poorest in the nation. It forced Smith, who came to head coaching from the defensive, to move to overseeing the offense.
“Ball security became the number one emphasis and we worked daily on proper technique for carrying the football. We moved from the low point in 2007 to a top five or 10 team in ball security in 2008,” Smith said.
Though Linfield would go 6-3 in Smith’s third season as head coach, 2009 saw the ‘Cats become the dominate team in the Northwest Conference regularly playing deep into the DIII playoffs.
However, there were always lessons to learn; one painful loss in particular was the 31-28 defeat at by Willamette in the ‘Cat Dome the first day of November 2014.
“Willamette was not a very good team that year and we were a top five squad. I’m not sure if we'd become a bit complacent — we'd been dominant in earlier games, oftentimes had games in hand by halftime,” he said.
The game turned into a nail-biter as the Bearcat’s tailback tormented Linfield’s defense all afternoon.
Late in the contest the ‘Cats were driving for the winning score. Linfield ran a short curl route over the middle, normally a relatively safe play.
However, the receiver didn’t come back for the ball and the Willamette back snatched it … from the ‘Cat receiver, giving the Bearcats the upset victory.
“It became a teaching moment for us — regardless of the scenario, the receiver must come back to the ball,” Smith said.
Linfield finished the conference schedule on a tear, pounding Pacific University 59-0 in the last NWC game of the season, when the Boxers thought they had a chance to topple Linfield from its title perch.
However, the loss to Willamette resulted in ‘Cats playing on the road for most of the playoffs, ultimately losing in the semi-finals to eventual national champion University of Wisconsin Whitewater, 20-14, in Wisconsin.
“The playoff run was particularly gratifying but I think the humiliating loss to Willamette helped drive us to make the deep run into the playoffs.
“If you’re not learning from your failures, you'll never get better,” Smith added. Indeed, since 2009, Linfield’s record is 71-2 in conference play and 109-17 overall.
In the age-old formula for success you learn from your failures. Over the door of the Linfield locker room the question remains: “Am I a better player today than I was yesterday.”
Photo cutline -- Grim faces tell the story of a disappointing loss at Whitworth’s Pine Bowl in a 2007 as Linfield head coach Joseph Smith addresses the team. Combined with a narrow loss to the Pirates in 2006 at the ‘Cat Dome, the ‘07 defeat pushed Smith to focus on the offensive side of the ball and the Wildcats dominated the Northwest Conference for the following decade. (Photo by Rusty Rae/News-Register.)
Photo cutline -- Linfield QB Dave White was a part of one of Ad Rutschman’s best teams, missing a chance to play in the NAIA national championship tournament after a controversial loss to University of Hawaii in 1970. (Photo courtesy Linfield Sports Information)
