Football | 9/22/2015 12:30:00 PM

This feature appeared in AUDIBLE, which is the official gameday program of Warrior Football, on Sept. 19, 2015.
Visiting Evansville had just connected on a 16-yard touchdown strike with 1:05 to play in the fourth quarter of Wayne State's 1975 season finale.

It was mid-November, and the home Tartars did not need to beat Evansville; they had already wrapped up their first Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship a week prior with a victory over Ferris State.

But the 1975 team, like they frequently did that season, remained confident and composed. 

"(When) they scored and took the lead with about a minute left on the clock," said Ed Skowneski, Wayne State's quarterback, "I remember I was on the sideline and said, 'they left too much time on the clock. We're going to go down and score." And that is exactly what Wayne State did.
 

Skowneski scored a rushing touchdown in the game's waning moments to give the Tartars a 24-21 victory and an 8-3 finish to the regular-season. It was Skowneski's second touchdown run of the fourth quarter.  Skowneski remembers that game like it happened yesterday. In fact, he and many of his teammates remember most of what happened during that 1975 season, as if they still watch 40-year-old game film.

That's because they – at least most of the team – still do watch the game film, and hang out (all a bit more tame compared to the shenanigans the team got into along the Cass Corridor following home games), as if they are preparing to put on the pads that upcoming Saturday.

The team camaraderie is just one of many traits that make the 1975 team unique compared to other Wayne State teams, along with their historic rushing attack, formulaic practice schedules and uncanny fourth-quarter dominance. 

But to completely understand the team, you need to go back a few seasons. Most of the 1975 team was from the tri-county area, and grew up playing against each other at rival high schools.

"The one thing that really stuck with me is that almost the entire team was from Metro Detroit," said Vince Biondo, a fullback on the 1975 squad. "We all had a connection. Our camaraderie was amazing."

And many players on the 1975 team had previously played for former Wayne State coach David Hoover, who demanded that his players learn – and play – positions on both sides of the football. 

"I can remember as a sophomore playing to near exhaustion," said Tom Hurley, who played linebacker in 1975 and also was a tight end in the Hoover era. "Rick Byas, who played in the pros and was one of the greatest athletes ever at Wayne State, he looks over – and I'll never forget this – he's dead tired and the coach said, 'Nuh uh, you aren't coming out.' But that (conditioning) did make a difference."

So the groundwork for success was already laid for the 1975 team. They were comprised of team members who liked each other. Many were finely conditioned as a result of playing both offense and defense. And maybe most importantly, they had a coach in Richard "Dick" Lowry that preached fundamentals and put an emphasis on effort.

Lowry, who took over as Wayne State head coach in 1974 and guided the team to a 7-3 record, was known for implementing his PMA mindset: positive mental attitude. He was known for his structured practice sessions, which never lasted more than an hour and 45 minutes. And he was also known for his simplistic, run-heavy play calling.

"My philosophy was that we were going to be a running team," Lowry said. "As the year went on, I think we threw the ball a lot better because we worked on it more, but we ran the ball a lot better than we threw it."

Lowry's run-game strategy was built around the quarterback and his ability to run the option.

"Everything else worked off our ability to run the option," Lowry said.

The 1975 team set a program record with 2,910 rushing yards, a record unsurpassed until 2011, when the Josh Renel-led ground attack accumulated 3,209 (albeit in 16 games, versus the 11 played in 1975). The top rusher in 1975 was not a running back, it was Skowneski, the quarterback, who that year led the team in both passing and rushing (186 carries, 809 yards, 18 touchdowns). 

Skowneski was a 1987 Wayne State Hall of Fame inductee who during his four-year career set or tied 26 single-game, single-season, career, and Wayne State stadium records.

"Ed was one of the great quarterbacks in the history of Wayne State football," Hurley said. "When you've got a guy like that on your team, you're always in the ballgame. If it wasn't there, he was tucking and running with it. It was never over with Ed. He was magical."

The emphasis on the ground game allowed Wayne State to close games strong, rattle off several second half comebacks, and squeak out close, late-season victories that were a prerequisite to winning the GLIAC.

"Coach Lowry brought in a philosophy that was basically 'keep it simple.' We didn't do a whole lot of fancy things, but we did a few things and we did them extremely well," Skowneski said. "He had a philosophy and he stuck to it, and we were successful with it."

Wayne State had set out to win the GLIAC in 1975, the first season the team competed in that conference. The team's 3-1 conference record was enough to get the job done and secure the first conference title for the program since 1964, when it competed in the Presidents' Athletic Conference.

It also had aspirations of an undefeated season, which would have led to a bowl game appearance. Though it might be difficult to say that a three-loss team came close to being undefeated, it is not the biggest stretch when discussing the 1975 Tartars.

Wayne State lost three games in 1975 by a combined nine points: a 7-6 loss to Howard in week two, a 26-21 defeat at the hands of Ashland in week four, and a 10-7 loss to Hillsdale in week seven.

The Ashland game – which that season was a non-conference affair – was seemingly the toughest loss for the Tartars to handle. Tied at 7 after one quarter, Ashland dominated the second quarter, scoring 19 points to take a commanding 26-7 lead. Wayne State, true to form, mounted a second-half comeback that included touchdowns by Terry Grimes and Vince Biondo, but could not manage a final score to win the game. The loss, however, sparked the team, which knew it still had a prime opportunity to win the GLIAC. 

"The game that put us together was the Ashland game," Biondo said. "Sometimes people say losses have the most incredible effect on you. We got on that bus to go home – you couldn't hear a pin drop. We had a tough start and we knew we were a good team."

Following that loss, Wayne State went on to win six of its last seven, including a four-game winning streak to end the season. 

The Tartars were victorious in three of those final four by four points or fewer: a 21-17 win over Butler in week eight, a 17-13 victory over Northwood in week nine, and the 24-21 squeaker over Evansville in week 11. 

Against Evansville, Wayne State scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, the exclamation point to their dominance of the final frame that persisted throughout the season. The 1975 Tartars squad owned the fourth quarter, outscoring opponents by a whopping 91-36 margin during the final 15 minutes of games.

"They called us the cardiac kids because we made a lot of comebacks," said Kurt LeMerise, a safety. "We never said die."

Little about the 1975 team has left its coaching staff and team members, many of whom planned to get together before tonight's game against Malone. The athletic department also planned to honor the team this evening. 

This year's squad – who Hurley and Skowneski spoke to prior to the season – has already pulled off one 1975-esque victory – a come-from-behind 21-20 victory over Truman State on Sept. 12. In that game, the Warriors scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter. Tonight's game marks the start of nine consecutive GLIAC games as the Warriors continue their trek toward an accomplishment that has not been achieved at Wayne State since 1975; an outright GLIAC conference championship.