Editor’s note: The goal of the Kansas Sports Chronicles is to keep the state’s rich sports history alive. As the second round of the KSHSAA football playoffs are set to take place this week, we go back 41 years to share the story of one of the most successful teams in state history not to win a state title. The 1979 Rossville Bulldogs allowed only three points all season but fell two wins shy of a championship.
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Monte McGinnis’ confidence in his 1979 Rossville Bulldogs football team has never wavered.
“I still feel like we were the best team in the state,” said McGinnis, a slotback, cornerback and kicker on that Rossville squad. “I guess I will never get away from that. I think we had all of the parts to the machine.”
No doubt, the Bulldogs played like a machine. Through 12 games, Rossville allowed a total of 3 points. But while that Bulldogs team remains in the state record books 41 years later for the least points allowed in the playoff era, McGinnis and his teammates do not possess a championship ring.
Those 3 points allowed came during a 3-0 loss to Smith Center in the Class 3A semifinals. A team that was a little more than a game-and-a-half away from possibly being considered the most dominant team in Kansas history is now remembered as one of the best teams not to win the big one.
“All these years later, you still feel it,” McGinnis said. “But the pain has faded a little bit.”
The team
The 1979 Rossville Bulldogs weren’t the biggest team you’d come across. Aside from three players weighing 190 pounds or more, the Bulldog roster was loaded with wiry 150- and 160-pound kids.
The Rossville squad also likely wasn’t the most talented Kansas Class 3A team ever assembled. Only one team member received serious attention from NCAA Division I schools that season.
Make no mistake though, the Bulldogs would hit you.
“They were the most aggressive kids I’ve ever been around,” said Hal Taliaferro, who served as Rossville’s head coach from 1978-1990. “Those kids were fighters. They’d just go 100 mph. Sometimes in practice, I had to cool them down. I had to discipline them so that they wouldn’t hurt the younger kids.”
That aggression combined with fast players who swarmed to the ball made Rossville’s 5-2 monster defense one of the most imposing in state history.
Defensive lineman Bennie Simecka, who was about 6-3 and 240 pounds, was Rossville’s best college prospect. He posted 111 tackles and five sacks that season, received All-State Top 11 honors by The Topeka Capital-Journal and The Wichita Eagle, and was named a prep All-American.
“I remember the Simecka kid. He was a great defensive player,” said legendary Smith Center coach Roger Barta, who directed the Redmen from 1978-2012. “We had three or four kids trying to block him. He was a stud.”
Simecka was recruited by Kansas and went on to become a three-year starter at center for the Jayhawks. As a senior in 1984, he received honorable mention All-Big Eight recognition.
Aside from Simecka, however, the Bulldog roster wasn’t loaded with players getting attention from Division I schools. Instead, Rossville was full of scrappy kids who liked to play physical football.
Jeff Booth, at 5-foot-6 and 160 pounds, paced the squad with 147 tackles. Stu Smith, one of the team’s biggest players at 190 pounds, recorded 134 tackles. Dale Ketcher, who was about 165 pounds, added 127. Kurt Bingham recorded six sacks.
“Everybody bought into Coach Taliaferro’s system,” McGinnis said. “He told us to be our best every time we stepped onto the field. He told us that if we weren’t going to give our best, then we weren’t going to be the best.”
Offensively, the Bulldogs were pretty one dimensional.
Mike Lutz, who had been a running back before suffering his second concussion, served as Rossville’s quarterback in the option offense. Tex Davis, who had been a quarterback, became the Bulldogs’ top running back.
Through the regular season, the Bulldogs averaged 245 yards per game on the ground and only 58 through the air. McGinnis was the team’s top receiver with only 14 catches for 347 yards.
“Lutz had a concussion from a bicycle accident as a kid,” Taliaferro said. “During the 1978 season, he hit his head during practice and had a second concussion. The thinking at the time was that we’d put him at quarterback instead of running back to protect him a little bit.
“If we wanted to throw deep, we called a halfback pass with Tex Davis.”
The ground-and-pound Bulldogs were led by Davis with 1,166 rushing yards on 225 carries. Smith added 563 yards on 111 carries.
Rossville’s smash-mouth offense paired well with a defense that would rarely bend and never break.
“One of our team goals was to hold opponents to under 100 yards of offense,” Taliaferro said.
It was a goal the Bulldogs routinely met. Through the regular season, Rossville allowed only 66 yards per game.
The season
The Bulldogs’ historic 1979 season started with a win, of course. But it’s probably not how you think.
Rossville’s season was delayed a week, because its Week 1 opponent, Powhattan, was forced to forfeit after several members of the team were struck by a chickenpox outbreak.
No matter, the unique start to the season did nothing to slow down the Bulldogs.
Rossville rolled through its early competition, beating St. Marys (46-0), Wabaunsee (38-0), Burlingame (50-0) and Osage City (29-0).
The Week 6 opponent, Silver Lake, was one that had been circled on the schedule all year. The 1979 season was before the rivalry had been dubbed the War on 24, but one of the state’s all-time best rivalries was already heating up. With C.J. Hamilton back as the Silver Lake head coach after a two-year absence, the Eagles entered with a 4-1 record that included shutouts over Burlingame (28-0), Osage City (29-0) and Mission Valley (30-0).
“Before the Silver Lake game, I was surprised to see Topeka Capital-Journal reporter Rick Dean covering us two weeks in a row,” Taliaferro said. “He told me that he wouldn’t miss this game for anything.”
The result was a 23-0 Rossville victory, and the media attention surrounding the Bulldogs was only beginning. Rossville was two-thirds through the regular season without allowing a point.
Taliaferro said the accomplishment caught him by surprise.
“Honestly, I didn’t even realize that we hadn’t been scored on,” he said. “You’re so damn busy getting ready for the next game, you just don’t think about those things. “A reporter at the Capital-Journal first told me about the streak. Then reporters from the Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle started calling me.”
Despite the extra focus on the team, the Bulldogs kept rolling. Rossville followed the win over Silver Lake with a 27-0 victory against Onaga. To keep the shutout streak alive, the Bulldogs blocked an Onaga field goal attempt.
Rossville then finished off the regular season with wins of 62-0 and 29-0 over Mission Valley and Royal Valley, respectively.
The Bulldogs opened the playoffs with its toughest test up to that point of the season against Basehor. At halftime, Rossville clung to a 3-0 lead. But Taliaferro had a trick up his sleeve.
“After halftime, we switched to a 4-4 defense and started running the wishbone on offense,” McGinnis said. “We had it in our pocket all year, but we didn’t show it until we needed it.”
The adjustment propelled the Bulldogs to a 33-0 first-round win. In the next round, Rossville kept its streak alive with a 26-0 win over Chase County.
Now, the Bulldogs were just two games away from not only winning a state championship but from becoming legendary. They were eight quarters away from perfection.
“It was almost kind of surreal,” McGinnis said. “It was a fairytale dream to not only go undefeated, but not get scored on and win a state championship. You’re a 16-, 17-, or 18-year-old kid and you feel like it would make you immortal.”
The game
Rossville’s matchup with 10-1 Smith Center was only the semifinal game, but the hype surrounding the clash made it so much more. The shutout streak was starting to receive statewide and even national attention.
Taliaferro’s attempts to downplay the accomplishment were futile.
“A lot of reporters were asking about it,” McGinnis said. “Coach Taliaferro made a comment that he didn’t care if the other team scored 82 as long as we scored 83 and won.”
No doubt, winning by any score was Rossville’s No. 1 goal, but the team’s flirtation with perfection couldn’t be ignored.
The game received so much attention that the Nov. 16, 1979 matchup was moved from Rossville to Topeka’s Logan Field. The Capital-Journal reported that 5,500 fans -- more than the population of the two towns combined -- packed into the stadium.
“It was a great atmosphere,” Taliaferro said. “The crowd was four or five deep around the track. Because everybody wanted to watch the game, nobody at our school wanted to run the concession stand. Seaman High took the concessions. They sold so much that night that they made enough money to redo their whole weight room. New weights, new machines, new everything.”
The game between the two power-based teams didn’t disappoint.
“It was quite the game,” Barta said. “Both teams were so physical, I knew either team that came out of it was going to have a difficult time in the state championship. We beat each other up pretty good.”
Neither offense enjoyed much success against the opposing defense. An interception by Smith Center’s Doug Boucher helped set up the only points of the game. Boucher, who is now the strength and conditioning coordinator at Fort Hays State University, picked off Lutz’s pass attempt and returned it to the Rossville 42 late in the first quarter.
Taking advantage of the turnover, Boucher delivered a 15-yard pass to Tracy Kingsbury -- Smith Center’s only completion of the game -- to advance to the Bulldogs’ 22.
A few plays later, Dane Scherling kicked a 33-yard field goal to give Smith Center a 3-0 lead with about 40 seconds expired in the second quarter.
Just like that, Rossville’s shutout streak was no more.
“I was told after the game that a writer from Sports Illustrated was there but left as soon as Smith Center scored,” Taliaferro said. “I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
Streak or no streak, the Bulldogs’ chances to win a state championship were still very much in play.
“I don’t think our attitude changed at all,” McGinnis said. “We were somewhat pissed that they scored, but it did nothing to take our focus away from trying to win the game. We never thought we were going to lose until the zeros were on the clock.”
With about six minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs had an opportunity to tie the game when McGinnis attempted a 37-yard field goal. After a bit of a delay, the officials determined the kick sailed wide right.
“All of our kids were jumping in the air, because we thought it was good,” Taliaferro said. “It took the officials forever to call it. There was a big delay. The two guys looked at each other, and never called it. The white hat ended up calling it no good.”
As far as McGinnis is concerned, he made the field goal.
“I will go to my grave believing I made that kick,” he said.
Rossville never threatened again, and Smith Center earned a 3-0 victory and moved on to state championship game. As Barta predicted, the bruised and battered Redmen fell 21-13 to Salina-Sacred Heart.
For Smith Center, it was the beginning of a dynasty. The Redmen won their first of eight state titles under Barta a few years later in 1982.
“That season started the turnaround for our program,” Barta said. “We were 3-6 the year before. Everybody from that era at Smith Center knows that was the team that turned our program around. That season and that game got us started.”
For Rossville, it was heartbreaking. In a matter of hours, the Bulldogs went from having a chance at the ultimate perfect season to not even making it to the state championship.
The next day’s Capital-Journal sports section featured a photo of a distraught McGinnis sitting on the field after the game with his head buried in his hands.
“I was just totally drained emotionally and physically,” McGinnis said. “I was just sitting there on the field, thinking about it being all over. Everything we had worked for, everything we had sweated for was gone.”
Capital-Journal sports writer Allen Quakenbush put it best.
“There will come a time, long after the bad memories have been erased, when Rossville’s football team can look back and admit that 1979 was one helluva year,” Quakenbush wrote. “The Bulldog defense pulled off the amazing feat of not allowing a touchdown all season. The offense was plenty impressive, too, outscoring its opponents 364-3.
“But for a time, at least, Rossville will be haunted by the image of Dane Scherling, a stocky 183-pounder who shattered the Bulldogs’ dreams by drilling a 33-yard field goal just 40 seconds into the second period Friday night.”
Forty-one years later, a bit of both is true. The hurt resulting from a missed opportunity still lingers, but the Bulldogs also know they had a great team.
“Even with the way it turned out, it was one of the best times of my life,” McGinnis said. “I was playing football with my buddies. I will always look back on that season as some of the best times of my life.”
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