bill yeoman passes away at age 92

[Eight]

former university of houston football coach bill yeoman died a couple of days ago.

so why post this on a tcu board? well, if you have played or watched football in the state of texas (and elsewhere for that matter) since the mid 60's bill yeoman has had a major impact on that game you either played or watched.

yeoman is the creator of the veer offense installing the offense in 1964. the run game concepts that were the basis for that triple option offense are found in many of the spread zone read offenses run today in high schools, colleges, and the nfl.

his offense also had the early features of the run/pass option and even more significantly was the development of the zone blocking scheme. good friend tells a funny story about being at a coaches clinic and an argument breaking out as to whether or not the idea of not blocking a back side defender would get your ball carrier killed or not.

finally, yeoman was instrumental in integrating the game of football at the college level in texas. a number of jokes can and have been made about cougar high etc......yes they did get caught cheating, but that still doesn't diminish the fact that houston under yeoman recruited black players at a higher rate than the swc schools back in the late 60's and 70's.

 

[HToady]

The 2020 football debacle did him in....

 

[Froglaw]

Forward thinking coach.

From "Remember the Titans":

"The Veer is like novacain, just give it time!"

 

[JogginFrog]

Forward thinking coach.

From "Remember the Titans":

"The Veer is like novacain, just give it time!"

 

[westoverhillbilly]

Yeoman was very much a pre-cursor to Gary Patterson in that he took UH from the Lone Star Conference with Stephen F Austin and Angelo State to the Missouri Valley with Tulsa, Tulane and Louisville and then into the at-that-time coveted Southwest Conference and won or shared 3 titles in its first 4 years (4 of first 9) by beating the crap out of Texas and A&M and everyone else. He had a huge head start on recruiting and coaching African Americans and did so with a tiny fan base in the huge Astrodome with crap facilities.

Problem was that his UH teams sh*t the bed in out of conference games and would lose to inferior teams, treating OOC games like the NFL teams treat pre-season games. It made the conference look bad too. All Yeoman seemed to care about was winning the conference and getting to the Cotton Bowl and taking a couple thousand Cougar fans to Dallas. As such, they had some high rankings but never challenged for any national championships.

 

[Eight]

Yeoman was very much a pre-cursor to Gary Patterson in that he took UH from the Lone Star Conference with Stephen F Austin and Angelo State to the Missouri Valley with Tulsa, Tulane and Louisville and then into the at-that-time coveted Southwest Conference and won or shared 3 titles in its first 4 years (4 of first 9) by beating the crap out of Texas and A&M and everyone else. He had a huge head start on recruiting and coaching African Americans and did so with a tiny fan base in the huge Astrodome with crap facilities.

Problem was that his UH teams sh*t the bed in out of conference games and would lose to inferior teams, treating OOC games like the NFL teams treat pre-season games. It made the conference look bad too. All Yeoman seemed to care about was winning the conference and getting to the Cotton Bowl and taking a couple thousand Cougar fans to Dallas. As such, they had some high rankings but never challenged for any national championships.

funny you mention the out of conference losses. when i went back and looked at his record i noticed two really ugly losses.

first was in 1976 which was their first year in the swc. cougs got beat by florida 49-14 in gainesville in their second game of the year.

granted, that florida team had some great talent on it and finished 8-4 and tied for third in the sec, but they got drubbed by the ags by over 20 in the sun bowl and that houston team ended up being ranked #4th in the country after beating maryland in the cotton bowl.

the even uglier loss was in 1978 when they lost at memphis 17-3 to a team that not only finished with a losing record, but lost 58-0 to the aggies just two weeks after beating houston.

his 1979 team was most likely his best, had a load of talent defensively, and didn't have an ugly loss on the schedule that year

 

[froginaustin]

RIP.

 

[Frog DJ]

I am humbled to be an honorary member of The West Point Society of Greater Houston, and Coach Yeoman was the speaker at one of their luncheons (Yeoman graduated from The USMA.)

After he finished he took questions, and one of the members asked, “If Army played U of H which school would you root for?”

Without a second’s hesitation he said, “Army fills my heart, but UH fills my wallet. Go Coogs!”

Go Frogs!

 

[Virginia Frog]

Forward thinking coach.

From "Remember the Titans":

"The Veer is like novacain, just give it time!"

Not to burst any bubbles of the film's fans, while "Remember The Titans" is full of inaccuracies and the storyline is at least 50% fiction, I can attest for the fact that Coach Boone was all-in with the veer and was a Bill Yeoman disciple.
But TC Williams' strength was its D and that '71 movie season there was only one "close" game because opposing Os just couldn't get any traction. The veer was fun to defend as well.