So There, Socrates

It was only fitting that the last day of an upset-filled college football season should be filled with upsets. The only game that went according to the polls was the Rose Bowl, and even that took a remarkable performance by All-America Halfback O. J. Simpson (who carried the ball 25 times for 128 yds. and two touchdowns) before top-ranked Southern Cal could eke out a 14-3 victory over a stubborn band of sophomores from Indiana. In the Sugar Bowl, thrice-beaten, unranked Louisiana State spotted unbeaten, No. 6-ranked Wyoming a 13-0 halftime lead, then bounced back to win 20-13. In the Orange Bowl, No. 3-ranked Oklahoma beat No. 2-ranked Tennessee 26-24. The most startling upset of all came in the Cotton Bowl at Dallas, where Texas A. & M.--a team that lost almost as many games (four) as it won (six) during the regular season--upended favored (by seven points), No. 8-ranked Alabama 20-16.

Shades of Plato and Socrates! Head coach of the Texas Aggies is lanky Gene Stallings, 32, who played end on the last A. & M. team to win a Southwest Conference championship, the 1956 squad that was coached by Paul ("Bear") Bryant, 54--who currently, of course, is head coach at Alabama. What's more, Stallings was Bryant's assistant for seven seasons at Alabama before he took over at A. & M. in 1965. Like Bear, he talks in a soft drawl, and his Bible is a notebook filled with "everything I've heard Coach Bryant say in the 13 years I've known him."

The pupil was tactfully restrained when he beat his old teacher last week--and the teacher took the defeat in stride. Marching over to the A. & M. bench, Bryant hoisted Stallings onto his shoulders and paraded him around the sidelines.

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