During a scrimmage with the starting defense, featuring several All-Americans, Switzer put in Joe and ran a slant up the gut. Joe went Zip, zip, zip for 80 yards untouched and “put turf burns on all the All-Americans”, who “broke all their knees trying to touch him”. Switzer and Fairbanks just looked at each other, wordless, with the look of “what did I just see” on their faces.

Joe was special. Without a doubt my favorite OU player of all time. It’s a shame that unless you attended the games, you never got to see him. Had OU been on TV and not on probation, he would have received a lot more media attention and probably would have won a Heisman trophy. Think of how good he could have been had he not been injured for most of his senior year?

I still remember the Missouri game that year when he won the game on his own. 71 yard run and two-point conversion for the win with time running out.

His skills spoke for themselves, but his knack for making someting out of nothing is what made him so special. I’ve never seen another back like him…before or since. he was only 5 foot 8, 160 pounds. Quite a contrast from todays runnig backs. The intangible with him is that he could make cuts at top speed and instinctively made people miss. Story goes he and his brothers played football in the house, where he learned all his moves dodging furniture and his brothers.

The only back I’ve ever seen that could make the moves instinctively like him was Barry Sanders.