74 Days to Gator Football - #74 Jack Youngblood

[Escambia94]

74 – Jack Youngblood, DE (1968-70)

Herbert Jackson “Jack” Youngblood, III of Jacksonville, Florida, is one of the few men with the distinction of being in both the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana and the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He played Although sacks were not an official statistic in those days, he is rumored to have 29 sacks, which would be 2nd all-time. As a freshman under Ray Graves, he played defensive end, and as a sophomore he even played defensive tackle and placekicker! As part of the late 1960s teams, he had the great fortune of being a human guinea pig for Doctor Robert Cade‘s Gatorade. It must have worked out well, since the 1969 team went 9-1-1 and were the Gator Bowl champions. The following year under Doug Dickey, he was voted as All-American and All-SEC for leading the team with 10 sacks and was voted the SEC lineman of the year and the Forrest K. Ferguson Award recipient.

Years after his departure from college and pro football, he still gained honors in 1989 in the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame, in 1999 the 50th Anniversary Senior Bowl All-Time Team, in 1983 the All-Time SEC team, in the 1985 to the All-SEC Quarter-Century Team, 1970s All-Decade Team, in 1995 as an SEC Football Legend, in 2006 to the 100-year Anniversary Gator Team, in 1975 to the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, in 2001 to the University of Florida Hall of Fame, and in 2006 he was inducted in the Florida Football Ring of Honor.

 

[DRU2012]

That "9-1-1" record has been the bane of so many excellent Gator squads over the years. It shows up repeatedly in the historical record, if you check--and I can tell you that (at least in those I personally witnessed) the ties in those years were every bit as frustrating and disappointing (sometimes even more so) as the outright losses.
As for Jack Youngblood, he was one of my heroes as I "came of age"; it seemed like he could do everything well. My dad and I used to drive up from Eglin for home games, and in his words, Youngblood was "a throwback" to a time when the best players played both ways; he put him in the same category as other guys he'd seen play in college, many of whom were by then old pros, names like Gifford, Huff, Nitzge, and so on.