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— Click here for book review and purchase link: THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s and here for a purchase link to RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.
— Watch a three-minute video to learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.
— Documentary synopsis: Duffy documentary snynopsis.pdf – Google Drive
— I will debate anybody, anytime, anywhere Duffy Daugherty led college football integration
— My FWAA first-place story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and segregation
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By TOM SHANAHAN
Of Michigan State’s 27 transfer portal additions, none arrived with more history attached than Kaleb “KK” Smith. The former Notre Dame receiver straddles two schools honoring the 1966 Game of the Century’s 60th anniversary.
To be clear, no one expects Smith and his Gen Z peers to understand the significance behind Michigan State and Notre Dame shuffling their 2026 schedules to renew their rivalry. They meet on September 19 at Notre Dame Stadium.
But it’s worth noting Smith’s journey crosses so much history it’s a serendipitous transfer. In addition to the schools sharing the seminal moment in college football, Smith is a Texan following in the footsteps of Michigan State College Football Hall of Famers Bubba Smith (no relation) and Gene Washington. The Texans from the Houston area escaped segregation upon boarding Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty’s Underground Railroad.
No school’s coach did more changing the face of the game than Daugherty.
So, although KK Smith has plenty on his plate adjusting from blue and gold lore to green and white traditions, if he becomes curious about the 1966 Game of the Century’s shared connections, he can learn from the two starting quarterbacks.
“I think I’ve met all 80,011 fans who told me they were at the game,” said Michigan State’s Jimmy Raye, who was the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title while riding Daugherty’s Underground Railroad out of segregated Fayetteville, N.C.
PHOTO: Jimmy Raye calls signals against Notre Dame, November 19, 1966.
Notre Dame quarterback Terry Hanratty, who was enshrined on December 9 in the College Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025, says, “Tell Jimmy I’ve surpassed him. I’m at 200,000. It’s like Woodstock.”
KK Smith was a 3-star recruit out Reedy High in Frisco, near Dallas. He redshirted the 2023 season and played limited roles the past two years, catching three balls for 38 yards in 2024 and eight for 123 and two touchdowns in 2025.
“KK is one of the most dynamic players we’ve had come through our doors.”
— Reedy High coach Chad Cole
Smith’s high school coach, Chad Cole, believes the 6-foot, 176-pounder possesses the talent and desire to develop the next two seasons.
“KK is one of the most dynamic players we’ve had come through our doors,” said Cole, the school’s only coach since it opened 11 years ago. “We play in a competitive conference and North Texas is a hotbed of talent, but he was one of the top players on every side of the ball.”
Reedy used him as a wide receiver, cornerback and return man.
“We put him in motion, we ran jet sweeps, and we even had him throw it a couple of times,” Cole said. “He won a district playoff game for us when he ran back a punt return 74 yards. My offensive coordinator asked me what I told him before the punt, and I said, ‘Take it to the house!’”
— Vagas Ferguson and I make a return visit to the Notre Dame campus bookstore to sign books prior to the Michigan State-Notre Dame game on September 19 at Notre Dame Stadium.
— My story from 2024 book signing: Vagas Ferguson and I set record straight on Dan Devine’s legacy and college football integration leadership history – Tom Shanahan Report
Cole also feels new Michigan State coach Pat Fitzgerald can tap Smith’s potential. Fitzgerald, during his 17 seasons as Northwestern’s head coach, has long been a presence in the Lone Star State recruiting Texas talent.
“I like his professionalism,” Cole said. “It’s an honor for our program to have a coach with his experience and success come by to talk to us about football. They’re scouring the country for talent, and they’re taking the time to visit our place.”
If Smith’s wants to absorb more 1966 Game of the Century history, here’s a primer.
In 1966, the season-long buildup to unbeaten No. 1-ranked Notre Dame facing unbeaten No. 2 Michigan State in a quasi-national championship launched the mega-TV sports event era. A record TV audience of 33 million – one in six Americans in a population of 195 million — watched the November 19 showdown along with the 80,011 fans who overflowed 76,000-seat Spartan Stadium.
The TV aspect connects the simpler times of 1966 to the changing landscape of 2026 that has wreaked havoc with tradition.
It took time, but NCAA rules governing TV eventually broke down after previously limiting teams to one national television appearance a year. Cable television expanded the number of games aired. TV greed kept piling up until conference realignments, particularly in the past 10, 15 years, disrupted traditions and ended rivalries.
Many lost traditions such as Michigan State and Notre Dame playing annuall will come as surprise to Gen Z. The Spartans and Irish first met in 1897 and played annually from 1948 through 2013 with four exceptions, 1953, 1958, 1995 and 1996.
Smith’s Texas background represents a third side of the 1966 Game of the Century’s standing as a pyramid to history.
Daugherty’s Underground Railroad conductor was Bubba Smith’s father, Willie Ray Smith Sr., a legendary Texas high school coach during segregation. Willie Ray Smith Sr. and other Black high school coaches as well as some White southerners opposed to segregation recognized Michigan State as a place of opportunity.
Daugherty was the first coach to abandon the unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen or so. For example, USC numbered only five Black players on its 1962 national title team and seven on its 1967 national championship roster.
In 1962, the Associated Press reported the Spartans’ 17 Black players were the most in major college football history. The report failed to state, though, the Spartans broke their own records throughout the 1960s.
In 1966, Michigan State lined up 20 Black players with 11 Black starters, two Black team captains, College Football Hall of Famers George Webster and Clinton Jones, and Raye as one of only two Black quarterbacks at major schools in 1966.
Notre Dame had one Black player on its roster, Alan Page. Willie Ray Smith tripled Notre Dame’s number of Black starters with his son Bubba, Washington and Phillips as starters.
Another advent marking the 1966 Game of the Century’s influence on the future was through satellites from space age technology. Michigan State-Notre Dame was the first football game broadcast live across the Pacific Ocean to U.S. troops serving in Vietnam and to football fans in Hawaii.
Although the game ended in an anticlimactic 10-10 tie that left everyone feeling unfulfilled, that lack of immediate satisfaction has spilled over into decades of pride both teams share. No one remembers the losing team in a national championship.
Notre Dame was voted national champion by three of the four NCAA-sanctioned bodies that declared national titles in the poll era, the Associated Press, United Press International and Football Writers Associaton of American. But Michigan State gained a share when the National Football Foundation named the Irish and Spartans co-champions based on their 9-0-1 records and head-to-head tie.
By 1995, college football added overtime rules to prevent ties. By 1998, college football developed the Bowl Championship Series matching the top two teams for the national title. The College Football Playoffs debuted with four teams in 2014 and expanded to 12 in 2024.
Change comes more rapidly than in the 20th century, but the 1966 Game of the Century remains a cornerstone to college football history and changing times – some better than others.
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I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.
Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama.
— Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.
— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”
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