Jake Gibbs - Amateur Career

Amateur Career

Gibbs attended the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). He played quarterback for the Ole Miss Rebels football team, and also played for the Ole Miss Rebels baseball team. Both teams compete in the Southeastern Conference (SEC).

For the baseball team, Gibbs led the Rebels to their first SEC championship in 1959.

During his junior football season, Gibbs was best remembered for punting the ball to LSU All-American Billy Cannon on a third-and-19 with 10 minutes remaining in a Halloween Night game at Tiger Stadium and the No. 3 Rebels ahead of defending national champion and No. 1 LSU 3-0. Cannon picked up the ball on one bounce along the right sideline at his own 11-yard line and raced past the Rebel coverage unit, including Gibbs, 89 yards to the game's only touchdown. The play helped Cannon win the 1959 Heisman Memorial Trophy.

The 7-3 loss cost Ole Miss a chance at the wire service national championships, since those polls were voted upon at the time prior to bowl games and did not take into account Ole Miss' 21-0 humiliation of LSU in the 1960 Sugar Bowl, 62 days after the teams played in Baton Rouge.

During his senior year at Mississippi, Gibbs led the Ole Miss Rebels football team to a 10–0–1 record, with the lone blemish a 6-6 deadlock against an inferior LSU squad (the Tigers went 5-4-1 after winning 20 of 22 games in 1958 and 1959) at Oxford, Mississippi. The Rebels won the 1961 Sugar Bowl, defeating the Rice Owls football team 14-6, as Gibbs scored both touchdowns. The Rebels were recognized as national champions by the Football Writers Association of America. Gibbs was named to the 1960 College Football All-America Team. That year, he was also named SEC Player of the Year.