William Morley "Jopsey" Jennings (January 23, 1890 – May 13, 1985) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player, coach, and college athletics administrator.

Biography

Jennings attended college at Mississippi State University in Starkville, at which he participated in baseball, basketball, football, and track. Jennings served from 1912 to 1925 as the head football coach at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and then at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, from 1926 to 1940. He compiled a career college football record of 153–77–18. He was also the head baseball coach at Baylor from 1928 to 1939, where he tallied a mark of 120–79. From 1941 to 1951, Jennings served as the athletic director at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1973.

Jennings with the Minneapolis Millers minor league team, ca. 1920

Jennings was also a Major League Baseball second baseman. He played in two games for the Washington Senators in 1913, going 0-for-3.

Jennings and his wife, Elizabeth, had one son, Richard Autrey Jennings (1917–2019), who was born while the couple lived in Arkadelphia. In 1942, Richard Jennings obtained his Juris Doctor from George Washington Law School in Washington, D.C., where he worked on Capitol Hill for Texas U.S. Senator Tom Connally and operated an elevator in the Capitol. He subsequently practiced law in Lubbock for seventy-six years before moving to Corinth in Denton County, Texas, in his later years.

Head coaching record

Football

YearTeamOverallConferenceStandingBowl/playoffs
Ouachita Baptist Tigers (Independent) (1912–1925)
1912Ouachita Baptist2–2–1
1913Ouachita Baptist3–2–3
1914Ouachita Baptist8–0–1
1915Ouachita Baptist7–1
1916Ouachita Baptist4–2
1917Ouachita Baptist4–0
1918Ouachita Baptist2–1
1919Ouachita Baptist4–1–1
1920Ouachita Baptist6–1–1
1921Ouachita Baptist5–3
1922Ouachita Baptist6–1–1
1923Ouachita Baptist4–3–1
1924Ouachita Baptist8–0–1
1925Ouachita Baptist7–0–2
Ouachita Baptist:70–17–12
Baylor Bears (Southwest Conference) (1926–1940)
1926Baylor6–3–13–1–12nd
1927Baylor2–70–57th
1928Baylor8–23–2T–3rd
1929Baylor7–3–12–2–13rd
1930Baylor6–3–13–1–12nd
1931Baylor3–61–56th
1932Baylor3–5–11–3–15th
1933Baylor6–44–2T–2nd
1934Baylor3–71–57th
1935Baylor8–33–3T–3rd
1936Baylor6–3–13–2–1T–3rd
1937Baylor7–33–34th
1938Baylor7–2–13–2–13rd
1939Baylor7–34–2T–2nd
1940Baylor4–60–67th
Baylor:83–60–633–44–6
Total:153–77–18

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