Before Super Bowl LXI, two hall-of-famers engaged in a small on-air dispute.
Longtime friends Jimmy Johnson and Terry Bradshaw came to blows during the pregame coverage of the NFC Championship between the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders.
“I have a little conflict with you,” said Johnson. “You said you could play for Dan Quinn. Well, I recruited you when I was at Louisiana Tech. You could’ve played for me!”
“You were what, a grad assistant?” responded Bradshaw.
Ryan Sanudo’s article for The Sun, “Boys Will be Boys: Terry Bradshaw ‘confronted’ by Jimmy Johnson on Fox NFL Sunday as ex-Cowboys coach claims ‘you could’ve played for me’,” provides some context for the small argument. Johnson, known for his coaching success with the Dallas Cowboys, had his first coaching gig at Louisiana Tech University. He was also, in fact, in on the recruitment of Bradshaw.
There is more to the story, however. Johnson’s college football coach at the University of Arkansas, Frank Broyles, was a friend of Joe Aillet, the head coach of Louisiana Tech. The two hall-of-fame coaches played golf with each other and traded grad assistants between their two programs. If they had former players they thought could make a future head coach, they often sent them either to Fayetteville or Ruston.
Johnson spent only one season with the Bulldogs. While in Ruston, he quickly found his original grad assistant role expanded. Before the 1965 season started, assistant coach George Doherty sustained a massive heart attack and missed most of the season.
When remembering Doherty’s contribution, Coach Aillet recounted that he was a victim of a great amount of dedication and carried a tremendous load for the team. It was a rough season for the Bulldogs, who finished 4-4 (3-2 in the Gulf States Conference), but Johnson survived his baptism of fire and went on to reach the lofty heights of a hall-of-fame coaching career.
It is also true that he helped recruit fellow FOX panelist Terry Bradshaw.
In the twilight years of Coach Aillet’s football coaching career at Tech in the ’60s, the Bulldogs fielded multiple prolific quarterbacks: Mickey Slaughter (late ’50s), who played for the Denver Broncos and later became an assistant coach at Tech; Billy Laird, who played for the Boston Patriots and had a successful high school coaching career in Arkansas and Louisiana; Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame; and finally, Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Bradshaw.
In a way, both Johnson and Bradshaw were right — Bradshaw could have played “for” Johnson if Jimmy had remained at Tech. However, Johnson was on the defensive side of the ball, meaning it was unlikely he would have had direct control of Bradshaw.
Considering that Coach Aillet was replaced after the 1966 season by Maxie Lambright, who had extended success beyond Bradshaw in the ’70s, it is also unlikely that Johnson would have become head coach when Bradshaw was there.
As usual for the pair, Jimmy and Terry had fun during the FOX NFL Sunday show. It would be the last NFC Championship game for Johnson, who retired in March 2025 following the Super Bowl. Louisiana Tech was briefly represented in the FOX Sports AI tribute to Johnson during the Super Bowl pregame: Johnson in his early walk across 100 yards of football wore a Tech shirt and was briefly accompanied by a uniformed Bradshaw. Who would have thought that two football legends shared a slice of their early careers on the field with each other at Louisiana Tech?