t wasn’t his fault, but Northwestern coach Randy Walker’s first start as a tailback was rocky.

“They kick off to us and Ron Zook, he’ll tell you a different story, but he bobbled the gosh darn ball and it went out on the three,” Walker’s college coach Bill Mallory said. “So there’s Randy who’s not carried the ball and I looked at him and he’s white as a ghost.”

It was an ignominious beginning for Walker and Zook who were teammates at Miami of Ohio from 1972-75, but both would eventually play integral roles on a team that lost one game in three years, earning three straight victories in the Tangerine Bowl.

Zook’s gaffe did not have too large an effect as Miami won the game, but according to Walker, Mallory is incorrect about some aspects of the start of his collegiate career.

“I think it was the one,” Walker said. “For dramatic effect I’ll just say it was the one.

“My first start as a tailback and I’m five yards deep in the end zone.”

Thirty years later Walker can seek revenge on his former teammate this Saturday as the Wildcats visit Zook’s Illini. But to hear them say it, their time together has little effect on the this weekend’s contest.

The attitude seems fitting for Zook, the team captain their senior year, and Walker, the team MVP that same season, two coaches that preach the system they played in.

“We were a very, very close knit group,” Zook said. “A team that didn’t have a lot of superstars on it, but guys that just played together and coach Mallory and coach (Mallory’s successor Dick) Crum, two coaches that believed in the word team. Obviously we were coached that way.”

While the two coaches still hawk that same philosophy, they came to it through very different ways. Walker, a sought-after running back, came from Troy High School in Troy, Ohio, and received attention from Big Ten schools before settling on Miami.

Zook, however, did not have the same touted status. In fact Zook didn’t come to Mallory’s attention until after he was done recruiting. Mallory’s brother, a dentist in Zook’s home town of Loudonville, Ohio, saw Zook play in high school and recommended him as a walk on.

“He came in and I could see he was gonna be a player,” said Mallory, who remains is a voter in the Master Coaches Survey. “He was just a good hard-nosed, get-after-it guy.”

After their playing days, Zook and Walker set off on careers as coaches, not unusual for Miami, whose alumni include Earl “Red” Blaik, Paul Brown, Carmen Cozza, Sid Gillman, Weeb Ewbank, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler.

While Walker’s coaching career has remained at the college level, with stints at North Carolina and back at his alma mater before coming to NU, Zook has worked in both college and the NFL. Zook was a defensive assistant with the Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints before returning to college at Florida in 2002. This is Zook’s first year at Illinois.

“We were very fortunate, both of us, to play on a team that only lost one game,” Zook said. “I’m sure he’s trying to do the same thing I’m doing in my career as a coach, that’s the attitude you try to develop and get to that point where your football team is a confident football team.”

The two have kept connections to their roots. Mallory said he talks to Walker more often, but two of Mallory’s sons, Curt and Mike, are now assistants under Zook at Illinois.

Mallory has had nothing but high expectations for two players that helped lead Miami to three consecutive MAC Championships.

“When they decided to go into coaching I just thought that they’d both make excellent coaches,” Mallory said. “They have because they’ve got the qualities that you like to see in an individual.”

Mallory looks back fondly on Zook and Walker’s playing days, even occasionally chuckling at the early mistake that he said Walker would never let Zook live down.

Of course he wasn’t pleased at the time.

“I wasn’t real happy with Zook,” Mallory said. “But Randy went in and had a heck of a game. He rushed for something like 150 yards or something like that.”

Still, Walker wants to make sure the facts are straight in Mallory’s hazy memories.

“160,” Walker said. “He short changed me there. I had 160.”