FAYETTEVILLE — Bobby Roper, who won football national championships as a player at the University of Arkansas and as an assistant coach at Pittsburgh, died Wednesday night in hospice care in Raleigh, N.C. He was 78.
Roper, who came to Arkansas from Sherman, Texas, was a starting defensive end on the Razorbacks’ 1964 team that finished 11-0 and shared the national championship with Alabama.
When Pittsburgh won the national championship in 1976 with a 12-0 record, Roper was the Panthers’ defensive coordinator for Coach Johnny Majors.
“Bobby was a great contributor to both of those national championship teams, there’s no doubt about it,” said Ken Hatfield, the former Razorbacks coach who was Roper’s teammate at Arkansas.