M. Barney Lewellyn, coach. Lewellyn served as head football coach from 1947 to 1951. During that five year span, Lewellyn's teams won three SDIC Championships (1947, 1948, 1951) and posted an impressive 22-13-4 record. His 1951 team was one of the greatest in Tech football history. That team went undefeated at 8-0, and outscored their opponents 158-35. The final game in Lewellyn's coaching career at Tech was a 20-7 win over arch-rival Black Hills State at O'Harra Stadium before over 4,000 fans.
 Lewellyn closed out his career at SD Mines by going 8-0 in 1951, last time SD Mines had an unbeaten team.
"We won championships (South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference) in 1947 and 1948 and then went unbeaten in 1951. We just had great players. Doc Goodell was a top-notch athletic director, and Bob Hunt was a first-class assistant."
Highlights from the 1951 season, as reported by the Rapid City Journal:
* School of Mines 19, Huron College 0: Doug Blackwell (one yard), Gene Skinner (two yards) and Bill Yates (one yard) scored TDs for the Hardrockers, who rolled up 320 yards rushing.
* School of Mines 32, Dakota Wesleyan 7: A hard-socking, hard-rocking bunch of rollicking Miners racked up their second straight victory. Chuck Binney's 75-yard run opened the scoring, which was followed by TDs from Skinner, Blackwell (2) and Bob Turner.
* School of Mines 22, Southern State 7: Coach Barney Lewellyn's Hardrockers used a staunch defense, a nickel-and-dime offense, mixed it with a super-abundance of just plain scrap and roosted atop the SDIC football race.
* School of Mines 19, Valley City Teachers 14: The Miners got the scare of their lives in the third and fourth quarters when they let down. Blackwell scored twice and Binney one for Tech.
* School of Mines 14, General Beadle 0: Fog, sleet and a sloppy field failed to halt the School of Mines. Stymied on the ground, quarterback Jim Smith threw for 72 yards and Blackwell scored twice.
* School of Mines 26, Sioux Falls College 0: A lethargic School of Mines 11 huffed, puffed, sputtered and finally exploded for 20 points in the last quarter for its fifth straight SDIC win. Binney and Skinner each scored a pair of TDs.
* School of Mines 6, Dickinson 0: Blackwell's 53-yard run on an icy field in 10-degree temperatures was the only score.
* School of Mines 20, Black Hills Teachers 7: "A football is an odd-shaped piece of sports equipment and nobody can tell which way it will bounce," wrote Journal Sports Editor Bill Hockstedler. "Nobody knows that any better today than the Black Hills Teachers. They sputtered, stumbled, fumbled and finally fell to the School of Mines, 20-7, before 4,000 fans at O'Harra Stadium. The win gave the Miners their first unblemished, undefeated season since 25 years ago. They also won the SDIC championship and brought the Homestake Mining Company's traveling trophy to Rapid City for the first time in its four-year existence."
"We weren't speed burners, but we hit guys," said Lewellyn. "We didn't have flashy quarterbacks and we didn't throw much, but they were good."
