Randy Braband: Turning The Tide, Melting M&M’s

by Larry Carlson https://texaslsn.org

Randy Braband’s car had dodged a bullet, so to speak.

During a heavy overnight June rain, a hefty limb from a San Saba pecan tree in his front yard had landed in the driveway, just missing the vehicle.

I rode shotgun with Jay Arnold this drizzly morning. We motored up Highway 281 past Blanco and Johnson City to Round Mountain, then over to Llano, Cherokee and into San Saba, a speck on your map of westernmost Central Texas. It’s the birthplace of actor Tommy Lee Jones and the self-proclaimed “Pecan Capital of the World.” Uncle JW owned the barber shop on the courthouse square when I was a kid, and Uncle Johnnie B owned a cafe. My buddy Jay had been wanting to introduce me to his pal and Longhorn teammate of long ago and had asked Randy how much notice he’d need if we ever decided to cruise up for lunch. “Just gimme fifteen minutes,” had been Braband’s reply. So now, consent granted a week earlier, we were knocking on the front door.

Time for a quick metaphor. More than fifty years after his last game for Alabama, Wilbur Jackson still owns the Crimson Tide record for career yards per carry, an impressive seven-point-two.

But in the closing moments of the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day 1973, the future first-round NFL draft pick couldn’t dodge Randy Braband on fourth-and-inches. In this case, Jackson was the tree branch in search of doing damage. Braband, number 63 in Texas burnt orange, on the last snap of his excellent Longhorn career, was the driveway. Splat.

That game, a 17-13 UT triumph and Darrell Royal’s final Cotton Bowl victory, ended a moment later, Texas able to run out the clock on Bear Bryant’s team to cap a 10-1 season for the Horns.

***

Randy Braband was inducted into The Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame’s 2025 class in May, along with the likes of Bo Jackson, Jerome Bettis and DeMeco Ryans. And on this soggy day in San Saba, Braband sported a CBHOF golf shirt, shorts, well-seasoned moccasins and a “Spring Woods Alumni Scholarship Golf Tournament” cap.

Fellow Spring Woods alumnus Roger Clemens did alright but he ain’t in the Cotton Bowl Hall. Never even made All-Conference at Texas. Braband did. Twice.

Along with former teammates Steve Worster, Cotton Speyrer and Mike Dean, Braband is one of the rare Cotton Bowl HOF members to have played in three Cotton Bowl classics. They performed during a stretch in which Longhorn football teams won the Southwest Conference and earned the prestigious Cotton invitation each season from 1968-1973.

As we drove around San Saba — it doesn’t take long but Randy wanted to check some of the surrounding roads for rain amounts and plant growth — Randy said he had truly enjoyed the three days of festivities leading up to the induction ceremonies. He told us he hung out mostly with Tony Davis, the former Nebraska running back and new inductee, and cited another inductee, Cotton Bowl Historian Charlie Fiss, for his kindness and congenial manner.

Braband, by the way, was hardly Mr. Congeniality when it came to foes from 1970-72. As a major contributor on the ’70 national champs and ringleader of the ’71 and ’72 SWC titleists, the intense middle linebacker racked up more than 200 career tackles. The Bama game, and the standing up of Jackson, served as a showcase finale. Braband had nineteen tackles versus the Tide.

As we pulled into the parking lot at Casa Del Charro for lunch, I asked Randy about some of his favorite Cotton Bowl moments, in addition to the “Wil-buuurrrr” felling. “Brad Sham asked me the same thing,” he responded, referring to the Voice of the Cowboys and the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame master of ceremonies. “I’d say it was finally getting to eat a Fletcher’s Corny Dog,” he cracked, name-checking every State Fair-goer’s favorite artery clogger.

Randy, like Jay, is a loquacious sort, witty and colorful. He can tell some stories. Most, though, aren’t about football. He’d prefer to expound on the tomatoes he grows (and curse the fact that the wayward pecan limb did manage to clip a few plants), wax poetic about fig trees, elephant ears, date palms and verbena, and even toss out some scientific theories about how meteors and asteroids might have played a role in the formation of springs — way back in the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era — at Mill Pond Park, San Saba’s leafy public retreat from summer heat.

When I bring up a few more topics from his UT football days, Randy smiles broadly about recollections of swimming pool volleyball and swarms of girls over at Worster’s apartment, about good times in his own summer days as a page at the Texas Capitol and about an unlikely pal, Frank Erwin, Jr.

Seems that Erwin, the powerful, sometimes controversial, larger than life character who served on and chaired the UT Board of Regents, occasionally enjoyed getting to know and pal around with some Longhorn players.

One dog day of summer, the story goes, Erwin was looking for a way to enliven a humdrum afternoon. Somebody bet him he couldn’t commandeer the university’s jet by 6 pm, fly it down to Galveston for some “bid-ness,” find time to dine at Gaido’s and make it back to Austin by 11:30. Braband recalls Erwin quickly arranging to reserve the jet, making plans to meet a UT Medical Branch (Galveston) bigwig and getting the party started. Randy even got to bring along the girl he was dating at the time. The seafood, as it always is, was delicious at Gaido’s (Since 1911, as every good Texan knows). “My girlfriend and I even had a little time to walk on the seawall,” Randy laughed.

And you used to wonder how writers such as Dan Jenkins conjured up colorful stories for classics like “Semi-Tough.”

The Professor with Mountains in the background.

After lunch, Jay, Randy and I stood in the shade out by the big fallen limb, Randy still telling stories while checking his beloved tomato plants. Then a neighbor, nice fella who had attended Texas Tech, bless his heart, came over with an offer to get out the chainsaw and clean up the fallen branch. Braband said “hell, yeah,” or something to that effect but did want to tell uno mas tale. About football, actually.

It dated back to 1972 and the defensive huddle against SMU in Austin. Texas, 5-1, ranked ninth, was hosting a Mustang team, 4-2, that featured a speedy pair of running backs. Alvin Maxson and Wayne Morris, the M&M Boys, as they were billed, had homerun capabilities.

When SMU looked dangerously close to scoring a second touchdown (UT’s defense had not allowed any foe in ’72 to score two TDs), sophomore tackle Doug English, according to Braband, became hyper-animated, hyper-worried and jumpy in the defensive huddle. Braband, calling the signals, squinted but couldn’t see around English, playing against his hometown school, to communicate with the sidelines. Perhaps it was the only time Randy got blocked all day. (Writer’s note: Check the stats and you’ll see Braband with eleven tackles, DE Jay Arnold with seven).

DKR and Doug English

After yelling — to no avail — to English to get out of his sightline to the sideline, Braband did what he had to. He head-slapped the 6-5, 250-pound pup out of his way, got the signals, and called ’em.

“English was so mad, he wanted to fight ME,” Randy laughed now, remembering a bowed-up young beast. “He had originally said he was signing with SMU before he changed his mind,” Braband said, “and he didn’t want to lose to those guys. I think English made the next four tackles in their backfield.”

Braband allows another laugh and maybe a hint of a smirk, remembering the headslap heard ’round the huddle.

“Doug grew up that day.”

And the Horns limited the M&M boys and company to a puny 2.2 yards per carry on 47 attempts. Texas prevailed, 17-9.

As English came of age, the Longhorn defense was already a collection of grown-up ballers.

The “D” never did allow more than one touchdown to any of its eleven opponents. It is one of the most impressive statistics in The History of Longhorn Sports. Even in the Horns lone loss, by a misleading 27-0 count against OU, Texas stood tall against a team that had torched UT for 48 in ’71. But a blocked punt for a TD and a fumble to the Sooners at the goal in the closing minutes provided two of three touchdowns.

That ’72 Texas “D,” undoubtedly one of UT’s greatest, featured numerous All-SWC players (either in ’72, ’73 or in both years) including Braband, Arnold, English, LB Glen Gaspard and ends Malcolm Minnick and Bill Rutherford.

And now, long overdue, Randy Braband, the captain and bellcow of the crazy-good 1972 Longhorn stop ’em unit, has joined the immortals, etched forever into Cotton Bowl history.

Ask Randy what stood out most about the terrific three days that he and his guests were treated to in Dallas this spring, and he will tell you “all of it.” But one thing in particular made an impression. The tab for all the sumptuous food and fancy libations was picked up, of course. But Randy is still shaking his head over the price tag he noticed on one item. It was a cherry martini that his female guest enjoyed.

“That thing was 38 bucks,” Braband said, eyes widening.

But here’s the thing. Randy didn’t have to pay.

Unlike Wilbur Jackson on fourth and inches.

(TLSN’s Larry Carlson is a member of the Football Writers Association of America. He teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in his hometown, San Antonio.)