REWIND TO 1982 TEXAS MAKES TURKEYS OUT OF AGGIES
The weather in Austin was cold and raw on Thanksgiving Day, 1982. Misty and forty degrees. But it didn’t take long for the Longhorns to provide Texas fans with a toasty glow, whether or not they had partaken in a nip of amber.
Just a couple of minutes into the game, backed up deep in the north end of the field, the Horns (7-2, ranked 14th) were in a dicey situation at their own 13. Jackie Sherrill, in his first season at Texas A&M, was the highest-paid coach in college ball. At 5-5, the Farmers were striving to beat their despised rival for the third time in four years. Jackie and his players had the Horns right where they wanted ’em.
But Texas had a rare trick up its sleeve. Coach Fred Akers was frequently so conservative as to stand on an eleven in Las Vegas blackjack.
But when senior QB Robert Brewer handed off to halfback Darryl Clark — a 1,000-yard rusher that season — he wasn’t going far. Instead, he stopped and threw long to pint-sized (5-6, 155) speedster Herkie Walls. Eighty-seven yards for a touchdown.
Texas was off and running. Fullback Ervin Davis punched in first quarter TDs of 2, 3 and 27 yards for a feast of a Turkey Day lead — 27-0 — after just fifteen minutes of play. The Horns would eat the Aggies’ lunch and gobble up 279 yards rushing on the day.
As for passing. if you hear that Darryl Clark ended up as UT’s leading passer, with 87 yards, you don’t get the full story. Besides his heroics (he also ran for 137 yards), Texas’ “other” passers were stellar. Brewer and freshman QB Todd Dodge combined with Clark’s 1-1-87 to put up a remarkable 7—11 team statline for 222 yards. And a free Slurp-ee, no doubt. Convenience store humor. In San Antonio, we still call ’em icehouses.
But I digress. How many times did a run-first Texas team ever average more than 30 yards per completion? (Fun fact: When Texas bombed Navy, 28-6, on Jan. 1, 1964, Duke Carlisle was close to that mark…but it took eight completions in 21 attempts, for 234 yards.)
The burnt-orange (candied yam-orange?) put a thorough whipping on the turkeys, er, Aggies this gray day. Star quarterback Gary Kubiak was harassed mercilessly. He and his backup finished with but 14 completions in 41 throws.
When I interviewed Texas’ all-time sack king, Kiki DeAyala, for The History of Longhorn Sports, a few years back, he remembered the ’82 Thanksgiving vividly.
“I sure enjoyed meeting Gary Kubiak on his back and in his backfield several times,” he understated. Kiki rang up three sacks, his teammates added four more and DeAyala posted another tackle for loss, among eleven total tackles. Busy, busy, productive day at the office — on a holiday, even — for a defensive end, don’t ya think?
Since the start of the wishbone era in ’68, Texas had beaten the Ags eleven times in 15 years and nine of those wins qualified as blowouts. Texas had won by 38, 37, 35,29, 29, 29, 21 and 20 in that span. This latest 37-point margin would be UT’s biggest home win over the maroon until a 40-point (49-9) crushing in 2008, courtesy of Colt McCoy and Company.
Allow this writer a personal note, please. The 1982 roasting of A&M on a way-more-than-chilly day is memorable for me not just because of the ‘Horns’ performance. It was the last time my Dad made it to Memorial Stadium to see his alma mater’s boys at play. We had witnessed dozens and dozens of Longhorn W’s and orange towers together. But this one was even sweeter, whipping the Aggies. The car took a while to warm up after the game, and so did we. But we were happy Horn fans. And my Mom’s Thanksgiving dinner — postponed from its usual 1 pm kickoff, starring oyster dressing and several homemade pies along with the usual Thanksgiving taste treats— was gonna be extra good back at my parents’ home in San Antonio.
Forty-three years later, memories of Clark’s surprise pass to Herkie and Kiki’s sack-fest still burn brightly as the tower did.
Everyone has a favorite football memory cooked into the Thanksgiving holidays. What’s yours?
(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 San Antonio.)
