The football History of the Texas-TCU series by Professor Larry Carlson with comments by Billy Schott.

TEXAS-TCU SERIES:

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY

One by one, the old Southwest Conference rivalries are dying off. The old SWC died following the 1995 season, with UT as the final champion. The new, expansive Big XII lined up for the first time the next autumn and again, Texas won the title.

The annual games against Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech have largely continued throughout the decades but the tombstones of those storied series will soon be covered with weeds and mold. Texas said “Adios” to Baylor with a 38-6 bear-bash in September. The coming weekend will end the yearly matchups against TCU, and the Tech series, as an annual event, will drop the curtains on Black Friday Night.

The Western theme in place, tumbleweeds already looming, it’s time to shout out to my favorite all-time actor, Clint Eastwood, with a football version of his most famous “spaghetti” western. But we’ll go backwards, from the Ugly, to the Bad, then the Good.

THE UGLY

By far the ugliest, most painful defeat in the series annals was dealt to the Horns by a lackluster TCU squad with that came in with only two wins in late November 1961.

Texas, number one in the country, had whipped up on eight straight teams, hardly breaking a sweat. The closest margin of victory had come in a 28-7 dusting of OU.

Jimmy Saxton, the fleet-footed jackrabbit from Palestine, was America’s most dangerous breakaway runner. He would finish the year as UT’s first running back to earn All-America status, and his 7.9 hards per carry was so unearthly that it stood as a UT record for six decades, finally edged out by Bijan Robinson.

But Nov. 18 turned out to be a dark day in Austin.

TCU won, 6-0, and there seemed to be a malevolent tone to

the Horned Frogs route to victory that day. Here is the link to that game

https://www.texaslsn.org/1961-tcu-texas-and-saxton

THE BAD

More often than any other ancient SWC foe, Texas Christian has played the bad guy to UT’s good guys in white hats. When Texas achieved its first number one ranking in November ’41, having outscored six opponents by an aggregate score of 230-27, the Horns’ starters showed up as cover boys on LIFE magazine.

Jinx. A Baylor team that would win only three times that fall got in the way and tied mighty Texas, 7-7, in Waco.

What followed in seven days was even worse. A very solid TCU team beat the Horns, 14-7, in Memorial Stadium, ending UT’s hopes for the national crown.

It was of only slight consolation that the Longhorns then went on the road and shut out the second-ranked Aggies. Or that they finished the season, one day before Pearl Harbor changed the world, by annihilating a good Oregon team, 71-7.

TCU’s Horned Frogs had wrecked the ’41 Steers’ shot at immortality.

The Horns won 9 of the next 15 in the series before a young Darrell Royal arrived at the Forty Acres. Despite winning his first duel with legendary coach Abe Martin, DKR’s Horns held only a 6-5 margin in Royal’s first eleven contests against the dudes from Fort Worth. No other team was that successful against Royal.

The 1959 game was a bitter one for Texas, 8-0 and ranked second in the country.

In the earliest snowfall on record in Austin, 18th-ranked TCU pulled off a 14-9 upset, costing the Steers an outright SWC title and potential national glory.

Texas won by a baseball score of 3-2 in ’60 but the game Royal would remember as his toughest loss ever came the following season in Austin.

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MORE OF THE BAD….AFTER ’61

This writer, as a youngster, also had to witness upsets of UT in Austin in ’65 and ’67, again by TCU teams with losing records. But since those were also subpar years for Texas teams (both went 6-4) it wasn’t as costly. But it was certainly no fun.

Even the fact that Longhorn All-American Chris Gilbert slashed through the Frogs for a 96-yard touchdown run in ’67 wasn’t enough to keep “the cockroaches” down. Texas blew a 17-6 lead entering the fourth quarter, the Frogs hopping to 17 unanswered points. The big domino that triggered the collapse was a 78-yard punt return TD by the swiftest Frog, Bubba Thornton. Recognize the name? You should.

Thornton went on to a superlative track and field coaching career, spearheading TCU from 1982-1995. Then Texas poached the all-star coach and he headed the excellent Longhorn program from 1996-2013.

Thornton, by the way, will be inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco next April.

There were only two dark marks for Texas against TCU for about 40 years, from 1968-2011, though the series was sidelined for more than a decade when the North Texans got squeezed out of the new Big XII.

One big bruise came in ’75, though Texas beat TCU in Austin, 27-11. But the nation’s first All-American QB to command a wishbone rig, Marty Akins, went down early in the first half with a bad knee injury.

Then when Texas battled A&M in its regular season finale, Akins tried to play but was cracked hard by the Aggie defense very early. A freshman QB not suited to the option was thrown in the fire and A&M came away victorious for only the second time against UT in Royal’s first 19 years. If there is a bright footnote to that, it is that Arkansas then crushed the Ags, earned the Cotton Bowl berth and allowed Texas to take a share of the SWC crown. And Marty, though his mobility was severely limited, was able to go out triumphantly in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl. Thanks to Akins’ inspiration and the play of Earl and Tim Campbell and Russell Erxleben, the Horns came back from a 21-7 halftime deficit to stampede the Colorado Buffaloes, 38-21.

So the only loss for Texas in a quarter-century span against TCU came in 1992, the first year of John Mackovic’s tenure in Austin. The Steers fell, 23-14 in Fort Worth, ending a 24-game winning streak in the series that had long ago ceased to qualify as a rivalry.

That was about all the really bad stuff from Fort Worth until Gary Patterson’s Killer Frogs joined the Big XII in the 2012. Patterson, who coached TCU for more than two decades and won six titles in three conferences, was UT’s biggest tormentor, rougher on the Longhorns than was OU’s Bob Stoops. Patterson’s Purple Reign handed Texas seven losses in nine tries. The visored one was Charlie Strong’s personal demon, beating the Strong-horns by counts of 48-10, 50-7 and 31-9. Suffice it to say that Patterson’s TCU crew hammered home the last nail in Strong’s coaching coffin at UT.

It would be nice to say that, as it did with Bubba Thornton, things improved when Patterson left TCU for Texas, as a special assistant in 2022. But curiously, a Texas team equipped with the unmatched rushing tandem of Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson, elected to run the ball only 22 times and gained a puny 28 yards in a loss to the eventual College Football Playoff runner-up. But that one wasn’t on Patterson, who helped hold the potent, Max Duggan-led Horned Frogs to a slim 17-10 margin over UT.

THE GOOD

Well, for starters…Texas leads the series 63-28-1, a margin broader than T’Vondre Sweat.

And know this: Fred Akers was a perfect 10-0 against the Purple. David McWilliams followed in his unbeaten frog-steps, five-for-five against TCU.

Circle back to Darrell Royal, so often nagged by failures against the Toads. But as soon as DKR installed the wishbone offense, his teams romped to victory in Royal’s last nine matchups against TCU.

Matter of fact, it was never close. In the first seven games of the wishbone, UT won by an average score of 52-7. That span included three consecutive shutouts (1970-72) and an absolute humiliation of the Frogs on their home field in ’74. Texas put the wood to the sad sack Froggies that time, 81-16.

I remembered that game quite well, just from the radio, perched that day in the neck of a post oak on Daddy’s land near the South Texas hamlet of Stockdale. My buddy Pat and I were planning to sell a few cords of wood for Christmas money, sawing up plenty of dead wood. We enjoyed the heck out of the Texas stomp. But it was almost as long a day for Pat and me, as it was for TCU. Y’see, we did not have chainsaws. Nope. We had a cross-cut saw. You might say we kinda wished we had that one back, sore as our shoulders and arms were the next day.

But I digress.

My buddy Billy Schott long ago spun some memorable tales of that Cowtown blowout, the last regular season road game of his three years as UT’s kicker. Texas was coming off a mega-upset loss to Baylor, ending a six-year run of SWC championships for the Burnt Orange.

So I called Billy last week, asking him to recount some memorable moments among the 81 points piled up.

I seemed to remember that Billy — always practicing as a wide receiver — had indeed etched his name into the UT receivers’ roster that day, and that while he was perfect on extra point kicks, Texas wasn’t.

Let Billy “Sure” Schott pick up the narrative from November ’74 at Amon Carter Stadium.

BILLY SCHOTT’S RECALL OF ’74: TEXAS 81 TCU 16

I think we were up something 52-0 at half and while we were warming up for the second half, we weren’t sure TCU was going to come back out. Seemed like we were about to line up for the kickoff when they finally meandered out to their sideline. Then…Alfred Jackson returned the second half kickoff for another TD for us.

To set the extra point story…Pat Padgett and I had been hoping for this opportunity since our freshman year in ’71. He was a pretty good left-footed kicker and instead of a kicking shoe, he had an old hiking boot that he’d bring to practice and kick a few while I held for him. Pat could hit it from 40 or so yards out, and our freshman coach, the beloved Bill Ellington, would always do “Coke bets” that Pat would miss…and Coach Ellington rarely lost. There was a soda cooler in the coaches’ locker room that we would occasionally get rewarded from and we coveted those little 7-ounce Coca-Colas. I think by the time we got to November ’74, Pat owed Coach Ellington something like 248 Cokes. As the score mounted against TCU, I got on the headset to the coaching booth high atop Amon G Carter Stadium and told Coach Ellington that I was going to put this plan into action if we scored again. Coach had always told Pat that if he ever tried a kick in a game, all would be settled. After our last touchdown, a 34-yard pick six by Sammie Mason, I was jogging past Coach Royal and said, “We’re gonna switch…” and made a back-and-forth hand gesture. Coach looked puzzled, threw up his hands and said, “What?” “Padgett and I are gonna switch.”

DKR:”Just kick the sumbitch.” I handed Pat the tee as we trotted out and he muttered, “I wish I had my damn hikin’ boot…” Pat set the tee while I took his customary place in the huddle and called out the command, “Extra point on center snap, ready…” Half the guys were yapping, “What’re you doing, Schott? Where’s Padgett?” and so on. “Ready, break!”

Some of the guys were looking back at me as I knelt at the ten yard line and waited for Pat to nod that he was ready. Our deep snapper, Rick Burleson, signaled that he was ready, and I called out, “Set!” and awaited Rick’s snap. It was delivered perfectly, I set the ball on the tee, spun the laces forward and Pat approached the ball. And I hear, “Aw sh*t!” as Pat’s left toe dragged the ground and the ball bounced off Burleson’s right butt cheek. As we trotted off the field, Coach Royal just chuckled a bit and shook his head. At least he had a sense of humor about it.

That left the score at 79-9 and many folks surmised that we intentionally missed the PAT to keep it under 80.

Nope. They wound up soon fumbling and recovering in their own end zone for a safety.

The final score ended up 81-16.

Padgett was and still is one of the most competitive guys I’ve known, and he was pissed at himself…especially when Coach Ellington called me on the headset and said, “Get that little turd on the phone…” I handed the set to Pat. He put the earpiece to his ear and goes, “WHAT?,” and then throws the headset. All I could hear from it was raucous laughter from the booth. Finally, Coach Ellington says, “We’re done up here.We’re coming down so I can can start collecting from that little sh*t.”

SCHOTT’S CATCH

After four years of running routes on the scout team, I kept bugging Coach Royal, and he said, “Hell, we don’t have anyone who can throw it.”I kept pleading and said, “The Blade can throw a waggle, Coach. I’ve caught a bunch from him in practice.” He relented and allowed me to call out the play to Walter “The Blade” Rowan, our fourth-team QB who was built like a javelin, hence the nickname. The Blade took the snap, made a quick fake to the fullback and laid the ball perfectly out in front of me where I could make a diving catch and roll into the TCU team area. A bunch of their guys came over and helped me up, patted me on the back and said things like, “Nice catch, Schott…way to go!” Again, showed me why they were getting killed out there. Anyway that memorable catch tied me with four other teammates for 6th in receiving on the 1974 team. Padgett was our leading receiver with 12 catches on the year. By comparison, Jordan Shipley holds the Texas single game record with 15 catches against Oklahoma State in 2008. My, how times have changed.

— Billy Schott, UT placekicker

Back to Larry Carlson

Allow me, dear reader, to add a couple of personal memories — for more of “The Good” –from my early days of covering the Horns and Horned Frogs for Austin’s KVET Radio:

1977: The Horns, in Fred Akers’ first year on the Forty, had led Texas to the number one spot in the nation that fall. First, there was Earl Campbell, bulling and bullying his way toward the Heisman. And the defense was going gangbusters. But the man-under spot had been a wild ride. Starter Mark McBath and super-backup Jon Aune had both gone out for the season in the first half of the OU game. Randy McEachern famously filled in and Texas continued to roll to an 8-0 record. But Randy got dinged up against Houston, so now the next man up was tall, skinny Sammy Ansley, a true freshman who, though obviously very talented, was not expected to see the field in ’77, not back in August.

Anyway, the curly-headed kid from Cypress-Fairbanks connected with Johnny Lam Jones for a 56-yard TD to calm the jitters early and Texas rolled to a 21-zip lead at the end of one quarter. Ansley also ran for 64 yards on 13 carries, scoring once. Sammy and the Steers cruised, 44-14. I had a press box pass for an intern, as usual, that week, who would assist me in setting up for the post-game Longhorn Locker Room.

This time the guy was older. Name was Everett Carlson. I usually called him Daddy, but tried not to that night. If the great Bill Little, piloting things in the press box, noticed, he didn’t call me out. I got to provide a token of thanks to my Dad, for taking me to the UT games for 17 years before I took him to one.

Anyway, Ansley started again the next week against Baylor, though Randy used that afternoon to shake off some rust in a return to action as a tune-up for the big game with the Aggies. Texas beat the Bears handily, 29-7. Ansley, like James Street, Duke Carlisle and Rob Moerschell — and Maalik Murphy — is undefeated as a Longhorn starting QB.

1978: We were in Fort Worth. Texas was 6-2, coming off a heartbreak 10-7 loss to Houston, the Horns’ only conference defeat. TCU came in at 2-7. My real intern had set up the locker room mic for testing before the game. Before the Horns ran out for the kickoff, the defense was in a particularly nasty mood.

I heard Bill Acker, usually pretty quiet, yell this out: “These guys are a bunch of worthless losers! We can’t let ’em score a point.” Then his Buckaroo brother from Freer, fellow DT Steve McMichael, bellowed this: “Score?! Hell no, they’re not gonna even get a first down!”

Well, BamBam didn’t get his way. TCU did muster some first downs. But the Longhorns blanked the hapless Frogs, 41-0. It was just one of six shutouts the Horns’ defense pitched at the Frogs during that memorable 24-game win streak from ’68-’91.

For 2023, though, the rivalry series goal Saturday night is one in a row. Modest and ambitious at the same time. Cowtown, get ready.