Mostly Treats & One Razor-Bladed Apple by Larry Carlson for https://texaslsn.org

Plenty of orange around Austin and Texas in October. It’s pumpkin time, even it’s not “frost on the punkin'” time, except occasionally up on the High Plains where Floydada reigns as our state’s pumpkin capital. Halloween has forever been a festive time during football season. Costumes in the stands, high octane “cider” in flasks, Monster Mash tailgate goodies, marching bands playing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and neighbors decorating front yards with tombstones for vanquished football foes. It’s all great fun.

But how often do our college football games fall on Halloween?

Not nearly often enough. I went back through the record books, beginning with the Darrell Royal era that kicked off in 1957.

Turns out the Texas Longhorns have played only ten games on October 31st in that span of almost seven decades.

The Horns’ record in those games is, well, scary good. How ’bout nine wins against a single loss? DKR’s teams were 3-0. Fred Akers, David McWilliams, John Mackovic and Tom Herman each had 1-0 marks, Mack Brown went 2-0 and only Charlie Strong took a loss.

Most of the games, due to reliably similar old schedules year-to-year, came against SMU and Texas Tech. Average score? Texas 30, Opponents 17. Let’s stir the cauldron a tad and ladle up a few of the most memorable spook-taculars.

BIGGEST WIN: Halloween ’98 Texas 20 Nebraska 16

It was Mack Brown’s inaugural season and his first signature win.

The setting and stakes were magnificent.

Texas had recovered from a shaky 1-2 start and the loss of its Big XII conference opener. Now, with an unlikely-looking, freckle-faced redshirt freshman quarterback balancing the Ricky Williams-centric offensive attack, the Horns had won four straight and rode into Lincoln as a hot, if still unranked, football team. Defending national champion Nebraska had ruled college football of late, earning natties in ’94, ’95 and ’97. A pesky, underdog 7-4 Longhorn unit had upended the Huskers in St Louis to wreck the N-men’s shot at a ’96 Big XII title and another national crown.

This, though, would be no neutral site.

Texas had not faced Nebraska on its home turf since administering a 20-zip spanking way back in ’59.

These Children of The Corn were an ominous crew, boasting the nation’s longest home winning streak, the fifth longest in history.Most of the games, due to reliably similar old schedules year-to-year, came against SMU and Texas Tech. Average score? Texas 30, Opponents 17. Let’s stir the cauldron a tad and ladle up a few of the most memorable spook-taculars.

Forty-seven games.

It was 48 degrees when the game kicked off in mid-afternoon.

Not one, but two young men who would go on to Heisman glory were rolling up yardage and making clutch plays on this day.

Texas drew first blood in the opening quarter on an Applewhite-to-Derek Lewis TD pass. Yep, the tight end who had haunted Husker fans since he caught James Brown’s daring “Roll Left” pass 22 months ago, was at it again.

The Longhorns clutched an uneasy 10-3 lead at halftime but the Big Red, boosted by its own new freshman QB, coming off the bench, surged to a 13-10 lead by the close of the third period. His name was Eric Crouch and he was a fast, dangerous runner who piled up more than 100 yards in spite of his late entrance.

After the teams traded fourth-quarter field goals, UT had arrived at do-or-die, put up-or-shut-up time. It was almost midway through the final period when the Steers started at their own 15, trailing 16-13, 85 long yards from the end zone.

Nebraska had been making Williams, the nation’s leading rusher, pay a heavy toll in bruising and battering. The Husker D limited him to 150 yards on 37 attempts, holding him sixty yards short of his average and giving him just 28 yards on his 12 fourth-quarter carries.

Applewhite, though, was picking up slack via the airways. Bryan White, the speedy but lightly utilized senior, caught two bombs for 113 yards and wideouts Wane McGarity and Kwame Cavil combined for nine catches and another 120 steps. It was McGarity, with scarcely two minutes remaining, who Major found for a short, zipline two-yard TD that was the winner. Applewhite, under duress as he threw, took a rough blow to the head on the play. After the Texas defense, led by linebackers Anthony Hicks and Dusty Renfro, shut the door on NU’s last hopes, senior QB Richard Walton actually took the victory formation snaps. Texas ran out the clock. The home win streak that had endured more than seven years was history.

Halloween skies were darkening now. The Texas team that had upset college football’s reigning dynasty was likely extremely surprised — if not initially scared — by what they saw as they joyously jogged to their Happy Halloween locker room.

The Nebraska crowd, the school’s biggest ever, was standing for the visitors, saluting the conquering team from down South, clapping appreciatively in respect.

True sportsmanship. No trick. A real treat. So rare in most places that it’s frightful. Not in Lincoln, Nebraska.

THE NIGHTMARE ON AN AMES STREET – 2015: Iowa State 24, Texas 0 in Ames

I was already stuck at a Halloween party I didn’t want to attend.

I mean, it was a cool enough setting. A castle-like, old 1910 mansion in the wooded Hill Country north of San Antonio. But I hardly knew anyone and I was gonna miss the Texas game. This house was illuminated by candles only, for effect, and there was no TV. Gee, what a fun evening of candy corn and awkward conversation.

But when your significanI other says you’re going, well…you’re going.

Texas was already off to a horrifying 3-4 start in ’15, Charlie Strong’s second season as big kahuna. But this was Iowa State. The Cyclones were 2-and-5,

Turned out to be one of UT’s most anemic offensive performances, if you can call it that, ever. Almost made the Horns’ recent OT win againsst Kentucky look like fireworks. Key word there, though is “win.”

The Iowa State Halloween was uglier than Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”

The ‘Clones scored in every quarter and blanked Texas in each one.

Tyrone Swoopes led Texas in passing with 59 yards.

Tyrone Swoopes led Texas in rushing with 58 yards.

Very scary. The Shining? Psycho? Silence of The Lambs?

Nope, ’twas the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But shot on location, in bloody technicolor, far from The Lone Star State, at Jack Trice Stadium, up in the land of whispering cornfields with not an enchilada platter in sight.

It’s been ten long years. Still a night that can conjure nightmares.

Abject defeat is a terrifying, traumatic thing.

Longhorn backers hope to never see its stealthy shadow again.

ALSO NOTABLE

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HALLOWEEN 2020: Texas 41 Oklahoma St 34, Overtime

Ahhh, autumn leaves were in the late afternoon air on Halloween . But so was Covid-19. So scarcely 14,000 fans were allowed into T Boone Pickens Stadium to witness a Halloween afternoon thriller.

It seems so long ago but it was just five calendar years.

Longhorns such as Jake Smith and Keanontay Ingram scored big touchdowns. D’Shawn Jamison jetted 100 yards on a kick return TD in the third quarter.

Texas had traveled north of the Red River with a 3-2 mark, having lost by two to TCU, then falling to OU in four overtimes. Mike Gundy’s OSU Cowboys, meanwhile, rode tall in the saddle, unbeaten and ranked number six in the USA.

The back-and-forth contest featured four lead changes. The Pokes led 24-20 after a wild, woolly first half. And they slightly increased the edge to 31-26 in the third quarter after dependable Cameron Dicker missed a PAT. And the Cowboys, in their traditional orange-and-black Halloween uniforms, were clamping the chains on the future Doak Walker award winner Bijan Robinson to 59 yards.

But Texas took a fourth quarter edge when Sam Ehlinger hit Smith for a TD, then Cade Brewer for a two-point conversion. Undaunted, OSU nailed a last-play, 34-yard field goal to force overtime.

That’s when Ehlinger, who had been absolute money as almost a one-man OT team in the soul-crushing loss to OU, came up big with a TD pass to WR Joshua Moore. Joseph Ossai, who had a monster game for the UT “D,” fittingly extinguished Oklahoma State’s final shot at victory with a fourth down sack.

The Rest Of The Candy In The Bag

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1959: Texas 21, SMU 0 in Dallas

Unbeaten, fourth-ranked Texas — it was DKR’s first great UT squad — dominated the Mustangs on a cool, breezy day at the Cotton Bowl. As running backs by committee, Clair Branch, Mike Dowdle and Jack Collins rolled up 175 yards. Collins’ fellow soph, Jimmy Saxton, threw a TD pass, kicked one PAT and was in on five tackles.

1964: Texas 7, SMU 0 in Austin

Call it a win as unsightly as a witch, hook-nosed and warts included.

A 1-4 Mustang team hung with sixth-ranked UT (5-1), stifling the Texas offense at every turn. Tailback Ernie Koy was jammed up for just 78 yards on 25 carries and the Horns completed one of eight passes. Fortunately, the trusty burnt orange defense, led by Pete Lammons and Tommy Nobis, shut out the Ponies.

1970: Texas 42, SMU 15 in Austin

The defending national champs, 5-0 and number one, started fast with a 72-yard TD run by Jim Bertelsen. But the gritty Ponie s, 3-3, stayed within a few furlongs until the relentless UT ground attack pulled away in the fourth. All-Planet FB Steve Worster blasted for four TDs and 144 yards while Bertelsen ran for 139. Linebackers Stan Mauldin and Scott Henderson teamed with soph DB Alan Lowry for 33 tackles.

1981: Texas 26, Texas Tech 9 in Austin

A light rain fell as sixth-rated Texas (5-1) slipped past an uncharacteristically weak (1-6) Red Raider team. Halfback Rodney Tate sped to a 52-yard touchdown in the first period but the Horns had to rely on Raul Allegre’s four field goals in a game that should not have been this tricky.

1987: Texas 41, Texas Tech 27 in Austin.

Neither team had impressive credentials. Tech was 3-4 and UT came in at 3-3 but was unbeaten in SWC play. Still, there was no shortage of Halloween vitriol. Texas coach David McWilliams, former Longhorn captain and assistant coach, had been the boss in Lubbock a year earlier when the Raiders beat Texas and effectively ended Fred Akers’ decade on the Forty Acres. Fans in red and black felt betrayed and hoped for payback. The Raiders started hot, blocking a punt for a TD in the opening minutes. But Texas, guided by QB Bret Stafford, owned a 17-13 halftime edge. Then the Horns’ always fiery senior captain, safety John Hagy, took over. The San Antonian scored on both an INT and a punt return. Texas blew the game open with 23 third-quarter points and cruised in for a big win in a season capped by an upset win over Pitt in the Bluebonnet Bowl two months later.

1992: Texas 44, Texas Tech 33 in Lubbock

The Longhorns were mostly in control after midway in the second period but the game never got out of reach. Senior QB Peter Gardere had already earned UT immortality three weeks earlier when he guided Texas to its fourth straight “W” over hated OU. On this day he sealed things with two TD runs in the final quarter. Scott Szeredy was big off the tee box, connecting on field goals of 46, 40 and 31 yards.

2009: Texas 41, Oklahoma State 14 in Stillwater

The 14th-ranked Cowboys (6-1) got tormented by the third-ranked Longhorns’ (7-0) defense and their own offensive foul-ups.

Yes, UT QB Colt McCoy was a crisp 17-of-24 passing, but the Horns scored 28 points off Cowboy turnovers. Earl Thomas and Curtis Brown cashed in on pick-six plays and Texas rolled to a 34-point lead after three quarters. These Horns would go on to an unbeaten regular season and play for a national title in January.

(TLSN’s Larry Carlson is a member of The Football Writers Association of America. He teaches sports media at Texas State University and prefers spirits to trick-or-treat candy. Write him at lc13@txstate.edu)