The Slide Continues

I didn't post about the UT Arlington volleyball team last week because they played only one match against the worst team in the Western Athletic Conference. They swept Southern Utah, which I said in the most recent volleyball post that UTS needed to sweep SUU for the Mavericks to be in contention for a second WAC title. However, sets two and three were too close for a WAC contender. UTA held the Thunderbirds to 13 in the first set, but 20 and then 21 in the last two. 

Looking at the box score, offensively, UTA did very well. The top three UTA kill leaders would have led SUU. Same with assists, which is understandable as they go hand-in-hand with kills. Blocks were about even. UTA continued to excel in aces against their opponent. What stood out to me was digs. Junior libero Samantha Glenn has been doing well all season and recorded 21 in three sets. After her though, the team only grabbed 23. Glenn had almost as many as the rest of the team combined. Two Mavericks logged six digs, one kept four balls alive and no other Mav grabbed more than two.

That may be the biggest difference from last year. UTA could count on three to five ladies to keep the ball alive at any given time.

After the SUU win, the Mavs were 1-0 in conference play and had the two remaining Texas WAC schools left. And the bottom dropped out.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 5 - Returning Home

The last time we checked into the 1980 UT Arlington football team, they started the season 0-2 after a loss to Northwestern State with a date looming against national powerhouse Southern Methodist University.

Resetting the stage. 1980 was the first year Maverick Stadium opened. The year prior, the Mavs were 9-2 and one point away from an Independence Bowl bid and a Southland Conference title. Momentum was high and if the cards were played right, this really could have set the program up for long-term success.

Instead, after a thumping to debut the stadium, they went on the road for two games and had a bye week, mirroring the problems with how the program was run in the 1970's. A month into the season and UTA was 0-3 with only one home game, a loss at that.

I'll reveal a little more than I normally would and say today's home game drew 6,328. The opponent was the Drake Bulldogs, who really wouldn't draw for the local crowd on name alone. However, the momentum I mentioned should have been enough, but that 0-3 first month was a disaster for the gate. Of six home games in the debut year, this was the third lowest. That is bad using any metric for the second game of the season.

There's no way to verify this belief, but I'd bet if this game were the second game of the season against Drake, or the Northwestern State game played in Natchitoches was put it in Arlington the second week of the year, the crowd would have been larger. I don't know if it would have been five digits large, but 8,000 plus or over 9,000 doesn't seem far-fetched to me. 

Instead, they gave fans and supporters the same feelings and circumstances as the previous decades of futility. "There's always next year," to start October is a poor way to generate excitement or even build a foundation of excitement.

Low energy and all, on this day in UTA football history, the Mavericks host the Drake Bulldogs in 1980.

Taken from the Dallas Morning News, October 5th, 1980.

As for the fantasy 1986 season, today's opponent was scheduled to be ... no one. UTA was slated for a bye week with a probable 3-1 record or better. However, it did not happen on this date in UTA football history.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 4 - Home Sweet Home?

As September comes to a close, this day in UTA football history looks at the 1969 team for the first time, sort of. Last week's entry was a link to the 2014 counterpart that opened the season, a 17-3 win. Back in the 1960's, the football season often started after the halfway mark of this month. 

I'll let last week's version set the stage for the year, but I do want to add some refreshers. The 1960's were the most successful decade in UTA football history, and it isn't close. In this decade, the Mavericks were 57-42-1, a winning percentage of .575. And that's with one win in 1963 and three wins in '64.

To compare, in the 1970's, UTA had a winning percentage of .370 while the shortened decade of the 1980's was .432. No doubt that number would have been better after 1986, as we'll discuss in a moment. 

Ouch!

The Maverick Rambler has mentioned several times this year that it seemed the UT Arlington volleyball team was playing with fire, losing sets to teams they should not have. Though they won most of the matches prior to this weekend, it wasn't pretty. There has been one sweep this year and on paper, there should have been more if this is a conference championship contending team. All that came to a head this past weekend. I gave my fears more than fuel about how the next two months in conference play will shake out.

I don't say this lightly, but this may have been the worst weekend in program history from a performance standpoint. I mentioned in the last volleyball post that the team would travel to San Antonio to participate in UTSA's Roadrunner Classic. The participating teams weren't stacked but should have been on UTA's general level.

The tournament started out poorly as the Mavericks and the hosts squared off. As I said, these two squads should have been near parity, but the Roadrunners won the match in a sweep. Only the second set was close, if a four-point loss is considered close. At 15-25, 21-25 and 13-25, the Roadrunners dominated. 

While some content that UTSA elevation into the American Athletic Conference makes this less of competitive match, UTA volleyball is a premiere sport on campus. It is the only fall team sport. Top 50 if not 25 all-time winning percentage across the entirety of the NCAA, appeared in a national championship postseason tournament 17 times since its founding, another two Invitational postseason tournaments and has produced numerous All-Americans all mean a little more than just conference pecking order. Especially when one considers the success attained last year. UTA faithful would not be surprised with a win against any school. 

But, the weekend was still salvageable and UTA could ride into Western Athletic Conference play on a high note. But it went the exact opposite way.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 3 - Repeat

For those who follow the Maverick Rambler's This Day in UTA Football History, you know I try to follow a few general rules. Unfortunately, one of those will be broken today. Specifically, I try to avoid multiple games in a row from the same season. I just have no other choice.

There are two things working against me in this week. First, to refresh, there are only three season to choose from. That in and of itself makes that guideline difficult. But, as for today specifically, it is one of only two dates I can recall between the second week in September and the second to last week in November to have only one game. It is uncommon to have a bye week in September. However, 1975 and 1980 both had a bye week today.

Ironically, the first season to qualify, 1969, is the only game that was every played by an Arlington State / UT Arlington football team on September 20.

First Miss

As I mentioned in the last post about the UT Arlington volleyball team, it had been almost one year since the last regular season loss for the Mavericks. While I have pointed out a few times this year's schedule was not chock full of world beaters, but you play who you play. 

This past weekend was the first home sighting for the Mavericks as they partook in the UNT-UTA Invitational. In years past, it's just been the UTA Invitational (as well as the UTA Classic) so I'm not sure what occurred to cause UTA to join forces with North Texas.

Friday opened with another familiar foe as, like in past weeks, a former Southland Conference rival squared off against the Mavericks. Northwestern State is not a good volleyball school and into this match in Denton at 1-8. It was another match that made me think the Mavericks are just not quite there as five sets were needed to pull out the win. The Demons have had one winning record in the prior five years and it doesn't look like that will change in 2025.

The List Grows

While looking for something unrelated, I found a women's flag football tidbit last week that I wanted to share. I mentioned in my initial entry when talking about the next sport coming to the UT Arlington portfolio that there were not many schools in Texas and certainly not as many NCAA institutions near UTA that sponsored the sport at the time.

However, there were some folks that were optimistic that number would grow. At the time, the only known NCAA schools Division I were Alabama State, Long Island University, Mercyhurst and Mount Saint Mary's. The known Texas school was Concordia University.

There have been so many additions to the sport since then that keeping up and staying current is turning into a labor of love. It's also one that has been missed by me too often with so many new programs getting their announcement.