Coming into this installment, UTA was 0-6. They started the first four games on the road, at Southern Mississippi (38-17), Oklahoma State (21-3), Toledo (38-24) and TCU (38-14). No September home games.
Then the first home game was against the pre-season conference favorites Louisiana Tech. The Bulldogs showed why they were pegged number one with a 35-14 win in front of 7,300 at Arlington Stadium. While that was a number that was really good for the team during the tenure at the stadium, it would look quite empty in a baseball-shaped facility for 35,000. It would also be the highest attended game of the year (Note the attendance of today's game).
The final opponent prior to today's game was New Mexico State. It was a road loss 17-12, and was more akin to what they Mavericks were capable of doing. Had they played more even opponents, and played more in Arlington, there would have been far greater success in the 1970's.
Look at those opponents closer. Anyone think the under-funded UTA squads of the decade (especially the first half) were on par with a Big 8 school? A Southwest Conference school? Southern Miss was a high-level independent and Toledo was a Mid-American Conference favorite who had three-consecutive undefeated seasons prior to this year.
In the end, I have only small issues with the opponents. UTA did best TCU twice in six tries. The Mavs were within two TD's of Tolefo and Southern Miss always seemed to be a hair better than UTA every time.
My issue is that all those games were road games. Hard to beat so many teams at their place. In the 1970's, UTA won four September road games. Yes, that's four road games for a whole decade. That's a winning percentage of .154! Considering they played five true September home games during that period (and won only two) it's amazing they had any kind of fan support. I don't think any team or school could weather that kind of futility and lack of local exposure.
Today will be the second home game of the season, and it marks the end of October. Later on, starting in 1973, UTA would play North Texas in Texas Stadium, but even then, that accounts for only five more games in DFW. One of those was in October so home town fans saw UTA a total of nine times in September the entire decade. They were 1-3 in those September Texas Stadium games so one month into a three-month season and UTA claimed a total of seven wins in 36 games over the month of September for an entire decade! This football team was more likely to have zero wins in the month than multiple.
The irony is some of those games were winnable. Had UTA went to Toledo in 1971 and hosted the Rockets this year, could have been a different story. I'm convinced the Mavs could have overtaken the Aggies had they not been in Las Cruces. For a program that was a perennial 5-6 team (four times in seven years), that one or two games could have made a huge difference.
Could it have been enough to save the program in the end? There's no way to truly know, but the rational side of me thinks there's a great chance. The 1972 team is a great example of how terrible scheduling can make a decent team look bad, especially early on in the yearly campaign.
We won't know yet, but on this day in UTA football history, the Mavs look for their first win at home against Southwestern Louisiana.
Taken from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, 10-29-71.
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