As I mentioned in game 1 of the seventh Volume of This Day in UTA Football History, several of this year's entries will break my general rules for this series. This week, primarily it's to avoid doing the same season two weeks in a row.
In 2017, I covered the season opener for the 1972 season. Seeing as how the other two qualifying seasons didn't start the season until next week, that leaves the 1978 season as the only candidate for today's entry.
Coming off the disappointing loss in the season opener against Drake where they lost four fumbles and came inches short on a last-minute drive, UTA was set to host long-time rival West Texas State. As mentioned last week, they were set to open the season at Cravens Field on the campus of Lamar High School.
The Buffalos, now known West Texas A&M, and UT Arlington football have been long intertwined. Until the end of the football program, no non-conference opponent met the Rebels/Mavericks more the WTS. New Mexico State is a close second at 18. In fact, counting conference opponents, the Buffs are tied with McNeese in third place. Starting in 1978, West Texas trailed only Arkansas State and Lamar, both long time Southland Conference foes, as the most played opponent. WTS was in the upper division when the series began in the 1960's and was key to UTA's ability to also move up, which required over half the schedule be against major division opponents. The UTA as we know it today would be vastly different than what would have been if not for WTS.
The teams met every year from 1962 to '84, save for '65, 1973, '74 and '82. I'm not sure what happened in 1973, as the '72 UTA guide shows the teams playing on October 13, 1973. That turned into an open date for UTA in a season where they played one less than the maximum number of games allowed. The West Texas A&M record book shows they played a full 11-game schedule with an open date on the 13th. I've never seen why the game wasn't played. I can assume a few things, but that is it.
Going back to the season opener, Coach Harold "Bud" Elliott commented on the high number of turnovers when he said, "we weren't as good as we had intended to be." I certainly never saw any of his games in person, and only seen clips here and there but I can tell over his ten-year prior, untimely turnovers and penalties were a hallmark of his time on the UTA sidelines.
I find that odd because he was a winning coach before coming to Arlington, going 64-27-11 in ten seasons as a coach for several NAIA teams in Kansas. He received some type of coach of the year four times in that span. I've not seen even box scores from those times, but it is hard to have success with an excessive number of turnovers and penalties. In ten years of coaching the Mavs, he had a similar body of work almost every season. I chronicled many of the missteps in this post. Unfortunately, that carries over into today's game. Spoiler alert, today's game is in the misstep post.
There was good news though. In the loss to Drake, junior quarterback Roy Dewalt showed he was ready to carry his weight after the departure of All-American fullback Derrick Jensen. He ran for 77 yards, threw for 93 and scored all three touchdowns, two on the ground and one via the air. The defense was able to hold the Bulldogs to less total yards than the Mavericks, despite being on the field far longer.
West Texas State was coached by Bill Yung, who was entering 1978 as a second-year coach. The team's 6-4-1 record in 1977, Yung's first, was only the second winning season since 1971 and first in three years. They played in the Missouri Valley Conference. The 1977 mark was good for a conference title, their first outright title since a 1950 Border Conference title. They were an independent for ten years in the drought and went to a few bowl games, so the over quarter century wasn't full of total futility.
They did lose some talent, but a 28-10 loss against Mississippi State showed promise. That Bulldog team ended with a winning record and played in the Southeastern Conference. Expectations were high for a good UTA performance at Cravens in their home opener, based on the talent they had.
On this day in UTA football history, the Mavericks square off for the 14th time against the West Texas State Buffaloes.
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