We venture to the 1972 season for the first time this year as we continue the 2023 edition of This Day in UTA Football History. The season opener was covered a week ago in 2017. In short, the Mavericks lost to Southern Mississippi on the road, 38-17.
I've chronicled it many times, and it's in the intro to the linked blog entry, but it is worthy of repetition. UTA is the worst example of a University moving up to the highest level of athletic play. I won't comment on whether the on-campus facility, Memorial Stadium, was an eye sore. I will say the alternative of playing in Turnpike Stadium, later renamed Arlington Stadium when the Washington Senators relocated to Arlington and became the Texas Rangers in the summer of 1972, was terrible.
Even before they had to compete with professional baseball in September, playing in Turnpike/Arlington Stadium was a misfit at best. The stadium had poor sightlines for fans, average player amenities at best, had to work around the infield dirt for the players and the sports media didn't have adequate work space, just to name a few. It got a bit better in later years when the field was moved exclusively to the outfield and the outfield bleacher expansion put the seats well above the field rather than seat level at home plate, but there were administrative challenges of sharing a field with another organization.
From 1970-'76, they played two home games in September total. They played 18 road games in the same span for the month of September. Two more additional games were played at Texas Stadium and one was at the Cotton Bowl. The reason for the Cotton Bowl game was purely an administrative one, as the game should have been at Arlington Stadium. The Dallas Morning News had the following article on August 23, 1974.
Never mind the idea of the 1970's Rangers playing in a World Series, imagine moving to a poor facility while simultaneously not funding the program at higher levels required for increased competition. The fans went from 8,500 to 9,200 per game average with highs of 10,500 to an average of 4,500 rarely climbing above a 8,000 high.
The football team led the charge for the Department, and eventually the Southland Conference, to go to the University Division, now known as Division I. Back then, different sports programs could be at different levels within the same University and the only requirement to go to a higher level was schedule University Division teams at 50 percent or more of your schedule for that sport.
Since the entirety of the SLC was at the College Division, that meant UTA needed to play higher-level schools in non-conference play to achieve their goals. In an 11-game schedule, with five Southland games, every non-league contest had to be against University Division opponents.
So factor in no home games early in the season with the road games against harder teams and what is the logical outcome? A 3-21 record in September while calling Turnpike/Arlington Stadium home. What fan base could survive that?
As far as the Athletic Department went, no team won a conference title in any sport in the 1970's. The supermajority of the time, no team finished in the top half of Southland Conference play. The budget and facilities just weren't there. The University funded its sports programs on a tiered basis, with football getting the most, men's basketball getting a smaller percentage, but more than baseball while the track, tennis and golf teams got enough to make matches and conference meets. As such, football was the closest to opening the door to a conference title.
1972 is a great example of all of this. The payoff to this season was covered in 2017, but the gist is they started the season poorly as detailed above. Interest waned and game attendance was suppressed. However, when conference play began, UTA turned the table and started winning. They ended up second in conference play, highest since 1968.
UTA joined the highest level of the NCAA the year prior. The major opponents included the Western Athletic Conference's UT El Paso (final score 9-38), the Southwest Conference's Texas Christian (0-42), the Mid-American Conference's Toledo (ranked #19 at game time, 0-23) and Bowling Green (17-34), West Texas State (13-0) in the Independent ranks and the Missouri Valley's New Mexico State (6-20). A combined record of 1-5 and a combined score of 45-157 was pretty rough.
They didn't fare much better against the College Division schools on the schedu1e, going a combined record of 1-4 and combined score of 49-122.
Today is an example of playing beyond their skill. Though in a testament to how good the 1972 team actually was, the game was not a blowout. It was the first time UTA would meet up against a team from the Big 8. It was also the only team UTA would play from the Big Eight Conference as a University.
Despite their inconsistent history, today's opponent would have one of their better seasons this year, finishing 7-4 overall and 5-2 in the Big Eight, meaning the final score would actually show how close UTA actually was this year.
The opponent was Oklahoma State. On this day in UTA football history, the Mavericks travel to Stillwater to face the Cowboys.
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