The 1968 UT Arlington Rebels make their third and final appearance today in the 2024 edition of This Day in UTA Football History. This is the second time 1968 has appeared in the series, with the first coming in 2013. In that year, I mentioned this was one of my favorite seasons ever. One of my favorite games of all time comes next week, but I'll link it here. It was a classic for the ages.
The last look at the 1968 Rebels this year was a game against McNeese State. The win against the Cowboys moved their season record to 3-2. After the win, the Coaches poll had UTA at number 14 whereas the AP poll had the Rebs at 12th.
The next week was UTA's second game against a higher Division opponent, a 41-0 loss to West Texas State. The Buffaloes were one of the better University Division teams during 1968 and the loss didn't drop UTA's ranking much, 20th in coaches and 19th in the AP.
While the 3-3 record on the surface was disappointing, the fact that two were to a higher division opponent and a third was a narrow loss to the defending national champions gave comfort to UTA fans.
Southland Conference play started after the WTS loss and the Trinity Tigers came to Arlington. The Rebels cruised to a 27-14 win. It was the 15th straight home win, the bellwether record of the program.
At 4-3, 1-0 in the SLC and #16/12 in the national rankings, UTA looked good in the national and conference picture. Today's game versus Abilene Christian marked the second SLC game.
ACU is an interesting case study for judging where UTA's program is today. Both were founding members of the SLC. ACU was initially in UTA's peer group. ACU, or Abilene Christian College as they were known then, stayed in the SLC for roughly a decade. All-time, UTA was 6-7, a pretty even match-up.
The teams met four times prior to official Southland Conference play. In 1963, all programs except football had a conference championship. Football stayed independent to allow football schedule contracts to be completed without penalty. Arlington State played ACC that year anyway, losing by a large margin. It was the third loss in five tries, the worst stretch versus the Wildcats.
UTA's fortunes versus their closest geographic conference mate improved within the SLC, as they went 5-4 in conference play. UTA had a good stretch against ACC in the late 1960's and then picked up the last two games in the series. In short, they were a very evenly matched opponent.
The Wildcats left the conference as a whole when the group pushed for University, then later Division I, status. UTA was the first school to do it. ACC was hesitant to play at the top level and left after the 1972 season for the Lone Star Conference, which competed the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, or NAIA at that time. The LSC would transition to the NCAA in 1982 and play as a Division II conference, continuing in that classification to this day. Abilene Christian would exchange College for University in their name in early 1976.
That University joined Division I as well as rejoined the SLC in 2012, the same year UTA left and joined the WAC. ACU stayed just shy of a decade before the school joined the WAC one prior to UTA's rejoining, intertwining the two Universities once more.
The two programs showed vastly different trajectories for two similar Athletic Departments. UTA had an upper-level-classification-at-all-costs philosophy while ACC/ACU took a more measured approach and built a winner along the way. They have won over 60 different national titles in seven different sports, and over 150 conference titles in all sports. The football team claimed two NAIA national titles, both in the 1970's. One of those titles came in 1973 and I wonder what that team would have done that year in the SLC.
Contrast that with UTA's zero conference titles across all sports in the 1970's and the eventual dropping of the program halfway through the 1980's. While I've said UTA is a good case study in what to avoid moving to the highest level, ACU is in the exact opposite direction, taking a slower, more successful approach.
Should UTA ever restart a program, ACU would be a great rival and good way to judge the progress of their program, just like they were in the 1960's and early 1970's.
Looking to maintain their momentum in search of a third straight conference title, on this day in UTA football history, the 1968 UTA Rebels visit the Abilene Christian Wildcats.
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