This is not something I do very often, but in this week's edition of This Day in UTA Football History, I want to highlight a specific opponent. It is a noteworthy one that has left a lasting impact to even this day for one primary reason.
At last check in with the 1975 team in this year's edition, the Mavericks lost their third Southland Conference game in three tries to the Southwestern Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns, 35-32. The following week, the team won their first conference game against Lamar, 37-24. That win snapped a two-game losing streak to the Cardinals and was the first of 11 straight wins in the series. The win also snapped a season-high four-game losing streak for the year, a losing streak that derailed an optimistic 2-2 start.
Sitting at 3-6 overall and 1-3 in the Southland, the Mavericks were an improving bunch, but still a few pieces short. With just one win the prior year, the first of an eventual ten season for head coach Harold "Bud" Elliott, it was clear 1975 was a better year.
The bad news? Longtime conference foe Arkansas State was on the schedule today. After going 3-0-1 to start their series as SLC rivals, the Rebels/Mavs had won once in seven tries versus the then Indians, now Red Wolves, since that start prior to 1975. Starting with the slugfest of 1968, UTA had lost four straight. A one-point win in 1972 temporarily stopped the slide before two more losses were added in the subsequent two seasons. The average score was 24 to 10 in favor of the Indians. And that average includes the one-point win in '72 and the one-point loss in '68. And it still was that lopsided.
It was about to get worse.
I featured this game because the 1975 ASU team is a great historical case study. UTA was the first Southland School to achieve University Division status, the equivalent of Division I today. The Mavericks attained that goal in 1971.
In 1973, the NCAA changed the names of the Divisions as we know them today. When UTA elevated its program, Arkansas State was still in the College Division. However, they still dominated the higher classified team. But in 1975, ASU, among others, was the last and final team to join DI from the SLC.
Spoiler alert for the game article:
Like the other dominant team of the early 1970's in the SLC, Louisiana Tech, ASU had no problem competing, if that is even the right word. In 1975, ASU finished the year undefeated. They won every game but one by at least two scores. In all but one game, if the opponents score was doubled, they still would have won.
The bowl setup then is not the same as today. Teams with losing records today make bowl games. But in the 1970's, it was reserved for truly deserving teams. But, like all things subjective in nature, how you define a deserving team is the rub.
There were 11 bowls in 1975. There were 140 teams in DI spread across 14 conferences and the independent ranks. The math is pretty straightforward. Some people will deem some teams as deserving and those teams will get left out.
Of the 22 teams in a bowl game, 21 came from what would be considered a power conference school today. Only Miami of Ohio, who finished 12th in the AP poll, was the outlier. The Mid-American Conference, won by Miami in '75, sent its champion to the Tangerine Bowl, known as the Citrus Bowl today. Most of the remaining bowls, though not all, went to an at-large team.
In that year, four teams played in a bowl game while not ranked in the top 20 (the AP did not go to 25 teams until 1989). Those were the 7-4 South Carolina Gamecocks, the 7-4 Southern California Trojans, the 8-3 West Virginia Mountaineers and the 7-3-1 North Carolina State Wolfpack. I can't find a record of the receiving votes category we see under today's poll, so I don't know how ASU stacked up against these four listed. I did find a reference that they were unofficially number 21, so they likely were rated higher, for whatever that is worth.
What I can tell you is the entire ASU program, as well as the Southland Conference, felt slighted. No, there was no team on the Indian schedule that was ranked. Five of the 11 teams finished with winning records. Another two would have winning records if the schedule removed the loss incurred from playing the Indians. If the two games against Division II schools are removed, the combined record of ASU opponents without the ASU game is 44-42-2. Not dominant, but how they won those games were.
Another ancillary factor, Miami (OH), who was ranked, played in a similar competitive conference as the SLC. The MAC had four teams above .500, four below .500 and one with a tie and directly at .500. UTA, who finished this year at 4-7, beat 8-3 Bowling Green to end the year. The Falcons lost to Miami (OH) by three points.
The ASU motto for this team, even to this day, is "eleven and oh with nowhere to go."
Seeking a setup like the MAC had with the Tangerine Bowl, the SLC worked in the offseason with interested officials and in 1976, the SLC champion would play in the Independence Bowl. Like the now-Citrus Bowl, the Indy Bowl moved away from its roots long ago. In fact, the first year the Indy Bowl did not take the SLC champ was the last year UTA won a conference championship. Fortune just didn't favor UTA then.
Despite the dominance, Arkansas State would finish in fourth in 1976, and '77, fifth in 1979 and sixth in 1980. They did finish in a tie for first in 1978 with a 4-1 SLC mark. But they lost the head-to-head matchup with Louisiana Tech and stayed home during bowl season. The very bowl that Arkansas State had a hand in creating has never hosted that team. The irony is not lost on those that know.
As for UTA, to say they were an underdog in 1975 was an understatement. The Mavericks were 3-6 facing 9-0 juggernauts. There was no great upset in the cards. The only question would be how close UTA could face the conference leaders.
On this day in UTA football history, the Mavericks headed northeast to play the Arkansas State Indians.
Taken from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, November 16, 1975.
Checking in on the potential 1986 squad, after last week's possible let down against McNeese State, the Mavericks would travel to Ruston, Louisiana for a matchup against perennial thorn Louisiana Tech. UTA was 5-13 all-time versus the Bulldogs. After winning the first meeting in Arlington, UTA lost six in a row before getting the second win in 1976. UTA would lose two more before claiming three victories in row from 1979 to '81.
The Mavericks lost to the Bulldogs by three in 1982, a touchdown in '83, were shut out in a 34-point loss in '84 and lost 29-14 in the last game played by a UTA squad in Maverick Stadium in 1985. Those last two games knocked UTA out of the conference championship race.
All-time, the Mavericks were 2-6 playing in Joe Aillet Stadium. The Mavericks could have been conference champs if the outcome to La Tech would have been different in 1972, '77, '78 and '84. In 1977, a win would have put them in the Independence Bowl. In 1984, a win puts them in the Division I-AA playoffs. The 1984 loss was across state lines.
However, working in UTA's favor, LTU was not a dominant team in 1986. Like, McNeese, they weren't a pushover either. Discounting a 38-7 road loss to Division I-A member Baylor and a 34-10 loss to I-A member Fresno State, both on the road, the Bulldogs won games by five, three, seven, 12, 19 and 13 points. The 19 came to cellar dweller Lamar. They lost games by three and 14, the second coming to Northeastern Louisiana, or ULM today. There was also a tie to a 5-5-1 Northwestern Louisiana team.
The fact that LTU played three road games against higher division teams suggest one of those was the pickup of the dropped UTA game. As it was, the Bulldogs did not play today in 1986. There's a chance the record is a bit better if UTA stayed around. Or maybe they would have traded one loss for the other.
All that to say, if the 1986 UTA team was as good as believed with the entire record setting offense coming back, this would be a slugfest. Like the Arkansas State game, this is one game that has the highest chance of being a loss. That added hurdle of it being a road game makes it hard. The Bulldog loss to NLU gives me a belief the game would be competitive. With Head Coach Chuck Curtis' motivational style to compete against his personal 0-2 record, I believe the team would have been ready.
As it was, LTU finished 6-4-1 and in a three-way tie for second in the Southland. Undoubtedly, had UTA stayed around, there would have been a breaking of the log jam here.
But, thanks to an eventful decision in 1985 with ramifications still impacting today, a scheduled road game at Louisiana Tech did not occur in 1986 on this day in UTA football history.
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