UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 4 - Home Sweet Home?

As September comes to a close, this day in UTA football history looks at the 1969 team for the first time, sort of. Last week's entry was a link to the 2014 counterpart that opened the season, a 17-3 win. Back in the 1960's, the football season often started after the halfway mark of this month. 

I'll let last week's version set the stage for the year, but I do want to add some refreshers. The 1960's were the most successful decade in UTA football history, and it isn't close. In this decade, the Mavericks were 57-42-1, a winning percentage of .575. And that's with one win in 1963 and three wins in '64.

To compare, in the 1970's, UTA had a winning percentage of .370 while the shortened decade of the 1980's was .432. No doubt that number would have been better after 1986, as we'll discuss in a moment. 

Ouch!

The Maverick Rambler has mentioned several times this year that it seemed the UT Arlington volleyball team was playing with fire, losing sets to teams they should not have. Though they won most of the matches prior to this weekend, it wasn't pretty. There has been one sweep this year and on paper, there should have been more if this is a conference championship contending team. All that came to a head this past weekend. I gave my fears more than fuel about how the next two months in conference play will shake out.

I don't say this lightly, but this may have been the worst weekend in program history from a performance standpoint. I mentioned in the last volleyball post that the team would travel to San Antonio to participate in UTSA's Roadrunner Classic. The participating teams weren't stacked but should have been on UTA's general level.

The tournament started out poorly as the Mavericks and the hosts squared off. As I said, these two squads should have been near parity, but the Roadrunners won the match in a sweep. Only the second set was close, if a four-point loss is considered close. At 15-25, 21-25 and 13-25, the Roadrunners dominated. 

While some content that UTSA elevation into the American Athletic Conference makes this less of competitive match, UTA volleyball is a premiere sport on campus. It is the only fall team sport. Top 50 if not 25 all-time winning percentage across the entirety of the NCAA, appeared in a national championship postseason tournament 17 times since its founding, another two Invitational postseason tournaments and has produced numerous All-Americans all mean a little more than just conference pecking order. Especially when one considers the success attained last year. UTA faithful would not be surprised with a win against any school. 

But, the weekend was still salvageable and UTA could ride into Western Athletic Conference play on a high note. But it went the exact opposite way.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 3 - Repeat

For those who follow the Maverick Rambler's This Day in UTA Football History, you know I try to follow a few general rules. Unfortunately, one of those will be broken today. Specifically, I try to avoid multiple games in a row from the same season. I just have no other choice.

There are two things working against me in this week. First, to refresh, there are only three season to choose from. That in and of itself makes that guideline difficult. But, as for today specifically, it is one of only two dates I can recall between the second week in September and the second to last week in November to have only one game. It is uncommon to have a bye week in September. However, 1975 and 1980 both had a bye week today.

Ironically, the first season to qualify, 1969, is the only game that was every played by an Arlington State / UT Arlington football team on September 20.

First Miss

As I mentioned in the last post about the UT Arlington volleyball team, it had been almost one year since the last regular season loss for the Mavericks. While I have pointed out a few times this year's schedule was not chock full of world beaters, but you play who you play. 

This past weekend was the first home sighting for the Mavericks as they partook in the UNT-UTA Invitational. In years past, it's just been the UTA Invitational (as well as the UTA Classic) so I'm not sure what occurred to cause UTA to join forces with North Texas.

Friday opened with another familiar foe as, like in past weeks, a former Southland Conference rival squared off against the Mavericks. Northwestern State is not a good volleyball school and into this match in Denton at 1-8. It was another match that made me think the Mavericks are just not quite there as five sets were needed to pull out the win. The Demons have had one winning record in the prior five years and it doesn't look like that will change in 2025.

The List Grows

While looking for something unrelated, I found a women's flag football tidbit last week that I wanted to share. I mentioned in my initial entry when talking about the next sport coming to the UT Arlington portfolio that there were not many schools in Texas and certainly not as many NCAA institutions near UTA that sponsored the sport at the time.

However, there were some folks that were optimistic that number would grow. At the time, the only known NCAA schools Division I were Alabama State, Long Island University, Mercyhurst and Mount Saint Mary's. The known Texas school was Concordia University.

There have been so many additions to the sport since then that keeping up and staying current is turning into a labor of love. It's also one that has been missed by me too often with so many new programs getting their announcement.

Schedules Released

I think I'm just about to finish playing catch-up with the next couple of posts. In this one, both basketball teams released their schedules last week and both have some really good highlights in the march to conference play. There should be a challenging yet winnable games along the way.

I'll posts the schedules and after each off, provide my take.

The women's schedule is as follows:

Conversation with an AD Part Five - Wrapping it up

In the first four parts of the Maverick Ramblers one-on-one with UT Arlington Athletic  Director Jon Fagg, the discussions centered around the United Athletic Conference, the upcoming flag football team, the always present topic of a football rebirth and the state of several sports.

For the fifth and final installment, we kind of it on several topics pulled from a few different directions.

The Maverick Rambler: Two kinda related to the budget and I think I'll be good.

Jon Fagg: Mm hmm.

TMR: Any facility improvements on the horizon?

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 2 - Stereotypical

When I look back at wasted opportunities for the UT Arlington football program, there are a lot to choose from, starting in the 1970's and going all the way to the unplayed 1986 season. There were three seasons that one more UTA win would have resulted in an Independence Bowl berth. Their last conference title team came in UTA's last year in Division I-A, or today's Football Bowl Championship Subdivision. But, that was the first year the Indy Bowl didn't team with the Southland Conference and the conference champ did not play in the postseason. Would a bowl team increased enthusiasm in the program? Maybe. Especially considering a bowl berth was much more difficult in that time period.

Mistakes of some kind or another usually resulted in the losses. While an opponent can force a fumble or goad their foes into untimely penalties, more often it is undisciplined play by the fumblers or by the penalty committers that are the likely culprit. That was a defining trait of Head Coach Harold "Bud" Elliott's tenure.

There was, of course, the mascot controversy when the University transitioned from the Rebels to the Mavericks. Playing off campus didn't help either. Going from Memorial Stadium, on the site of the Maverick Activities Center, to a baseball stadium that could accommodate football, which in turn transitioned to being at the mercy of a Major League Baseball team, which then transitioned to a high school stadium in Cravens Field at Arlington Lamar High School was a black eye.

Still Streaking

At the start of the 2025 volleyball season, the UT Arlington program was coming off one of the best seasons in program history and by pure winning percentage, THE best season. At 29-3, UTA lost to two ranked teams and the American Athletic Conference's runner-up. At 16-0, it was the first undefeated conference run since 1992, and the only undefeated conference mark that played double-digit games in loop play.

One would have to go back to September 20th of last year to find the last regular season loss to this point in the 2025 season. Just FYI, between a funeral in California, a new work schedule and transcribing the interview with Athletic Director Jon Fagg, I just didn't have enough hours in the day to cover the first volleyball weekend tournament. So, I'll give my thoughts on it here.

I mentioned in the preseason poll post that the first Mav opponents weren't world-beaters. Quinnipiac was rated highly in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, which isn't a powerhouse league by any stretch (third worst overall conference last year). Western Illinois was picked sixth in the Ohio Valley. The OVC is only rated a few spots higher. Host Bradley's predicted finish in the Missouri Valley isn't available as the conference didn't publish its full list.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 1 - What Could Have Been

It is one of the more exciting times of year for me on this blog as the first Saturday in September kicks off This Day in UTA Football History. For long-time readers, you know that we are in a period of time where prior years covered the same seasons as the current edition.

The rules are simple, in the University era, UT Arlington rarely played on any other day but a Saturday. I can think of only one exception. Every junior college game I have found is the same, but I don't have them all, so I can't definitively say for the entire program. As such, the entries are posted on Saturday. The 2014 entries will be this year's sister season. For the next 12 weeks, we will look at games from the 1969, 1975 and 1980 seasons. But there will be twist this year.

Between my interview with UTA Athletic Director and this, I've been saying excited a lot. But it is genuinely true. I'm excited to announce this twist. Football schedules are made years in advance. Some colleges and universities today schedule games almost a decade out. Contracts are signed, penalties are enforced and conference games planned around these non-conference games. This was true decades ago. It is one reason why the Arlington State College Rebels played only seven games in its first season as a four-year school. There were not enough openings by opponents in a short time to schedule a full season.

No one knew as 1985 progressed that the final game of the program was nearing until the Monday following the last game against North Texas. UTA had already published schedules for 1986 and 1987. Had the program not been disbanded, 1986 would have qualified for this year's entries. I personally have wondered, like many, how the team would have fared. Now, every so often, a game that was scheduled was postponed or rescheduled, so nothing in 1986 was 100 percent guaranteed.

Conversation with an AD Part Four - Sports Quick Hits

The first three parts of my sit-down interview with UT Arlington Athletic Director Jon Fagg focused on a near singular topic each. As the interview reached the half way mark, the topics came closer in time and at a quicker pace. There has been a small delay in the release of part four as I originally envisioned part four being the last portion. However, the post itself started becoming too long. 

As we transition from the topic of football, we started discussing the sports we have on campus.

The Maverick Rambler: Well let's talk about pouring the efforts into, into men's basketball.

Jon Fagg: Yeah, sure.