As This Day ion UTA Football History progresses since the founding of the blog through the years and duplicate seasons occur, I start to have to diverge from some of my rules. In this case, covering the same season in consecutive weeks. As there was one all-time game on September 5, 1981, it was the only option for last week. As such, we'll stay with the 1981 season today.
I mentioned in 2015 how the '81 season is one of my favorites. Those who know the outcome know why. But the outcome was the result of this team. 1985 is also one of my favorite seasons. That was a 4-6-1 year that was ultimately a tie for fifth out of seven teams. But that team had heart and talent, just not luck. 1981 had all three.
But I want to explore a theme from 1981 that really exhibits what UT Arlington football really was about as volume 10 progresses. While the team finished well as a whole, the consistent themes of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, ultimately fatal four full seasons later, are present.
But first, a little background.
After a severely, severely, and I can't stress that enough, severely disappointing 1980 season, that finished with a 3-8 record, a 1-5 home mark in the newly christened Maverick Stadium, expectations were quite low in the preseason build-up for the "Movin' Mavs" as they were known then. There were six returning starters on offense and five on defense. Three of the offensive starters were seniors, left tackle Roy Hinojosa, receiver Gilbert Smith and quarterback Scott Logan. It was better on the defensive side. Defensive tackle Keith Pressley, defensive end John Wade, linebackers Mark Kitchen and Mike Brooks and safeties Miguel Fuller and Melvin Ikner were playing their last year.
For the math challenged like me, that is nine total starters out of 22 that were seniors. To compare, there were nine junior starters and four sophomores.
A big bright spot, and one that would make a huge difference, was senior kicker Brian Happel. He is in the running for UTA's best all-time kicker. Program records that are his include extra points made in a career and extra points made and attempted for a season in 1979. He's second in career field goals made and attempted and extra points attempted. Showing his school pride and commitment (despite decades of symbolic banishment), he is still involved in UTA football revival efforts today.
Junior Mike Horn was the punter. It takes a lot for a punter to get mentioned in these types of features, but he was a big part in helping this team keep razor-tight margins on their side. For a career, he's second in total punts and fifth in average yards per punt. This 1981 season would be the second most punts in one year as Horn kicked it away 78 times, two short of the all-time record of 80 set in 1984. That's generally unexpected as the thought process is usually prolific punting seasons happen in non-winning years with impotent offenses. 1981 and 1984 were the last two winning seasons recorded in UTA history. In both cases, the punter's competence kept field position in UTA's favor, allowing those winning seasons.
Of the returnees, only Stout and Happel earn all-SLC honors the year prior. Both were second teamers.
The Southland Conference preseason polls reflected the lack of optimism around this Maverick team. The coaches predicted UTA to finish fourth in the six-team conference. The McNeese State Cowboys were expected to be the champs, garnering all six first-place votes. Southwestern Louisiana was the near-unanimous pick for second while Louisiana Tech was third. With 20 points, nearly everyone, at least four of the coaches, thought UTA was right where they needed to be at fourth. Arkansas State was forecasted as the fifth-place school and Lamar, with seven-points was thought as the last-place team by everyone.
Even head coach Harold "Bud" Elliott, normally a very rah-rah guy who talked about his team's ability to win the SLC nearly every year (and he wasn't wrong), had subdued talk headed into the season. From the 1981 media guide:
"But, we are still a very young football team and I think are a year away from being the kind of ball club that is capable of winning championships and things of that order. although I really believe that this team will be very entertaining."
Couple all the lowered expectations with the typical scheduling UTA did, harder non-conference opponents and lots of road September games, and the attendance, despite the actual outcome, would be only the fourth best attended season of the six at Maverick Stadium.
Speaking of hard opponents, UTA opened against the Pony Express, as we saw last week. There was a clear difference between the top of the Southwest Conference and the Southland Conference. Noone could have played them terribly much closer in the SLC
Today's opponent is a familiar one in New Mexico State. At 18 games played, the Aggies were the second-most played non-conference opponent and were tied for fifth most played opponent overall.
The series first started in the mid-1960's when then Arlington State College was in the College Division, the equivalent of Division II today, and NMSU was in the University Division. The Aggies won ten of the first 11 games against ASC/UTA. But the series turned and UTA won five of the last seven and four of the last five,
But the real feature here is that today's game in Arlington would be the only home game in the first five games of this season. In fact, of the first nine games on this year's schedule, only three were at home. While a game at Texas Stadum and Cotton Bowl aren't terribly far, they still aren't home games. With only five SLC games, there were going to be an uneven number of conference home and away games. In 1980, UTA hosted three SLC foes. Somehow UTA got four conference home games, compared to only one away from Arlington.
When UTA played on campus from 1959 to 1969, they played more September home games than road contests five times. In 1969, it was equal. They played more road games but had a home game in September three times. And only twice did they not play at home in September.
But when they moved off campus to Turnpike Stadium, later renamed to Arlington Stadium when the Texas Rangers relocated from Washington, they played a grand total of two home games in September in seven total seasons. In what would be the annual game versus North Texas, Texas Stadium was just as frequent place in September as UTA's home field. They continued playing at the Irving home of the local pro team when they left Arlington Stadium three more times.
When they moved to Cravens Field few September games still continued, even though they only shared space with a high school team. While it was more than UTA's previous home, Cravens still only saw three September home games in three seasons.
Maverick Stadium was supposed to solve those problems. In 1980, UTA opened the Mav on opening day, the first time UTA opened at home since 1967. There were Texas Stadium games in 1973 and '75 to start the year, but they weren't UTA's true home. Financially, I'm not sure if it made sense for UTA to rent out the place, but for fans, it was a must to counter not having their own truly UTA home.
Following the home opener in 1980, UTA went on the road twice in September and had a bye week as well. It wouldn't until 1983 when UTA would play at home more in September. They played the same number of home and road in 1984.
As for 1981, I suspect the early road games were a casualty of trying to get six home games in 1980. The North Texas game, for example, was supposed to be a road game until NTSU flipped it to allow to home opener, season opener and stadium opener all be the same game. I'm not sure of the details, but they played SMU and TCU at their place in '81, which seems like guarantee-game-type scheduling to me. I just don't know if either school paid UTA or not, but neither team played in Arlington at any point.
Two other road games were against familiar faces with home-and-home contracts. Southern Mississippi would not appear again on a UTA schedule with this being the tenth and final game. West Texas State, now West Texas A&M, would appear two more times, but not in 1982. They likely just could not flip the game for their own scheduling benefit to help UTA.
This was just the by-product of how UTA scheduled games in the 1970's and early '80's. And it is a big reason why UTA dropped their program. With exceptions, the general rule is the early season games are better attended the later ones. UTA just didn't play early season home games. As such, fans had low optimism and the team had losing records.
The only time UTA had a winning record during a season from 1970 to 1980 was an 1-0 start in 1973, a 4-3 mark in 1976 (after an 0-2 and 1-3 start), a 3-2 mark in 1977 and a 1-0 then a 2-1 mark in 1979 en route to a 9-2 finish. 119 games, only 13 times did UTA have a winning record at the conclusion of the game. Ten of those were in the same season. Add 1981 and it becomes 130 games and only 14 with a winning record at the end of regulation. That's the epitome of brutality.
On this day in UTA football history, UTA plays its first home game, and last one until October 10th, of the 1981 season.
Taken from Fort Worth Star Telegram, September 13, 1981.
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