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GEORGE SCHROEDER
College Football

50 years ago, college football's 'Game of the Century' between No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Arkansas lived up to the hype

The helicopters arrived as they were about to break the defensive huddle. As they waited for Texas’ offense to run the next play, Bruce James and his Arkansas teammates couldn’t help but see all five of them landing on the practice fields beyond the south end zone.

"'Wow, man, he really is coming,’” James recalls thinking – but he continues: “But then reality sets in again. Because they break their huddle. And you’re fixing to get hit.”

On a cold, damp afternoon, no one on either team was distracted by much of anything – not even the slightly tardy arrival of a president. Truth be told, for many of the Razorbacks and Longhorns, Richard Nixon’s presence was a big deal, sure – but Billy Graham being in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that day was bigger.

And yet nothing was bigger than the game itself, 50 years ago Friday, when No. 1 Texas met No. 2 Arkansas in a made-for-TV matchup – the Big Shootout, they called it – that more than lived up to hype that was unprecedented for the time.

It’s difficult now, when every game is televised and seemingly at least a couple of matchups each year are hailed as historic, to understand just how big the Big Shootout was. This "Game of the Century" was the final regular-season game of college football’s 100th season, and it started as a midsummer’s dream by ABC publicist Beano Cook.

Nixon attended, as well as a future president, Texas congressman George H.W. Bush, and plenty of other dignitaries. One of every two television sets was tuned in to watch as Texas won 15-14, rallying from a 14-0 deficit to win the national championship – at least, the Longhorns were awarded it by Nixon afterward; they went on to beat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl a few weeks later – and to deny Arkansas the same accomplishment.

President Richard Nixon presented a plaque to Texas coach Darrell Royal, naming the Longhorns the No. 1 college football team after their victory against No. 2 Arkansas on Dec. 6, 1969.

“It was a perfect storm,” former Texas running back Ted Koy says. “It was a perfect situation for it all to come together. Everything came to a head.”

And it started when Beano had a hunch.

In the summer of 1969, Cook and ABC executive Roone Arledge were trying to find a way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of college football. Cook had scoured the rosters and schedules of several powerhouses, and he liked the possibilities that both Arkansas and Texas could go unbeaten – except, of course, that the Southwest Conference rivals were set to play each other, as usual, in October.

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Arledge called Arkansas coach Frank Broyles to ask: Would the Razorbacks consider moving the Texas game to the first Saturday in December? No other games would be played that day. And if everything worked just right, it might possibly be a massive showdown.

It wasn’t a huge leap. Texas finished the decade of the 1960s with a record of 80-18-2. Arkansas was 80-19-1. Only Alabama was better (85-12-3). Arkansas won one national title in the decade. Including 1969, Texas won two.

Broyles called Texas coach Darrell Royal, a rival but also a close friend, and both coaches agreed to make the move.

Arkansas installed astroturf, figuring it would be better than playing in possibly wintry conditions on grass that had been chewed up during the season. And then both teams chewed their way through their schedules to arrive unbeaten in Fayetteville on Dec. 6 – making Cook and Arledge look “wiser than a tree full of owls,” Royal told reporters before the game.

It wasn’t easy.

“It was gonna mean nothing if we lost or they lost, so the pressure was on us,” James says. “The greatest relief of that season was Thanksgiving Day of 1969, when we beat Texas Tech in Little Rock to be undefeated. It was like tons were lifted off our minds and shoulders, because we got it done.”

Even though the Longhorns had been dominant along the way, Texas players felt similarly. But both teams won their first nine games, setting up the showdown, and the last piece to the puzzle fell into place the weekend before, when Michigan upset Ohio State, knocking a very talented bunch of Buckeyes out of the hunt for the national title.

Although unbeaten Penn State was ranked No. 2 in the UPI coaches poll, when the Associated Press poll came out, Texas was No. 1 and Arkansas was No. 2. Cook’s dream matchup was set.

The game’s backdrop included protests against the conflict in Vietnam. The first draft lottery had taken place a few days earlier. And it was also the last national championship showdown played without black players – a planned protest by a group of Arkansas’ black students was canceled after the student government voted not to play the song “Dixie.”

“In my mind, the significance was all the other circumstances around it,” former Arkansas linebacker Mike Boschetti says. “The 100th year of college football, Billy Graham and Vietnam and the president, all that stuff. It just made it special.”

But the players say most of the external circumstances didn’t dawn on them until later.

“Coach Royal kept us pretty well insulated,” says former Texas offensive lineman Bob McKay.

A few days before the game, the White House confirmed Nixon’s plans to attend. He was joined in seats near the 40-yard line by a group of politicians, including Bush, Arkansas governor Winthrop Rockefeller and U.S. senators William Fulbright and John L. McClellan. Also with them: Oklahoma running back Steve Owens, who’d just been awarded the Heisman Trophy and had been a guest on Air Force One.

Another future president was not in attendance. Bill Clinton was studying in Oxford, England, as a Rhodes Scholar. Decades later, when he ran for president, the time period would become controversial as a successful maneuver to avoid serving in Vietnam. But on that December Saturday, Clinton listened to the game via shortwave radio with a group of American friends.

Graham gave the pregame invocation – and in the Bible Belt, the evangelist’s presence was at least as noteworthy as the president’s. McKay’s parents drove to the game from Crane, Texas, just south of Odessa, and were glad to see Nixon – but “more excited for Billy Graham.”

“It’s like somebody said,” McKay says. “‘There’s been a bunch of presidents. There’s only been one Billy Graham.’”

There’s only been one Big Shootout. And the game itself lived up to the build-up.

Texas had begun using a newfangled offensive system, developed by assistant coach Emory Bellard. It would eventually become known as the Wishbone. The ‘Horns averaged 44.3 points and 482.8 yards as they pulverized hapless defenses. But Arkansas’ defensive coaches altered their scheme, moving eight players within a yard or two of the line of scrimmage and constantly shifting before the snap, hoping to confuse the Longhorns and trying to force plays to the inside.

It worked. Texas’ offense sputtered, and kept losing the football. Arkansas took advantage and built a two-touchdown lead on two passes by quarterback Bill Montgomery. And if many of the specifics have faded in a half-century, James, an All-America defensive end, recalls well the matchup with Texas’ McKay, a consensus All-American who went on to play nine NFL seasons.

“It was 70 times that everybody hit with everything they had,” James says.

And Arkansas seemed on its way to winning until the first play of the fourth quarter. Texas quarterback James Street was bottled up in the backfield, but scrambled to escape a loss and then broke free, 42 yards into the end zone. He bounced off one would-be tackler. And Boschetti has ever afterward believed he was clipped on the play, or he’d have caught Street.

“My teammates joke that I never would have caught him anyway,” Boschetti says. “That may be the truth, but I sure would’ve liked to have had the chance.”

The Longhorns immediately went for two – Royal had told Street on the bus ride to the stadium he planned to go for two after the first touchdown – and converted.

Arkansas drove into position for a field goal that would probably have sealed victory. But on third-and-goal, Montgomery’s pass for All-America receiver Chuck Dicus was picked off, preserving Texas hopes.

Texas defensive back Danny Lester makes an interception in the end zone against Arkansas during their game on Dec. 6, 1969.

A few minutes later, facing fourth-and-3 near midfield, Royal dialed up an unusual gamble: Right 53 Veer Pass.

“We couldn’t move the ball all day,” Royal later recalled. “Their defense confused us, and we hadn’t had a drive. … I just felt it was all or nothing.”

The play sent tight end Randy Peschel out as the lone receiver on the play. He went deep, tracked closely by two Razorbacks.

“When I first looked back,” Peschel says, “I thought, ‘I’ll never catch it.’ But I looked back and there it was, right over their hands. It wasn’t six inches over their hands.”

Peschel came down with the football at the 13. Two plays later, Texas scored. Happy Feller’s extra point gave them the lead. And a little later, Nixon was in the visitors’ locker room, congratulating them and awarding them a plaque – it was blank – as the nation’s No. 1 team (much to the dismay of Penn State).

All these years later, Peschel sees that fourth-down gamble as a decent metaphor for the season, and the game, and how a TV executive’s hunch came through.

“Everything fell together,” Peschel said. “It’s just crazy how perfectly it found its way to happen. I just can’t believe it. Everything had to go right, and it did.”

Or wrong, from Arkansas’ perspective.

For the Razorbacks and their fans, the Big Shootout was a bitter, emotional defeat that continues to reverberate. Broyles, who died in 2017, insisted he never watched the game film – “I wouldn’t know why I would want to,” he said in 2005 – and through the years gave very few interviews on the subject.

James, Arkansas’ All-American defensive end, is echoed by his teammates in saying he eventually came to the realization that he was glad to have played and lost “than never to have had the opportunity.” But five, maybe six times a year, someone approaches James in a restaurant or store.

“Boy, I sure wish you’d won that Big Shootout,” they’ll say

The former Texas players have similar experiences – except, of course, that they’re accepting congratulations rather than condolences. Either way, though, “They’ll reach back to that game,” James said. “And it’s been 50 years.”

And McKay adds: “It’s just a different day and time. It was so special. Now you realize how big a deal it really was.”

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