If you’ve been to Austin, Texas in recent years, you might be surprised to learn that in 1970, it was pretty much a small college town. The word small might be a slight exaggeration, but it was a far cry from what it is now with a population of about 250,000 people. Today, just the city of Austin is pushing 1,000,000 people and the suburbs are the ones that have really exploded. Round Rock, Pflugerville and Cedar Park have grown so quickly in the past 30 years that the older crowd would not even recognize them any more.
The University of Texas football stadium only held about 65,000 fans in 1970. Now, with expansions, it holds well over 100,000 with more growth in the works.
But, in 1970, it was still a mid size stadium.
It was a good time to be a Texas Longhorn football player. They were a year removed from a national championship. Gone was their leader at quarterback, James Street and their All American offensive tackle Bob McKay, plus halfback Ted Koy. Over on the defense, they lost inspirational
leaders the Campbell twins and linebacker Glen Halsell.
Eddie Phillips was the new quarterback and the famed Worster Bunch recruiting class were now into their senior seasons.
The Texas Longhorns entered the 1970 football season ranked 2nd in the country behind Ohio State and the Horns had little trouble with California in game one and then Texas Tech in game two. They beat the Golden Bears 56-15 at home and then beat the Red Raiders 35-13 in Lubbock to avenge a loss up there in 1968.
Next up was 13th ranked UCLA, who might just prove to be much more of a challenge for the confident Longhorns. Why wouldn’t Texas be confident with a 22 game win streak going and coming off a great Cotton Bowl victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
UCLA was led by Tommy Prothro who had won at Oregon State before coming to Westwood. At the time, UCLA was by leaps and bounds the best basketball school in the country. These were the times of winning 10 out of 12 national championships under way more than legendary head coach John Wooden. There will never be a team as successful as the UCLA Bruins were in basketball in those years, not as long as any of us live. The Bruin basketball team was head and shoulders above the rest of the college basketball teams in the nation. gary be
In between the championships, they were also in the finals and lost against North Carolina State or it could have been 11 out of 12 national titles.
Football was almost an afterthought at UCLA during these years. But, still, they had produced the Heisman Trophy winner in Gary Beban in 1967 and they were a stone’s throw away from a national title when they lost to the Trojans by one point that season in a game dubbed as yet another Game of the Century.
The Bruins had been up and down under Prothro. After being two points away from a national championship in 1967, they slipped to 3-7 in 1968 after they lost Heisman winning quarterback Gary Beban. In 1969, the Bruins bounced back big with their only loss coming against an incredible unbeaten USC team by 2 points and a tie against tough Stanford with quarterback Jim Plunkett. The
UCLA Bruins finished 8-1-1.
Hopes were very high going into 1970. They were 3-0 coming into Austin to play the Longhorns with wins over Oregon State, Pitt and Northwestern.
After the rematch in the January 1st, 1971 Cotton Bowl win over Texas, Notre Dame commented that the Fighting Irish invented something of a mirror Wishbone defense for the Wishbone offense. But, it was nothing new and the Notre Dame coaches should have viewed the UCLA game to see a mirror defense. That’s exactly what the Bruins, under head coach Tommy Prothro, did that day.
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Just as Notre Dame gave up 416 yards against Texas in the Cotton Bowl, the Wishbone defense worked only so well. It was turnovers that cost Texas that game against Notre Dame, not any miracle defense. Texas fumbled 9 times during that game losing 5 of them to the Fighting Irish. Nobody can fumble that many times and expect to win a game against a very good opponent. Texas had almost a 100 more yards of offense than the Fighting Irish.
Frankly, I don’t know why defensive coaches didn’t pick up on this sooner. You have a guy responsible for every player in the Wishbone offense. In other words on the option, you have a guy that has to pick up the quarterback and you have to have a guy to pick up on the pitch man. If you didn’t get that done defensively, it was going to be a long day for you.
Later, when Oklahoma had so much success with the Wishbone it was due mainly to having so much talent and speed.
In spite of seeing a new type of defense against his Wishbone offense, Darrell Royal’s Horns were still up by 13-3 at half time and looking to run past yet another opponent.
But, UCLA dominated the 3rd quarter and came out and scored 2 touchdowns. Bruin quarterback Dennis Dummit threw for 340 yards that day completing 19 of 30 attempts.
UCLA defense stopped the option attack almost completely with Texas quarterback Eddie Phillips gaining only 17 yards on 20 carries. Talk about messing up your rushing average per carry.
UCLA had drives of 90 and 95 yards in the 3rd quarter to take a 17-13 lead into the beginning of the 4th quarter.
The Bruin defense stuffed the option attack, but they were unable to stop the fullback up the middle
and Texas fullback legend Steve Worster was able to run for 106 yards on 19 carries.
Texas fans may have had as much to do with this win as the players as the students got up and started yelling and stomping. The students led the blue hairs and the entire stadium was up and yelling. Witnesses at the game say that it was one of the louder games they remember in Austin where they are not known for making a lot of noise.
It was 3rd and 19 and the one thing wrong with the bone is it’s not a great come from behind offense or one that is known for scoring quickly. But, the crowd believed and they were loud.
Texas quarterback Eddie Phillips hit star wide receiver Cotton Speyrer on a post route and Speyrer got between two defenders and used his speed to take it all the way for a touchdown.
There was still time on the clock for a strong armed Bruin quarterback Dennis Dummit. But, Texas picked off his pass to end the game.
Texas won on an almost miracle play, 20-17, to extend their winning streak to 23 games. The streak would continue to 30 before they lost to Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl.