10-06-34

[Phil C]

This was on a Saturday 70 years ago and was significant for Texas football. At that time several Texas teams were in the Southwest Conference which included Texas, Rice, Baylor, Texas A&M, SMU and TCU. Although very popular in Texas nation wide football did not pay much attention to Texas football other than maybe on the list of scores on page 6 or somewhere but no major coverage. Texas football just was not respected nationwide. Until 10-06-34. Two teams from Texas went up North to play powerhouses and were four touchdown underdogs. Texas had to go play at Notre Dame and the Irish were big favorites. But on the opening kickoff Notre Dame returned the kick but was hit hard and fumbled and Texas recovered at the ND 10 and scored and made the extra point and led 7 to 0. Shortly in the same quarter Texas fumbled a punt deep in its own territory that the Irish used to go in for a td. The Irish missed the extra point as it sailed wide. After that it was a defensive struggle and Texas held on for the 7 to 6 win. At the same time Rice went to Purdue also as big underdogs . Purdue had a perfect record and were favored to be the National Champions. Rice played hard and won that game 14 to 0! Those two games gave Texas football nationwide respect. These games made front page news the next day and since that time Texas football has been front page news.

[Phil C]

Ironically the Texas Coach that day was Jack Chevigny who had attended Notre Dame and played on several of ND's national champions. He coached at Texas from 1934 to 1937. Sadly he lost his life during WW2 while serving his country.

[Hupernikomen]

ty for the info...didn't know any of that.

[Phil C]

That success has persisted to today. These games ushered much success for the conference in the 30s right afterward. For example SMU and TCU were highly ranked and the winner of that game SMU got to play Stanford in the Rose Bowl losing 7 to 0. The QB for TCU that year was Sammy Baugh and he became a big NFL star QB for Washington winning several NFL championships in his pro career. Davey O'Brien of TCU won the Heisman trophy in 1938 leading his team to victory in the 1939 Sugar Bowl over Carnegie Mellon 15 to 7. The Texas A&M Aggies ended the 30s and started the 40's right by winning all their games in 1939 and winning the National Championship. The Aggies started right in Sugar Bowl game played January 1, 1940 by beating Tulane 14 to 13. This was all just the beginning and still continues today for Texas teams.

[YBS]

It still amazes me to this day how you can talk to people from around the country and the first thing out of their mouths is how avid Texans are about high school football and to an extent, football in general. And here we are making daily posts and talking smack about how my group of 16-18 year olds is better than yours.

[Hupernikomen]

Yeah...our 16-18 year olds are better than theirs...:D

[YBS]

Hup,

Seeing that you' hav 1280 or so more posts than I do, I don't think I can argue w/ ya. I'll be at the game fa sho w/ my roommate, a couple of friends from out of town, and Darwin Scott who was on the 92-96 teams.