The Tie that didn't work.

[Phil C]

This happened during the college 1971 football season. Remember they didn't have overtime then for games that ended in a tie and basically a tie counted as a 1/2 game won and 1/2 game lost. Texas and Arkansas played in the old SWC and both teams were not the powers they were the year before but early in the conference race they played with Texas losing 31 to 7. This put Arkansas in the rider's seat for the Conference Championship but Arkansas later got upset (?) by Texas A&M 17 - 9. Still if the teams had the same record by virtue of it's win over Texas Arkansas would have got to play in the Cotton Bowl as the SWC representative even though they would have been co-champions. But against Rice Arkansas was trialing 21 to 24 with a few seconds left. Arkansas had the ball in Rice territory but even though they had a great field goal kicker it would have been a long way to travel. But on the next to last play Arkansas threw an incomplete pass but a 15 yard penalty put the ball closer to the goal and in the kicker's range which was still about a 40 yarder. With seconds to go rather than throw a pass to the endzone to win Arkansas kicked the field goal and got the tie.
This now put Arkansas 1/2 game behind Texas but they were gambling that Texas would get beat the last few games of the season and the tie would work. Had Arkansas won the game it would have been co-champions with Texas and still would have gone to the Cotton Bowl. The tie didn't because Texas didn't lose another game during the regular season and thus won the SWC Conference Championship and got to go to the Cotton Bowl again much to the chagrin of Arkansas fans.