All he does is win: From NAIA dynasty to the CFP, Kalen DeBoer’s pedigree speaks for itself
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Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS — Kalen DeBoer has been here before. Not in the same way Nick Saban has. But on the eve of the College Football Playoff semifinal, two wins away from a national title, Washington‘s second-year head coach is very much in his element.
DeBoer’s first trip to a semifinal as a head coach was 18 years ago. The accommodations were a bit different then. Coaches shared rooms on the road. There wasn’t an army of volunteers catering to the team’s every need. And Carroll College’s 4,000-seat Nelson Stadium in Helena, Montana — the site of 2005 NAIA semifinal — wasn’t exactly the storied Superdome.
From the outside, there’s a world of difference between the stakes then and now — with tens of millions of people who will be paying attention — but the internal desire to win hasn’t changed. All-in is all-in, regardless of how many other people care.
“We understand what’s at stake here,” DeBoer said. “We win, we get to move on, we get to have the next biggest game of our life. But for right now, this is that one.”
In five seasons as coach at the tiny University of Sioux Falls (South Dakota), DeBoer built his alma mater into a bona fide NAIA powerhouse. DeBoer won as many national titles and had as many undefeated seasons as he had losses (three), amassing a 67-3 overall record with a 17-2 mark in the playoffs.
It was during those years when Washington’s current brain trust — including offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and co-defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell — developed a remarkable level of trust and understanding that made this season’s undefeated run to the Pac-12 title possible.
Lengthy bus rides. Laundry duty. Meager salaries. VHS film sessions. It was all part of the process that Washington is benefitting from. Other small-school coaches hope DeBoer’s success might lead to more opportunities. It’s also a process Washington’s coaches didn’t even consider had the potential to take them to the doorstep of college football’s premier stage.
“We were consumed literally by chasing national championships at that level,” Morrell said. “I think we all thought maybe other opportunities could come, but it wasn’t a daily thing where we were talking about trying to face something bigger.”
In the 14 years since DeBoer moved on from Sioux Falls in search of a different challenge, nothing compares with the enormity of what awaits Monday, as Washington takes on No. 3 Texas in the Allstate Sugar Bowl (8:45 p.m. ET on ESPN) for the right to play for the national title.
IN 20 SEASONS at Carroll College, Mike Van Diest had one of the most successful runs of any coach in college football history. He finished with 203 career wins and had a 12-year stretch — from 2000 to 2011 — that included 12 conference titles, six NAIA national crowns and two other appearances in the championship game.
He first crossed paths with DeBoer in 2002 and remembers it well.
“The year we won our first national championship,” Van Diest said.
At the time, DeBoer was Sioux Falls’ offensive coordinator, with Morrell serving as defensive coordinator under coach Bob Young, who they both played for — winning a national title together in 1996. Carroll won 20-17, but Van Diest could tell something was brewing in South Dakota.
“It wasn’t much fun preparing for Kalen, but I always enjoyed watching what he did offensively because he was just amazing,” Van Diest said. “They were always up there, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 in total offense.”
Van Diest spent two decades as an assistant coach in college football — most notably at Northwestern and his alma mater, Wyoming — before settling in at Carroll, after which, he said, he didn’t make too many new friends in the profession. Recruiting and competing often got in the way of niceties. There were exceptions, though, and DeBoer was one of them.
Starting in about 2005, he said, when DeBoer became the head coach, their relationship started to blossom.
“He and I just struck up a friendship at the national coaches convention,” Van Diest said. “Every year, we would sit and talk about football, we’d talk our goals and dreams. He asked me where I came from, about how I worked my way up to where I came to Carroll.”
One year, Van Diest recalls, DeBoer asked him if he ever thought about going back to Division I to be an assistant. He had lived that life, Van Diest told DeBoer, and was content with where he was. But he remembers getting the sense DeBoer was ready to see what else he could accomplish in coaching.
“There’s a few of us lifers that were in the NAIA, but Kalen had a great future ahead of him, as did a lot of guys on that staff,” Van Diest said. “It was just a natural progression for those guys.
“The more I was around Kalen, playing against him, seeing what he did year after year and the success that he had, he was going to have an opportunity to move on if he wanted to.”
DeBoer’s only two postseason losses came at the hands of Van Diest. None was more humbling than the semifinal game in 2005. On an icy field, nothing went right for Sioux Falls as Carroll won 55-0, the most lopsided defeat DeBoer has ever been a part of.
All these years later, it still stings for those on the losing end.
Upon being reminded recently of that game, Dusty Hovorka, a three-time All-American receiver at Sioux Falls and now the offensive coordinator at FCS Lindenwood, couldn’t help but let out a sigh of frustration.
“It doesn’t leave you,” he said. “Those huge losses, that stuff is still bitter. But what Kalen obviously did a tremendous job of was always adjusting.
“‘Why were we not successful? What do we have to do the next year?’ And for us, it was such a mentality [issue] because we had basically our entire team coming back in 2006.”
That was the year the Cougars broke through, winning the first of three national titles over the next four seasons as they went 56-1. The only loss — to Carroll in 2007 — was memorialized with a picture of Carroll celebrating in the mud on the cover of Sports Illustrated, in the magazine’s Pictures of the Year issue.
“It was something where we just developed such a pride,” DeBoer said. “The culture was becoming contagious and everything we did, whether it was on the field or off — it led to more and more people wanting to be a part of it, even though it was a small college.”
Those teams had three full-time coaches: DeBoer, Morrell and Jon Anderson, Sioux Falls’ current head coach. Grubb joined in 2007, when he signed on for about $3,000 to coach the offensive line and oversee the equipment that fall.
“What we’ve been able to accomplish as a group under Kalen’s guidance, it’s really lightning in a bottle and we had it at Sioux Falls for a number of years,” Morrell said. “And then we kind of broke off and everybody kind of went their own way.”
WITH THE BENEFIT of hindsight, it might seem obvious the success DeBoer’s staff had at Sioux Falls should have been seen as a precursor to more of the same at a higher level, but at the time it was not. At least not to anyone in a position to hire them.
NAIA football operates much differently than the NCAA, especially at the FBS and FCS levels. Teams have 24 scholarships to spread over the whole roster. Coaches wear many hats. Budgets aren’t remotely similar; neither is the recruiting process. Player commitment can be more of a challenge. The X’s and O’s might be where the levels have the most in common, despite the enormous gulf in talent.
It would have taken quite the leap of faith for an athletic director to hand the keys to a higher-level program to DeBoer, despite his near immunity from losing.
“I think the biggest thing is the relationships that you develop in those environments,” Morrell said. “We just created a special bond because of literally how hard everything was. It kind of puts you in that mode of never taking anything for granted. To be as successful as we were during that time frame, it came facing a lot of difficulties that you don’t face at the FBS level.”
DeBoer’s coaching odyssey first took him to FCS Southern Illinois, where he was the Salukis offensive coordinator. From there, it was on to Eastern Michigan, another OC job, this time in the FBS. His offenses there caught the eye of Jeff Tedford, who brought DeBoer to Fresno State as his OC before DeBoer got his first taste of Power 5 ball on Kevin Ball’s staff at Indiana in 2019. At each stop, DeBoer helped the program reach rarely achieved heights.
Then, after Tedford stepped down due to medical reasons after the 2019 season, athletic director Terry Tummey brought DeBoer back to Fresno as head coach.
“Having that understanding of Kalen’s success at the NAIA level really was the difference-maker because it gave you a definite understanding of his capacity to be competitive,” Tummey said. “As we know, head coaches now, you got to be able to have compassion and understanding for what these players are enduring on a day-to-day basis. That’s the part I had seen at Fresno State [when he was the OC]. He was the perfect candidate for us then.”
Other than the three years DeBoer spent at Southern Illinois and his lone season at Indiana, Grubb has been with him the whole time. Grubb’s the playcaller now, but as a tandem they immediately turned Washington into one of the best offenses in college football. The Huskies have led the nation in passing the past two seasons, with quarterback Michael Penix Jr. finishing second in the Heisman Trophy balloting.
Saban pursued Grubb to serve as Alabama‘s offensive coordinator in the offseason, an opportunity that he turned down, but not before a sizable salary increase at Washington.
“Regardless of other opportunities, I think this [being in the playoff] was the reason I came to Washington,” Grubb said. “And I know when Kalen and I first started talking about him taking that job, and if I would go with or not, my response was pretty quick to accept the position, just because it wasn’t necessarily the onset of my career, like, hey, this is exactly what I’m going to do, I’m going to be a Power 5 coordinator, that wasn’t the trajectory at the beginning.”
It was almost surreal, then, when Grubb further reflected on his path in coaching while standing on the turf inside the Superdome, one of football’s most storied venues.
“When I was the offensive coordinator at [Iowa high school] Kingsley-Pierson, I wasn’t like, ‘Man, I can’t wait to be in a semifinal game in playoffs that didn’t exist at that point and a Power 5 coordinator,'” he said. “I was trying to figure out how to get [my running back] the ball.”
Morrell’s path since the Sioux Falls days looks a lot different. After spending 2010 as the defensive coordinator at FCS South Dakota, he became the head coach at Montana Tech, a job he held for nine seasons before leaving to become DeBoer’s defensive coordinator at Fresno State.
“I realized there’s only two people I want to work for,” Morrell said. “I want to work for Kalen or I want to work for myself.
“There’s just an incredible amount of trust. Some of that trust has been built up over the span of now, getting towards 30 years and I think every coach that works for Kalen wants to — like every coach, they want to be successful, they want to win — but then when you’re holding yourself accountable to a person that you really care about, you’re going do it at a different level and at a completely different standard.”
WASHINGTON’S SUCCESS THESE past two years raises an interesting question: Will athletic directors be more willing to tab a lower-level coach with an impressive track record?
It’s not just DeBoer, either. Lance Leipold has revived Kansas with a similar background. He won six NCAA Division III national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater before a six-year stint at Buffalo, in which he turned that program around.
Both coaches seemingly benefitted from their time at the Group of 5 level. There could be a compelling argument that moving up levels as a head coach translates more seamlessly than going from Power 5 coordinator to Power 5 head coach.
“I think that depends on what athletic director you’re talking about,” Tummey said. “But I’ll tell you this, as a person who’s been in this position, I would value the success of being a head coach at any level just as much as that of being a coordinator at the highest level.
“And the reason why I say that is, is because when you’re a head coach, you just have so many more demands placed on you regardless of the level. To me, that training ground you get as a head coach regardless of the level is invaluable. To me, football is football.”
If hiring trends change, it would bode well for a coach like Doug Socha. Earlier this month, in Year 6 after starting an NAIA program at Keiser University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, his team beat Northwestern (Iowa) to win the national title. It was a season that included 18-hour bus rides and took place in relative anonymity, but the title was celebrated by the players just as much as it will be by their FBS counterparts.
DeBoer’s NAIA history makes him revered by coaches at that level.
“I absolutely think [his success] is good for all of us,” Socha said. “We’re certainly rooting for all these small coaches that have the roots from the smaller levels to do well. Certainly, I think there’s enough proven track record out there to open up opportunities for other coaches.”
Earlier this year, after Washington beat Utah to secure DeBoer his 100th career victory as a head coach, he took a minute to reflect on what’s different at this stage of his career.
“I probably appreciate it more and more,” he said. “Each win, I really do. I think realizing that the moment that these guys are in right now is what’s special to me, and that getting these wins and the experiences that they’re going to have, the memories that they’re going to have that last forever.
“The stories they’re going to be able to tell — hopefully we’re far from being where this all ends — but I think I have appreciation for that and try to give them a dose that every once in a while, but we’re trying to keep the pedal down to where we can realize the real goals that we have for this season.”
Seven weeks later, those goals are still in play.
LOS ANGELES — Dodgers right-hander Brusdar Graterol will miss the first half of next season after having surgery to repair the labrum in his right shoulder.
The surgery was performed Thursday by Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the Dodgers announced Friday.
Graterol is expected to return in the second half of the 2025 season.
Graterol pitched in seven games during the regular season and three games in the World Series against the New York Yankees, which the Dodgers won in five games. He allowed three hits over 2⅓ scoreless innings in those World Series appearances.
The 26-year-old was slowed this season by shoulder inflammation and a hamstring injury.
Graterol, a hard-throwing Venezuelan, spent his first season in the majors with Minnesota in 2019, and the Twins traded him to the Dodgers before the 2020 season. For his career, he has a 2.78 ERA and 11 saves in 188 games.
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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
At SEC media days in July, Steve Sarkisian inadvertently described a good portion of college football in a single line. “I feel like when you go to Arkansas,” the Texas Longhorns coach said, “I almost at times feel like they hate Texas more than they like themselves. That’s a real rivalry.”
Later that week, Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman confirmed Sarkisian’s take. “We hadn’t played Texas for years,” he said, “and when we played them a couple of years back, it was the most excited our fan base has been in a while. So I would say he’s probably right.”
Houston Nutt can testify. Nutt grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. He idolized legendary Arkansas coach Frank Broyles and watched him battle Darrell Royal and the Longhorns before playing for the Razorbacks himself.
“When Texas came to play Arkansas, it was this huge, huge thing,” he told ESPN in 2019. “I remember being taught at the age of 6 outside War Memorial Stadium [in Little Rock] how to do the Hook ‘Em Horns Down sign.”
Nutt beat the Horns as the Hogs’ coach, a 27-6 win in the 2000 Cotton Bowl, Arkansas’ first bowl win since 1985. He turned around, and threw the Horns Down to the Arkansas fans.
“It was a sea of red, and they were mostly doing the Hook ‘Em Horns Down,” Nutt said. “What did I do? I can’t help it. I’m right there with ’em.”
Conference realignment has broken countless rivalries through the years. There are no Oklahoma-Oklahoma State games on the schedule; Missouri and Kansas haven’t played since 2011; Cal has traded playing UCLA for playing NC State; Oregon-Oregon State and Washington-Washington State have been moved from the traditional bottom of the schedule to the top; Pitt and West Virginia play only sporadically, as do Oklahoma and Nebraska. But in the “thank God for small favors” department, this latest round of realignment at least reignited a few rivalries to replace the further ones we lost. Longtime Big 8 and Big 12 rivals Oklahoma and Missouri played this past Saturday for the first time in 13 years (and celebrated the occasion with a particularly wacky finish), and on Nov. 30 not only will we get our first Texas vs. Texas A&M game since 2011 but it also might have enormous College Football Playoff stakes.
While we wait for Aggies-Horns, however, we get a rivalry game that, for quite a while, outshined Texas-A&M and defined Southwest Conference football. On Saturday, Texas and Arkansas will play for just the fourth time in 20 years and will play as conference rivals for the first time in 33. Most rivalries fit into certain parameters — the dueling heavyweights that split the wins over time, the heavyweight against the aspirant that measures itself by how well it’s faring against the big dog, etc. — but over the course of a few decades, Arkansas-Texas fit into multiple categories. Arkansas was the aggrieved and aspirant underdog for much of the series, but for much of the 1960s, when Royal and Broyles were at the top of their respective games, this was the biggest game in college football. Whichever flavor it takes on at a given time, this game remains spicy.
Texas is 8-1 and listed as a favorite by more than two touchdowns Saturday, while Arkansas is 5-4, having handed Tennessee its only loss of the season but suffered two blowout losses in its past four games. The Razorbacks are volatile underdogs; the Longhorns are SEC title favorites; and, for at least a little while Saturday, Razorback Stadium will be an absolute cauldron. To prepare ourselves, let’s look back at 10 of the most noteworthy games in this revived rivalry’s history.
No. 3 Texas 20, No. 14 Arkansas 0 (1946)
“Steers Trounce Tough Porkers For 5th Victory” was the headline in the Austin American. At 3-0-1, Arkansas was off to its best start in 13 years, and for the first time these teams met as mutually ranked foes. But Texas, also unbeaten and the winner of three of the past four Southwest Conference (SWC) crowns, handled both the moment and the muggy conditions better. Future pro and college football Hall of Famer Bobby Layne threw a pair of touchdown passes — one to Hub Bechtol for 50 yards, one to Jim Canady for 47 — and the Longhorns had scored all their points by halftime. This was a pretty common result: Aside from a mid-1930s run in which Texas lost its way as a program and Arkansas won five of six games between them, UT dominated the early stages of this rivalry, winning 29 of the first 35 battles. It’s been a lot closer since then.
This was the high-water mark for the “Steers,” by the way, as they would fall via road upset to both Rice and TCU, handing Arkansas only its second SWC title. The Razorbacks would head to Dallas, where they endured a 0-0 tie with LSU in the Cotton Bowl.
No. 3 Texas 13, No. 12 Arkansas 12 (1959)
After falling apart under Edwin Price in the mid-1950s, Texas righted the ship by hiring Royal, a former Oklahoma Sooner, to lead the program in 1957. In 1959 the Longhorns embarked on a run of nine top-10 finishes and two national titles in 14 years. Royal won his first two games against Arkansas by a combined 41-6, but second-year head coach Broyles also had things up and running by 1959. The Razorbacks would enjoy eight top-10 finishes in 11 years from 1959 to 1969; in this tight loss, they served notice as to what was coming.
As with much of 1950s college football, this game was decided by disasters. Both teams lost four fumbles; Arkansas recovered a loose ball to set up its first touchdown, but with Texas trailing 12-7 in the third quarter, another future Hall of Famer, Lance Alworth, muffed a punt, which set up a winning touchdown pass from Bart Shirley to Jack Collins. Between 1959 and 1969, eight of 11 Steers-Porkers games would be decided by five or fewer points.
No. 8 Arkansas 14, No. 1 Texas 13 (1964)
Texas won its first national title under Royal in 1963; the Longhorns shined in big games that season, beating No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Navy by a combined 56-13, but they managed only a 17-13 win over Arkansas in Fayetteville. They advanced their winning streak to 15 games early in 1964, but Broyles was building a title-worthy squad of his own by then.
For the third time in four years, this was a matchup of top-10 teams. The most famous members of the 1964 Razorbacks were future Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and future college and NFL title winner Jimmy Johnson, but future Arkansas coach Ken Hatfield made the difference in this one. His 81-yard punt return gave Arkansas a 7-0 halftime lead, and after Texas tied the score in the fourth quarter, Fred Marshall found Bobby Crockett for a 34-yard touchdown to put Arkansas ahead once more. With about a minute left, Ernie Koy scored on a 1-yard plunge; Royal, entirely uninterested in a tie, elected to go for two points and the win, but a pass attempt came up short. Texas’ winning streak was over, and Arkansas would go on to finish 11-0 and score a share of its first national title.
No. 3 Arkansas 27, No. 1 Texas 24 (1965)
By October 1965, Arkansas had extended its winning streak to 16 games, winning its first four games of 1965 by a combined 114-33. But Texas had leapfrogged the Razorbacks to get back to No. 1, thanks in part to a 19-0 win over Oklahoma. That put the chip firmly back on Arkansas’ shoulder.
With the extra dose of motivation — plus, perhaps, some divine intervention: Fayetteville’s First Baptist Church famously posted, “Football is only a game, eternal things are spiritual. Nevertheless, beat Texas” that week — Arkansas raced to an early lead thanks to a pair of Phil Harris fumbles. Martine Bercher recovered the first one in the end zone, then Tommy Trantham took another one 77 yards for a score.
Arkansas went up 20-0 after a Jon Brittenum-to-Bobby Crockett touchdown, but Texas charged back. It was 20-11 by halftime, and David Conway’s 34-yard field goal made it 24-20 Longhorns with just five minutes left. Brittenum scored from a yard out with 1:32 remaining, though, and Arkansas had its second of three straight wins in the series.
The Hogs would run their overall winning streak to 22 before falling to LSU 14-7 in the Cotton Bowl.
No. 1 Texas 15, No. 2 Arkansas 14 (1969)
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? Texas usually played Oklahoma and Arkansas back-to-back in early October, but Roone Arledge, the innovative head of ABC Sports, had an idea in the offseason. Texas had finished 1968 as the hottest team in the country, winning its last nine games and averaging 37 points per game with offensive coordinator Emory Bellard’s innovative wishbone scheme. Arkansas, meanwhile, finished 10-1 with only a 39-29 loss at Texas. The Longhorns and Razorbacks finished third and sixth, respectively, in the AP poll and headed into 1969, college football’s centennial season, as obvious national title contenders.
According to Terry Frei’s “Horns, Hogs, and Nixon’s Coming,” ABC publicist (and future ESPN analyst) Beano Cook pored over the schedules and determined that Arkansas, Texas and Penn State all had good chances of going unbeaten. “My recommendation involved Penn State and Arkansas finishing the regular season with perfect records and then playing for the national title,” Cook told Frei. “I said we should move Texas-Arkansas to December 6, because I thought Texas might be undefeated then, too.” Arledge told the coaches that former Oklahoma coach and politician Bud Wilkinson could make sure that new President Richard Nixon was likely to attend the game as well. It was going to be a spectacle unlike anything college football had seen.
Sure enough, the Longhorns and Razorbacks both reached December unbeaten (as did Penn State), and Nixon was there in the stands for a game that somehow lived up to all expectations.
With Texas’ offense discombobulated early — the Horns turned the ball over on their first two drives — Arkansas scored on a short Bill Burnett run and, early in the third quarter, a 29-yard catch by star receiver Chuck Dicus. Texas quarterback James Street scored on the first play of the fourth quarter, then scored on a 2-point conversion as well. (Royal decided before the game that he once again wanted to avoid a tie at all costs.)
With the score 14-8, Arkansas drove the length of the field and was on the verge of putting the game away until Danny Lester picked off a Bill Montgomery pass in the end zone. Then came “Right 53 Veer Pass”: On a fourth-and-3 near midfield, Street threw a bomb to Randy Peschel for 44 yards.
#TBT – 1969: Texas defeats Arkansas 15-14.#ThisIsTexas #HookEm pic.twitter.com/xoqn5cbhFm
— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) October 17, 2019
Two plays later, Texas went ahead with a short Jim Bertelsen touchdown. Arkansas drove near field goal range in the final seconds, but Tom Campbell picked off Montgomery to ice the game, and Nixon declared Texas the national champion in the locker room after the game. (This rather annoyed Penn State’s Joe Paterno, whose team was also unbeaten.)
College football’s explosion as a television product can be ascribed to countless things, but ABC’s innovative approach to broadcasting, followed by a couple of all-time classics — this and 1971 Oklahoma-Nebraska, to name two — in short succession certainly didn’t hurt.
No. 1 Texas 42, No. 4 Arkansas 7 (1970)
The sequel often fails to live up to the billing. Almost exactly a year after the 1969 classic, Texas was riding a 29-game winning streak, while 9-1 Arkansas was ranked fourth in the AP poll and looking for revenge on national television. It didn’t quite work out.
Texas rushed for 464 yards — Bertelsen and Steve Worster combined for 315 on their own, with five of the Longhorns’ six touchdowns — and picked off Montgomery three times. After a goal-line stand by the Longhorns’ defense prevented Arkansas from tying the score early on, the floodgates opened.
The tide had again turned in the rivalry. Arkansas would finally get some measure of revenge the next year with a win in Little Rock, but after winning four of seven over the Horns between 1960-66, the Hogs won only once between 1966-79.
No. 8 Texas 28, No. 3 Arkansas 21 (1978)
A generation ended when both Royal and Broyles retired after matching 5-5-1 seasons in 1976. They both ended up hiring their younger replacements — 38-year old Fred Akers at UT, 40-year old Lou Holtz at Arkansas — as their schools’ respective athletic directors.
Both led immediate rebounds. Holtz won 30 games, Akers won 29, and both schools finished in the AP top 12 each year from 1977 to 1979. In 1978, Akers’ Longhorns played a unique role, too: spoiler. They welcomed unbeaten Arkansas to Austin and ended the Hogs’ 11-game winning streak. Two Randy McEachern touchdown passes in the final minute of the first half turned a tie into a 20-7 Texas lead, and when Arkansas charged back to take the lead, Johnny “Lam” Jones caught McEachern’s third TD pass, and Johnnie Johnson picked off one pass and broke up another on a fourth down to seal the win. This was the first of four straight upsets in the series, with the lower-ranked team winning every year from 1978 to 1981. My favorite rivalries are the ones that make no sense.
Arkansas 42, No. 1 Texas 11 (1981)
And now for maybe the most shocking result in the history of the rivalry. Akers’ Longhorns entered the 1981 game No. 1 in the country, having just blown out Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma 34-14 to move to 4-0. Arkansas, meanwhile, had fallen out of the AP rankings two weeks earlier after a road loss to an awful TCU team that would finish 2-7-2. Surely a blowout was in store, right?
This was indeed a blowout, but not the one anyone expected. Two fumbles and a safety from an airmailed punt snap gave Arkansas a quick 15-0 lead, and the Longhorns never got closer. The Hogs led 25-3 at halftime and 39-3 after three quarters; Texas actually outgained the home team 421-323, but seven turnovers sabotaged all efforts. A turnaround in the series? Not so much. The last two Akers-Holtz battles ended up a combined 64-10 in favor of the team in burnt orange. But this one was an awfully big thumb in the eye, and it would prevent the Horns from winning a national title — they ended up second in the polls behind Clemson.
Arkansas 14, Texas 13 (1991)
“Ain’t no rematch. Best thing of all, ain’t gonna be no rematch.” That’s Arkansas head coach Jack Crowe, celebrating a Hogs win in the final SWC matchup between the two rivals. He had just weathered one of the silliest games in the series to secure permanent (well, permanent-ish) bragging rights. Arkansas led 14-0 at halftime after touchdowns from Ron Dickerson Jr. and Kerwin Price, but a 14-yard Phil Brown touchdown made it 14-7 heading into the fourth quarter, and a 55-yard burst from Brown tied the score. Or at least, it should have: The Longhorns missed the PAT, then missed a 39-yard field goal attempt with 3:45 left.
The teams weren’t particularly memorable, even if the game was. Crowe’s Razorbacks went 6-6 in their last season in the SWC, while David McWilliams’ fifth and final Texas team went 5-6. The teams had weathered ups and downs, splitting the previous six meetings and producing zero top-10 finishes from 1984 to 1991 as the SWC wobbled through controversies and discontent. In 1990, the SEC announced it was adding Arkansas as part of an expansion to 10 teams; the plan had originally included adding not only the Hogs but also Texas and Texas A&M, but the state legislature intervened, and only Arkansas was on its way out the door. So was Crowe: Broyles fired him (and then tried to get away with announcing he’d resigned) after Arkansas began its SEC tenure with a 10-3 loss to The Citadel.
No. 7 Texas 22, Arkansas 20 (2004)
Since 1991, this has basically been a series of pent-up aggression: Whichever rival takes an early lead when they meet just keeps wailing away for a while. Arkansas won two bowl meetings (the 2000 Cotton Bowl and the 2014 Texas Bowl) by a combined 58-13, Texas won a home game in Austin 52-10 in 2008, and Arkansas won a home game in Fayetteville, Steve Sarkisian’s second game in charge at Texas, by a score of 40-21 in 2021.
A 2003-04 home-and-home series produced some drama, though. Arkansas upset No. 6 Texas by a 38-28 margin in 2003, using an early 21-0 run to build some space, getting 217 combined rushing yards from Cedric Cobbs and quarterback Matt Jones and scoring every time it needed to down the stretch.
But with a young quarterback by the name of Vince Young taking over for UT in 2004, the Longhorns got some revenge. Texas built a quick 9-0 advantage with a safety from a bombed punt snap and a 49-yard TD from Young to David Thomas. And from there, it was the Cedric Benson show: The star running back produced 201 yards from scrimmage and scored via both ground and air. Texas held a 22-17 lead into the fourth quarter, and after forcing an Arkansas field goal with 9:58 left, the Longhorns’ defense forced three consecutive turnovers to ice the win. Arkansas would stumble to a disappointing 5-6 record, while Mack Brown’s Longhorns would finish 11-1 before winning the national title a year later.
The most recent Hogs-Horns game might turn out to have been pretty useful. “I don’t know what Darrell Royal did to Arkansas back in the day,” Sarkisian joked with reporters this week, “but they absolutely hate our guts. And I think we learned that the first time around when we went there.”
Texas knows what it’s walking into, at least. They know to expect a Horns Down or two, though we’ll have to wait and see if Sam Pittman gets in on the act.
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