The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Bill Little commentary: Remembering the Rebels
09.13.2013 | Football, Bill Little Commentary
The series began years before, when both schools were embarking as fledgling new colleges, entering the game of football in the early part of the 20th Century.
With the 2013 football season traveling the parallel track between honoring the 50th anniversary of the 1963 National Championship and the competition of today's world in the Big 12 and the SEC, Saturday night's Texas-Ole Miss game offers a glance at the past and a glimpse of the present and beyond.
The power of the game in Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium offers a dissection that strikes at the very essence of the collegiate football experience. It is not, as some might think, about despair. There is hope, resolve, anticipation and wonder. There is - most of all - opportunity.
From the Texas point of view, it follows a week of determination and hard work within the team. Make no mistake, this is a group that despite a setback in its second game of the year, still believes it has the ability to win every game it plays. If you want to quit, you are in the wrong house.
Ole Miss also enters the game with high hopes. After finishing last year at 7-6 with a strong showing as its season drew to a close, the Rebels have won their first two games and have earned a place in the nation's top 25.
The season of 1963 enters the equation because it was a time in college football history when both of these institutions were regulars on the national landscape. In fact, in the seasons of 1961, 1962, and 1963, only three teams were ranked in the nation's top ten every year. One was Bear Bryant's Alabama, and the others were Johnny Vaught's Rebels and Darrell Royal's Longhorns.
The series began years before, when both schools were embarking as fledgling new colleges, entering the game of football in the early part of the 20th Century. The first meeting came in Houston in 1912, and it replaced the Longhorns' annual meeting with Texas A&M at that neutral site. The Aggie series (I know this will surprise you) ended in anger following a near riot in downtown Houston after the 'Horns won the 1911 game, 6-0.
The two schools played in Austin in 1914 and 1925, and didn't meet again until an ill-fated appearance by UT in the 1958 Sugar Bowl game following the 1957 season. In that one, a young Darrell Royal took into New Orleans his "Cinderella" team which had finished at 6-3-1 after a turnaround from a 1-9 season in 1956.
Years later, Royal would observe that he worked his team too hard before the game, but the result was that a thoroughly out-manned UT team ran into one of the juggernauts of the time in college football and got beat handily, 39-7. Legend has it that Royal was so disgusted with the game that he gave away his Sugar Bowl watch to a stranger outside the postgame dinner held for both teams.
That was the first of three post-season meetings within a ten year span. The 1961 team, which included as sophomores many of the players who would lead the team to a National Championship two years later, gave Royal his first bowl victory with a hard-fought, impressive 12-7 win over Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl Classic.
The scenario was considerably different five years later when the two schools met in the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston. Both were bruised from battle as they had slipped from the national spotlight. Texas, however, rode a strong defense to a 19-0 shutout.
Since then, the series had remained dormant until conversations between former Ole Miss star and college football icon Archie Manning and Mack Brown and some friends began to germinate the idea of the two schools meeting. The 2012 trip to Oxford has been lauded as one of the best road trips for Longhorn fans in recent years. They immersed themselves in the hospitality of the deep South, tailgating with the Ole Miss faithful in the Grove before, during and after the game.
The game itself was a coming out party for UT sophomore quarterback David Ash and running back Malcolm Brown. The 'Horns put up 66 points. The Rebels, however, also flexed some offensive muscle by scoring 31 - signifying what would become a strong point-scoring run to the end of last season.
So in the series which began just over one hundred years ago, Texas has a 6-1 record.
Saturday night's game is a true testament as to why kids play games. It is why it is impossible to predict this game of college football. It underscores the fact that while all have opinions and questions, only the guys on the field will provide the answers.
