In the 1940's and 1950's the SWC was very competitive with every team in the conference having their moments t the top (or near to it). Some up and down for everyone.

Then along came Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles. For about a 15 year span, with one small blip, Texas and Arkansas dominated the SWC.

How did it happen? What happened to the other 6 members?

I have my own thoughts, but I would like to see some other opinions.

Two words ...

Unlimited scholarships.

NCAA limited them to 105 in '73. UT had bench full of players that would have started at every school in the SWC in '69.

I'm pretty sure Texas was pretty dominant at about that level from the beginning of college football until the late 70s. But yes a major reason is the above.

HarryMehre said:

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In the 1940's and 1950's the SWC was very competitive with every team in the conference having their moments t the top (or near to it). Some up and down for everyone.

Then along came Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles. For about a 15 year span, with one small blip, Texas and Arkansas dominated the SWC.

How did it happen? What happened to the other 6 members?

I have my own thoughts, but I would like to see some other opinions.

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For the time period you're referring to, other than 1966 (SMU) and 1967 (aggys) either UT or Arky won or shared the SWC title from 1960 through 1973. In addition to the aforementioned practice of those two (especially Royal) using unlimited scholarships to have what would otherwise be quality starting players for opponents sitting on their bench, highly disproportionate TV exposure had a lot to do with it also. Those were the days when the NCAA restricted TV games to one national "game of the week" and additionally restricted the number of times a school could appear in a televised game during the season. UT was virtually guaranteed to max out their annual TV appearances vs. OU, Arky and the aggys on Thanksgiving, while the rest of the SWC got very little TV exposure during that era. This gave them another huge advantage. In Arky's case, in addition to having their pick of whatever in state talent there was, Broyles was also adept at attracting a lot of quality Texas talent (especially from the East Texas Area) in part because all of their conference games were against nothing but Texas schools - another big advantage for them.

Coke Bear said:

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Two words ...

Unlimited scholarships.

NCAA limited them to 105 in '73. UT had bench full of players that would have started at every school in the SWC in '69.

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I remember vividly in the 60's watching the ShortHorns ( FR. team) and wondering if they suited out the entire Freshman class.

Coke Bear said:

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Two words ...

Unlimited scholarships.

NCAA limited them to 105 in '73. UT had bench full of players that would have started at every school in the SWC in '69.

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ThisUT could fill seven teams on a depth chart.

In addition to the above comments I would have to add the restrictive in-conference transfer rules as a reason for the stockpiling of players by UT and UA. In addition to that, A&M was still a men-only school until sometime in the early 1970's which obviously didn't appeal to everybody and probably kept them from being as competitive as UT & UA.

Find a copy of "Meat On The Hoof" by Gary Shaw. It was published in 1972 and was an expose' of the Longhorn program from a player's perspective. This should give you some insight into the machinations of college football in its early industrialized big business years.

NIL could very easily be the new unlimited scholarships.

Thee University said:

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NIL could very easily be the new unlimited scholarships.

I agree.

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I don't see it that way since there are still scholarship limits and liberalized transfer rules now. I think those two things really mitigate against the potential of NIL taking things back to where they were pre scholarship limits.

A couple of thoughts on things that have been mentioned.

I had always heard and assumed that Texas just signed huge recruiting classes and had players on the bench that could have played elsewhere. I went back and looked at the signings list from Dave Campbell's Texas from 1963 through 1974. This is what I found on that subject:
Texas didn't sign more than most of the schools, but were signing significantly higher rated talent. The Aggies, Texas Tech and really TCU were signing the same number of players as the Longhorns.

SMU, Rice and Baylor were typically signing 7-10 less players a year than the above group, especially Rice and Baylor. That adds up. I don't remember many transfers in those days from big school to big school and not within the conference. Players either quit or transferred down to a lower level (SFA, Sam Houston, etc.). If some of the studs that left Texas transferred, it wasn't to other SWC schools.

TV exposure is a very good point. You could count on Texas-Arkansas and Texas-Oklahoma being on TV every year. Another point on that matter was when the other SWC schools were on TV it was often regional and didn't have the glamour of the top crew (Keith Jackson, Ara Parsegian, etc.) working the game.

Texas A&M let women in starting in 1963 and went away from the mandatory Corps membership about the same time. The Aggies still had issues with being known as a military school when Vietnam cranked up and still had a lack of women. Plus, it was A&M. Even more desolate in those days.

As far as Gary Shaw and "Meat on the Hoof", I take that with a grain of salt. Remember that Mr. Shaw had major mental illness issues and was homeless for a decade. He obviously had a axe to grind with Texas and Royal. I'm sure that a lot of it was true, but I remember reading the book in 1975 and thinking that most of it was heavily dramatized descriptions of routine tackling and blocking drills of the time.

Meat in the Hoof was 95% true. I has HS teammates on those UT teams and he verified. I also played for Pat Culpepper so what he did and tried to do to us parallel the UT book.

HarryMehre said:

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A couple of thoughts on things that have been mentioned.

I had always heard and assumed that Texas just signed huge recruiting classes and had players on the bench that could have played elsewhere. I went back and looked at the signings list from Dave Campbell's Texas from 1963 through 1974. This is what I found on that subject:
Texas didn't sign more than most of the schools, but were signing significantly higher rated talent. The Aggies, Texas Tech and really TCU were signing the same number of players as the Longhorns.

SMU, Rice and Baylor were typically signing 7-10 less players a year than the above group, especially Rice and Baylor. That adds up. I don't remember many transfers in those days from big school to big school and not within the conference. Players either quit or transferred down to a lower level (SFA, Sam Houston, etc.). If some of the studs that left Texas transferred, it wasn't to other SWC schools.

TV exposure is a very good point. You could count on Texas-Arkansas and Texas-Oklahoma being on TV every year. Another point on that matter was when the other SWC schools were on TV it was often regional and didn't have the glamour of the top crew (Keith Jackson, Ara Parsegian, etc.) working the game.

Texas A&M let women in starting in 1963 and went away from the mandatory Corps membership about the same time. The Aggies still had issues with being known as a military school when Vietnam cranked up and still had a lack of women. Plus, it was A&M. Even more desolate in those days.

As far as Gary Shaw and "Meat on the Hoof", I take that with a grain of salt. Remember that Mr. Shaw had major mental illness issues and was homeless for a decade. He obviously had a axe to grind with Texas and Royal. I'm sure that a lot of it was true, but I remember reading the book in 1975 and thinking that most of it was heavily dramatized descriptions of routine tackling and blocking drills of the time.

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Nobody said others in the conference didn't bring in large numbers of recruits as well, but the fact that UT could routinely sign higher end talent across the board still had the impact of stocking their bench with players that likely would've gone elsewhere and started within the conference. Also as far as the TV exposure point goes, keep in mind regionalized games didn't start to be a thing until the latter part of this period (i.e. the early '70's). Even so, TV options were still very limited for non-blue bloods. BU's '74 "Miracle on the Brazos" team that broke UT's streak of 6 straight SWC titles didn't have a single regular season game televised that season.

TV games were set in April with very little ability to change them up back then.

Two great coaches. Baylor was great when Frank Broyles was on our staff. We should have hired him as head coach Admitting Tech weakened the SWC and it never recovered.

I think that you have to acknowledge that Royal and Broyles were great coaches that were also in the right place at the right time.

In no particular order here are a few things that caused the divide and/or helped Arkansas and Texas.

Oklahoma was relatively down in the 1960's. This helped Texas lock down the state since they were beating the Sooners and helped Arkansas recruit in DFW and East Texas.

As noted by Aliceinbubbleland, Texas Tech weakened the SWC. The Red Raiders were able to compete for third place during this period in a few years, but never had enough umph to break through Texas/Arkansas. Having Tech in the SWC hurt TCU and Baylor's recruiting, because they had success in West Texas in the 40's and 50's.

The Baby boom and overall population boom hurt the smaller private schools. When Texas had 8-10,000 students and the private schools had 2-5000, Texas had an advantage. When Texas had 40,000 students and the privates had 5000-10,000, Texas had a huge advantage on alumni and contributors. Also when Texas enlarged their stadium so it was significantly bigger than the rest of the conference's stadiums.

The pro sports coming to Houston and Dallas hurt Rice, SMU and TCU. Cut into the corporate season ticket holders that switched to the Oilers, Astros and Cowboys. Also hurt in the amount of media attention.

Rice and TCU also had the whammy of losing long-time successful head coaches about the time that the pros were moving in. Plus, these coaches had let their programs slip some their last few years.

Once you get down it is hard to get back up, especially when the main team that is on top has more money and more publicity. Arkansas actually had some slippage after the 1969 and 1970 "shoot-outs".

Very good recap. I remember so well when Rice won the SWC every fourth year under Jess Neely. Imagine seeing 70,000 in the stands at Rice today lol. Pro sports killed TCU, SMU and Rice. Only TCU was able to slightly recover.

Aliceinbubbleland said:

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Very good recap. I remember so well when Rice won the SWC every fourth year under Jess Neely. Imagine seeing 70,000 in the stands at Rice today lol. Pro sports killed TCU, SMU and Rice. Only TCU was able to slightly recover.

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TCU won the SWC in 1958 and tied for the title in 1959. Tech entered the conference in 1960. In the 32 seasons until Arkansas left in 1992, TCU had a winning record 5 times (62, 65, 71, 84, 91) and beat UT and Arkansas only 3 times each.

Arkansas was just exceptionally good in their Broyles era. They were able to stand up to the blue bloods during his era, similar to Briles era likely would have been at Baylor had it been allowed to flourish for long tenure. For perspective the Baylor/Ark series is about even historically and that is with all the wins against Baylor that I'm speculating occurred during the Broyles era.

Another aspect of the UA/UT dominance in the years mentioned is that both schools won mythical national titles with segregated teams. Even though other schools were willing to raise the ante by signing large recruiting classes along with Texas and Arkansas, there weren't enough quality white guys to go around after those two schools cheery picked the state.

Integration and the flood of black athletes into the SWC greatly leveled the competitive playing field for those schools willing to dedicate the resources and institutional philosophical commitment necessary to operate a big time football program.

Baylor broke the Texas stranglehold on the conference in 1974 with an integrated team and the the SWC entered a much more competitive era as five teams won or shared a conference title over the next 10 years.

4yrletterbear said:

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Meat in the Hoof was 95% true. I has HS teammates on those UT teams and he verified. I also played for Pat Culpepper so what he did and tried to do to us parallel the UT book.

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I can verify this as pure truth.


Another touched and large factor was that some schools substantially funded football programs at levels others could not or would not, all for varying reasons. White and McCall, for example, viewed college athletics as less than scholarly investments in the university. They weren't alone in that. The schools that had the vision to see football, for example, as great PR for the university, and the resources to put into that did so at the time TV 's games hit the big time with viewers. The facilities THEN were tremendous advantages in recruiting. It only took Baylor 40 years to join the party.

There were no limits back then on the number of recruits a school could sign, as we know. A very good back from our HS was signed just so Royal wouldn't have to play against him. Never saw the field in 4 years. When the new recruiting rules made it a level playing field, the "Great" Darrel Royal got his butt whupped and quit.

Back in 70's, in order to transfer to another D-1 or certainly within the conference, I believe you had to receive permission and sit out two years. Things were different. Most played football because it was cool and, if it didn't work out, you had a scholarship from the school you wanted to attend. There was glory in making the NFL but not much more money than you could get working. Minimum NFL salary when i graduated was $17,000 per year.

Jan.1, 1975. It was very early in the morning, at the Fair Grounds,and as some Waco friends, Nick KLARAS and others, and I took in the sights and sounds, along came Cotton Davidson, Teaff's assistant for QB's and receivers.This anecdote from that morning may "illuminate" the OP's question. According to Davidson, he and another staffer were driving out of Nowhere, Arkansas, headed back to Waco from what they felt had been a promising recruiting trip. As they passed a crop duster's landing strip, Cotton's young companion spotted a burnt orange and white Cessna touching down.

"Hey looka there," he yelled to Cotton, " that's no duster. Wonder who it is?"

"That, why son, that's the big money,."

cowach said:

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Back in 70's, in order to transfer to another D-1 or certainly within the conference, I believe you had to receive permission and sit out two years. Things were different. Most played football because it was cool and, if it didn't work out, you had a scholarship from the school you wanted to attend. There was glory in making the NFL but not much more money than you could get working. Minimum NFL salary when i graduated was $17,000 per year.

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I think the process for transferring to another school in the SWC required unanimous consent from all the other schools in the conference.

I believe we had a QB transfer from Tech who started for us in the 'Worm Game" against Texas. Of course the Longhorns had given their Okie Dokie a couple of years earlier, which just made the win that much sweeter.....and I think the Horns tossed their coach after that game.

ABC BEAR said:

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I believe we had a QB transfer from Tech who started for us in the 'Worm Game" against Texas. Of course the Longhorns had given their Okie Dokie a couple of years earlier, which just made the win that much sweeter.....and I think the Horns tossed their coach after that game.

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The year was 1978 and the QB was Mickey Elam - a 5'9" converted running back that was a surprise weapon at QB. UT wasn't prepared for a running QB and the 2 win Bears (coming into that game) destroyed them that day.

Johnny Bear said:

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ABC BEAR said:

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I believe we had a QB transfer from Tech who started for us in the 'Worm Game" against Texas. Of course the Longhorns had given their Okie Dokie a couple of years earlier, which just made the win that much sweeter.....and I think the Horns tossed their coach after that game.

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The year was 1978 and the QB was Mickey Elam - a 5'9" converted running back that was a surprise weapon at QB. UT wasn't prepared for a running QB and the 2 win Bears (coming into that game) destroyed them that day.

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We lost the 1st 5 games that year (first three games all on the road) by a total of 21 points.

@ Georgia 14-16
@ Kentucky 21-25
@ Ohio State 28-34
Houston 18-20
SMU 21-28

We then went over to play @ #13 A&M and turned Walter A. loose for a huge 24-6 win. We would beat TCU but then lose to Tech, Arkansas and even Rice to be 2-8 entering the game versus #9 Texas.

Texas did not cross the 50 yard line until the 3rd Q. We held them to 95 yards rushing on 39 attempts.
38-14 Bear stomping to keep the win-in-Waco-every-even-year intact.

Thee University said:

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Johnny Bear said:

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ABC BEAR said:

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I believe we had a QB transfer from Tech who started for us in the 'Worm Game" against Texas. Of course the Longhorns had given their Okie Dokie a couple of years earlier, which just made the win that much sweeter.....and I think the Horns tossed their coach after that game.

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The year was 1978 and the QB was Mickey Elam - a 5'9" converted running back that was a surprise weapon at QB. UT wasn't prepared for a running QB and the 2 win Bears (coming into that game) destroyed them that day.

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We lost the 1st 5 games that year (first three games all on the road) by a total of 21 points.

@ Georgia 14-16
@ Kentucky 21-25
@ Ohio State 28-34
Houston 18-20
SMU 21-28

We then went over to play @ #13 A&M and turned Walter A. loose for a huge 24-6 win. We would beat TCU but then lose to Tech, Arkansas and even Rice to be 2-8 entering the game versus #9 Texas.

Texas did not cross the 50 yard line until the 3rd Q. We held them to 95 yards rushing on 39 attempts.
38-14 Bear stomping to keep the win-in-Waco-every-even-year intact.

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That had to have been one of the poorest designed collegiate football schedules of all time. 7 road games out the 11 total games played and the only truly "bad loss" in those first 5 near misses was the home loss to SMU (both Kentucky & UH had strong programs at that time in addition to the obvious Georgia & Ohio State blue bloods).

Johnny Bear said:

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Thee University said:

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Johnny Bear said:

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ABC BEAR said:

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I believe we had a QB transfer from Tech who started for us in the 'Worm Game" against Texas. Of course the Longhorns had given their Okie Dokie a couple of years earlier, which just made the win that much sweeter.....and I think the Horns tossed their coach after that game.

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The year was 1978 and the QB was Mickey Elam - a 5'9" converted running back that was a surprise weapon at QB. UT wasn't prepared for a running QB and the 2 win Bears (coming into that game) destroyed them that day.

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We lost the 1st 5 games that year (first three games all on the road) by a total of 21 points.

@ Georgia 14-16
@ Kentucky 21-25
@ Ohio State 28-34
Houston 18-20
SMU 21-28

We then went over to play @ #13 A&M and turned Walter A. loose for a huge 24-6 win. We would beat TCU but then lose to Tech, Arkansas and even Rice to be 2-8 entering the game versus #9 Texas.

Texas did not cross the 50 yard line until the 3rd Q. We held them to 95 yards rushing on 39 attempts.
38-14 Bear stomping to keep the win-in-Waco-every-even-year intact.

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That had to have been one of the poorest designed collegiate football schedules of all time. 7 road games out the 11 total games played and the only truly "bad loss" in those first 5 near misses was the home loss to SMU (both Kentucky & UH had strong programs at that time in addition to the obvious Georgia & Ohio State blue bloods). I was at the aggy game in collie station that season when Abercrombie hung 207 rushing yards on them, and I also recall watching the regionally televised opening game against Georgia between the hedges when our kicker missed something like 3 makeable field goals - any one of which would've meant the difference in the game.

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Johnny Bear said:

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Thee University said:

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Johnny Bear said:

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ABC BEAR said:

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I believe we had a QB transfer from Tech who started for us in the 'Worm Game" against Texas. Of course the Longhorns had given their Okie Dokie a couple of years earlier, which just made the win that much sweeter.....and I think the Horns tossed their coach after that game.

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The year was 1978 and the QB was Mickey Elam - a 5'9" converted running back that was a surprise weapon at QB. UT wasn't prepared for a running QB and the 2 win Bears (coming into that game) destroyed them that day.

---

We lost the 1st 5 games that year (first three games all on the road) by a total of 21 points.

@ Georgia 14-16
@ Kentucky 21-25
@ Ohio State 28-34
Houston 18-20
SMU 21-28

We then went over to play @ #13 A&M and turned Walter A. loose for a huge 24-6 win. We would beat TCU but then lose to Tech, Arkansas and even Rice to be 2-8 entering the game versus #9 Texas.

Texas did not cross the 50 yard line until the 3rd Q. We held them to 95 yards rushing on 39 attempts.
38-14 Bear stomping to keep the win-in-Waco-every-even-year intact.

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That had to have been one of the poorest designed collegiate football schedules of all time. 7 road games out the 11 total games played and the only truly "bad loss" in those first 5 near misses was the home loss to SMU (both Kentucky & UH had strong programs at that time in addition to the obvious Georgia & Ohio State blue bloods).

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Those were the days before Incarnate Word popped up on our schedule.

Johnny Bear said:

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Johnny Bear said:

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I was at the aggy game in collie station that season when Abercrombie hung 207 rushing yards on them, and I also recall watching the regionally televised opening game against Georgia between the hedges when our kicker missed something like 3 makeable field goals - any one of which would've meant the difference in the game.

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That kicker was one of my roommates in Brooks that season. When we got back to Waco late that night and arrived at our room in Brooks our door had been kicked in and someone had spray painted "wide right" on the wall.

He had a bad year in 1978. He missed a few more that could have swayed any of those first 5 losses except for Ohio State.

He recovered nicely and still appears in Baylor's record book in a number of categories.

Yes, it was unlimited scholarships.
That was before the limit of 120
They signed kids to have them sit on the bench rather than play for other schools.

Yep. DKR came to our next door neighbor's home around 1960 just to recruit at best a 2* player. Why? Because 2* kid's best friend was a 5* player and the 5* wanted to go to OU. DKR signed both of them because he convinced our neighbor it was best for them at UT.

Aliceinbubbleland said:

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Yep. DKR came to our next door neighbor's home around 1960 just to recruit at best a 2* player. Why? Because 2* kid's best friend was a 5* player and the 5* wanted to go to OU. DKR signed both of them because he convinced our neighbor it was best for them at UT.

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I bet that he didn't do that very often, since the Longhorns weren't signing more players than most of the SWC schools.

If UT wants to leave then let them.

They are one of those programs whose glory years are mostly pre integration.
Good In the 70's
Average in the 80's and 90's
Great in the 2000's
Average in the 2010's

If UT goes to the SEC the days of them being a dominant football program are over. Truth be told....they already are over, but going to the SEC means that UT will have great seasons every now and then instead of annually like they did under Mack Brown.