Georgia vs. Texas memories dating back to the 1948 Orange Bowl – Bulldawg Illustrated

My first graphic memory of the Texas Longhorns came in 1957, when I had just enrolled at the University of Georgia. UGA was hosting the Burnt Orange Boys from Austin at Grant Field in Atlanta, and I came over to the game.

The intersectional matchup was part of a doubleheader with Tech playing in the afternoon and Georgia playing in the evening. Texas’ fight song had something in common with UGA’s.

We sang “Glory, Glory to Old Georgia” to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” while UT partisans sang “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You” to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” ”

Wallace Butts was in his 19th year as head coach of the Bulldogs and Darrell Royal was in his first year at Texas. Back then, I had seen Coach Butts come and go from his office in the old Stegeman Hall, which had been built for military use during World War II.

The Bulldogs head coach was a friendly guy, but I didn’t know him. We became friends as I watched him suffer during his downtime in the 1950s, but by the end of his career his teams were up to the challenge. I had been reading about Royal and remembered a story in which he told aspiring young coaches that if they wanted to pursue an opportunity somewhere there, they should put “The University of” in front of the school’s name. In most cases these were state universities.

You could have knocked me over with a feather if you had told me that Royal and I would become friends years later. He was a master of the one-liner and played fundamental football to the extreme. Make tackles, highlight the kicking game and play defense.

Royal was known for his homemade humor with lines about his team’s offense in a holiday bowl game: “We’ll dance with what got us.”

One of my favorites was a scouting report he had on a halfback who was exceptionally fast: “He runs faster than small town gossip.”

There have been a large number of personalities involved with Southwest Conference football over the years, including the Royal Chief. With the exception of Fayetteville, Arkansas, 333 miles northeast of Dallas, the rest of the conference could all but be covered up.

One of the most interesting developments in the SWC of his time was that Royal and Arkansas native Frank Broyles became best friends. Although Royal held a 15-4 advantage in their long-standing rivalry, they remained the closest of friends. Their families vacationed together in the off-season.

One of Royal’s best friends was Dan Jenkins, the acclaimed author and Sports Illustrated writer, who appreciated Royal’s insightful humor as much as anyone. Jenkins was exceptionally smart himself.

Georgia first played against Texas in the 1948 Orange Bowl. This game followed the Bulldogs’ loss to Georgia Tech in Athens for Coach Butts’ third SEC title. Interestingly, Orange Bowl officials had difficulty finding a team that would come to Miami.

Back then, players didn’t want to spend an extra month fighting for a holiday bowl. It suited them to stay at home. Eventually, Texas coach Blair Cherry agreed to play in the game, and Texas was castigated so much that it worked against the Bulldogs. The Longhorns defeated Georgia 41-28.

This game was followed by the two games in the 1950s: Atlanta in 1957, when Walt Fondren was the Texas quarterback who became a millionaire because his family had extensive oil reserves.

“The next year, Georgia gave the game back to Austin and Texas won again, but there was an interesting side event.” It was the coming out party for Fran Tarkenton, the Bulldogs’ precocious second-year quarterback.

It was the first year of the two-point conversion, and in the pre-computer era, no one sat down with a slide rule and figured out all the options. Platoon football was still very active, which basically meant that if you missed even a single game, you couldn’t get back into the game until the next quarter.

Texas was leading 7-0 in the fourth quarter when the Longhorns punted and the ball rolled dead at the UGA five-yard line. Tarkenton remembers just running onto the field and taking over the offense. Soon he launched a magical drive that ended in the home team’s end zone.

He threw a three-yard pass to Jimmy Vickers for a touchdown and then calmly threw a two-point conversion pass to the other end, Aaron Box, and had his team leading 8-7 for a few minutes. The game ended in a 13-8 victory for Texas, but Tarkenton was the talk of the town the following week in Athens.

From that point on, with some vicissitudes, Tarkenton developed into a championship quarterback. His legend was born from the coming out party in Austin.

Of course, the play that became one of the most fabled in UGA Bowl history was in the Cotton Bowl 25 years later, when John Lastinger ran 17 yards on third down to beat Texas 10-9.

Georgia had recovered a fumbled punt and it seemed there was no hope. Through headphones on the sideline, Vince told offensive coordinator George Haffner to “set it up.” But Haffner trusted his gut and went with the option, which led to a touchdown, the only one on defense, and a memorable 10-9 game .