That day started out bad. Coming out of Don's and Ben's, I dropped and broke a 5th bottle of Jim Beam.

I was at the 75 tu game and it was one of the most exciting games I've ever been to at Kyle Field.
The stadium was packed and the atmosphere was electric. As I recall it was an overcast day but did not rain like it did in Austin for the 74 game.
That first play on the end a round by Carl Roaches and the big run by Bubba Bean i'll never forget.
I was very depressed after the Arkansas loss.
BTW, I was at the Florida game this year and the excitement in the stands and on the field at the end of the game remind me a lot of the 75 game.
Two of the most exciting games I've ever been to at Kyle.

Two quick comments.

First, totally agree on the one-dimensional offense. If we would have completed attempted a slant to a tight end once in the game they would have had to back off. It may have only been an 8 man front but there were at least 10 in the box all day.

Second for a positve note, Robert Jackson got a single mention early in this thread. He was the only human I ever saw that could take on Earl Campbell one-on-one and turn him back. Earl made a living of always falling forward for two extra yards after ordinary humans would already be down. Jackson stopped him cold and turned him back. Never saw anything like that before or since. And Simonini and TenNapel weren't too shabby either. An absolutely unbelievable linebacking trio.

SI cover jinx. I watched this one on tv. Mike Jay got hurt against the sips, Shipman started at qb vs. Arkansas. Someone said we were one dimensional and just ran the ball, no s**t, that's pretty much what college football was back then. It was a wet, dreary day. This might have been the first "what if" game followed by too many since...

CCAD AG said:

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Two quick comments.

First, totally agree on the one-dimensional offense. If we would have completed attempted a slant to a tight end once in the game they would have had to back off. It may have only been an 8 man front but there were at least 10 in the box all day.

Second for a positve note, Robert Jackson got a single mention early in this thread. He was the only human I ever saw that could take on Earl Campbell one-on-one and turn him back. Earl made a living of always falling forward for two extra yards after ordinary humans would already be down. Jackson stopped him cold and turned him back. Never saw anything like that before or since. And Simonini and TenNapel weren't too shabby either. An absolutely unbelievable linebacking trio.

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I'll take Robert L. Jackson over any we've ever had at LB.

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I'll take Robert L. Jackson over any we've ever had at LB.

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Agreed. Even over Dat and Ed Simonini. He was what a dream MLB would be.

Ironically, I actually attended this game as a 13 yr old.

My parents are from Texas but our family was living in Russellville, AR at the time. My dad has his Masters from A&M. He's not a big football/sports fan but seeing as how the Ags were so highly ranked, he decided to get tickets to the game.

I was not really an A&M fan at that time. Having lived in Arkansas for the previous 3 yrs, I was more of a Hog fan. There was absolutely no thought at that time that I may one day go to college at Texas A&M.

Game was played at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, not in Fayetteville. It was a cold and dreary overcast day - especially for the Aggie fans in attendance.

We ended up moving back to Texas before I graduated HS and I become Aggie..

FHUAggie said:

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Please, I'm only 23 and my furthest memory of Aggie football goes back to the 1992 walloping of Texas @ Texas.

But after the "Worst Moment Thread," I'm awfully curious to hear it from youEE

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Emory Bellard would choke when he got in a tight. He stuck with a game plan that was obvioulsy getting him no where. He was playing David Shipman as quarter back and shipman was average at bes and could have wone th interception award if given. David Walker who was much more diverse had told Bellard he pull the redshirt off him if he needed him. Bellard seemed to always have something against walker and and would not change the game plan. In a nit shell Bellard f' that game.

Sure would have been nice to have David walker available for the 1975 season....

RebelAggie said:

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Sure would have been nice to have David walker available for the 1975 season....

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Somebody send this to Walker, he has no problem *****ing about his time at A&M. That being said, did like to watch him play.

I came to grad school at TAMU in January 1973, so I was able to see the rise of the Aggie football program close hand. I did attend the 1975 tu game and agree that the opening with the Carl Roaches end-around was the most electric play I ever saw at Kyle Field. To say we were a run-oriented offense is putting it mildly - we averaged 50 yards per game passing and 283 rushing. BUT - our defense gave up 184 yards per game! In 8 of the 10 conference games, we gave up 10 points or less.

I do believe the loss of QB Mike Jay in the t.u. game was crucial. He played solid and seemed to throw well enough to keep the defense honest. Very unfortunate timing in our QB play when you look at how well David Walker played in 1976.

RebelAggie said:

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Sure would have been nice to have David walker available for the 1975 season....

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Did Walker not transfer to USL for 1975 and back to A&M for 76? Or is that what you're referring to.

Sterling82 said:

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RebelAggie said:

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Sure would have been nice to have David walker available for the 1975 season....

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Did Walker not transfer to USL for 1975 and back to A&M for 76? Or is that what you're referring to.

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Walker has a written a book about his time in Aggieland. Just go follow him on FB, you'll know all you need to know about how he feels about things. It is crazy that he was 17 when he first got under center for the Ags.

Bellard chose to redshirt him for the 1975 season in a very strange move. He was here and available for the entire 1975 season. Another bizarre time in Aggie football history.
He was honestly the best quarterback we had during the Bellard years.. In 1976 Ballard gave Tom Wilson some control of offensive play calling duties and once he gave David Walker the keys to the offense, the Aggies never looked back that year. 1976 was a year to remember. But good grief, what if Walker was the staring QB in 1976 from the very first game of the season!?!?

I played golf with Richard Osborne about a month ago. He was the TE on that team. He said the same thing about Robert Jackson keeping Earl in check that day. Jackson was a full grown beast.

Osborne said he could run down field and not have a defender within 10 yards of him. Completing passes would have been easy. EB was so one dimensional.

As for the Arke game, he said they were emotionally drained AND Arkie came out so jacked up they were frothing at the mouth. Plain and simple they just got their butts kicked that day.

Mike Jay wasn't a great passer, but any passing would have helped against Arkansas. Too bad he was hurt.

It still hurts. Always will.

FHUAggie said:

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Please, I'm only 23 and my furthest memory of Aggie football goes back to the 1992 walloping of Texas @ Texas.

But after the "Worst Moment Thread," I'm awfully curious to hear it from you all.

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The '57 Rice game, followed by the end of the '57 season

The '63 t.u. game. The worst ref call in the history of football

The '67 SMU game when they scored and we were lined to march to the "Y"

The '74 t.u. game. It was so cold and they scored twice in the first two minutes of the game.

The '75 Arkansas game. Nuff Said

The Liberty Bowl that we mailed in after that.

The Blue Bonnet Bowl against USC

The Florida State Cotton Bowl

The Norte Dame losses in the Cotton Bowl

The Sun Bowl against Pitt

The Iowa State debacle

2011 t.u.

The bowl loss to Wake

Blowing the UCLA game

SW AG80 said:

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I played golf with Richard Osborne about a month ago. He was the TE on that team. He said the same thing about Robert Jackson keeping Earl in check that day. Jackson was a full grown beast.

Osborne said he could run down field and not have a defender within 10 yards of him. Completing passes would have been easy. EB was so one dimensional.

As for the Arke game, he said they were emotionally drained AND Arkie came out so jacked up they were frothing at the mouth. Plain and simple they just got their butts kicked that day.

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I really liked Osbourne. Bellard may have been one dimensional, but so was everybody else. I think the Arkansas qb, Bull, ran for like 1,000 that year. Football was basically beat the guy in front of you, frankly, a brand I like more than 5 wide and sleight of hand.

Earl wanted nothing to do with Robert L. and the Ag d that day.

Win that game, win the Cotton Bowl, most likely '75 national champs.

Arkansas, my head hurts

aggiejim70 said:

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FHUAggie said:

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Please, I'm only 23 and my furthest memory of Aggie football goes back to the 1992 walloping of Texas @ Texas.

But after the "Worst Moment Thread," I'm awfully curious to hear it from you all.

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The '57 Rice game, followed by the end of the '57 season

The '63 t.u. game. The worst ref call in the history of football

The '67 SMU game when they scored and we were lined to march to the "Y"

The '74 t.u. game. It was so cold and they scored twice in the first two minutes of the game.

The '75 Arkansas game. Nuff Said

The Liberty Bowl that we mailed in after that.

The Blue Bonnet Bowl against USC

The Florida State Cotton Bowl

The Norte Dame losses in the Cotton Bowl

The Sun Bowl against Pitt

The Iowa State debacle

2011 t.u.

The bowl loss to Wake

Blowing the UCLA game

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The Mich loss in Ann Arbor still hurts. circa 1975 or so

Another thing that hurt us in the Liberty bowl after the Arkie loss was that Bubba Bean got hurt in the Arkie game and did not play in the Liberty Bowl. Mike Hartman took his place and played every offensive snap in the bowl game.

I think that Michigan game was in 1970. We fumbled that game away. The following game we got our hiney handed to us by tOSU.

Mowdy Ag said:

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...a perfect, comprehensive answer by Cotton. That nailed it.

MA

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Now the Bad Kama Part.

As mentioned NO Nat'l Cable, ONLY IF YOU WERE GOOD, National TV coverage.

Early in the Year, tu Spanked someone on Nat'l TV, the VERY NEXT WEEK, got Spanked by TT.

Middle of the Year, Notre Dame (back when they were good) spanked someone on Nat'l TV, the VERY NEXT WEEK, got Spanked.

End of the Year. A&M / tu National TV, Ags Win, You Guessed It, Nat'l TV against a Highly Rated team with Yep, as Cotton Said Arkansas Head Coach doing the Color in the Booth from Kyle, the VERY NEXT WEEK, traveled to Arkansa and got Spanked.

AS I recall those games weren't even close.

Cotton79 said:

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FHUAggie (and all you younger Ags),

1975 was my fish year, so I remember it well. But let me go back even a bit before that to properly set the stage.

• TAMC voted in 1963 to 1) allow women, and 2) no longer make the Corps mandatory for undergraduate students.
  
• It took a while for the change to manifest, but by the early 70s that plan started gaining traction. Result?... the student population really took off.
  
• Also in the early 70s, we hired Emory Bellard father of the Wishbone offense and former offensive coordinator for Darrell Royal at tu.
  
• Coach Bellard was a very successful recruiter, and while his first few years didn't show it, by 1974 he had amassed a very capable team. NOTE: he was the first to recruit black athletes in big numbers to Aggieland.
  
• in '74, we were really beginning to make ground, and it came down to a cold, wet Thanksgiving Day game in Austin for the SWC championship and we got smoked. Really smoked. The Horns scored three TD's within about 90 total seconds, and it was she wrote.
  
• Now, keep in mind that there were only about 15 or so bowl games at that time, so it was either win that game or go home. We went home.

Point being, we were ready to kick some a$$ the next year!

Now, you have to understand something else, too: this was all "BC," as in "before cable." ESPN didn't come around for another 5 years or so, and all we had on the tube were the three networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC), PBS, and for the bigger metro areas there might have been an independent TV station. One independent station. WB didn't exist. Nor Fox. Nor Ion. Nada. Goose egg. THAT WAS IT! ABC was known as the sports station back then, although NBC would show some Notre Dame games now and then and CBS would break away from golf or whatever once a season to show a football game.

Thus, ANY invitation to play on TV was a big deal as there were far too few chances. Oh sure, there was Saturday afternoon football on ABC's Wide World of Sports, but if I saw Nebraska play once in my formative years in the 60s and early 70s, I saw them dozens of times. And if it wasn't the Huskers, it was Notre Dame. Sometimes Oklahoma, and yes, even the Horns. But the Ags were rarely a TV commodity.

In 1975, Arkansas was still a regular SWC foe, and we were scheduled to play the Razorbacks midway through the season, and had we played them as originally scheduled, we would most likely have won the game. Even with it being a home game for them, that Aggie team was ready to play. Why?... well, let's just say that 10 of the 11 defensive starters that year were eventually drafted by the NFL. All three LB'ers were All American: Ed Simonini and Garth Ten Apel were seniors that year and were AA in '75, and MLB Robert Jackson still THE hardest hitting LB'er I've ever seen! was a junior that year and an AA the next year. (And we had some offensive players head to the NFL, too, like OL Dennis Swilley and RB Bubba Bean.)

Then ABC came a'callin'. "Say, gents if y'all move that game to the last game of the season say the first weekend in December we have some available air time, and we'll televise that for you and guarantee you $200,000 apiece. You'll be the only show in town because the regular season will be over. How does that sound for you?!" Seeing that every Saturday it was either Nebraska or Notre Dame on TV, we said "SURE!"

Meanwhile, the Ags kept motoring on, taking care of business. Then came Turkey Day 1975. The Aggies were 9-0 and #2 in the land, and the Horns were equally potent at 9-1 and #5 coming into College Station. What a showdown! Now, Bellard had run the Wishbone well, but quite frankly we were getting antsy in the stands to see a bit more razzle-dazzle, and Bellard did not disappoint. The first play of the game for the Ags, we ran a reverse to speedy flanker Carl Roaches that went for about 50 yards. As a fish, I was sitting dead-center in the horseshoe (which is now The Zone), and all I could see was Carl running down the left sideline (the student side). And running. And running.. and running some more! I lost it. There wasn't a vocal chord left in my body. And it was smooth sailing from then on. The Horns scored on a muffed special teams play, but we ruled the day and won 20-10. Sweet revenge for the shellacking we took the year prior.

Watch snippets here:

Then, Aggie RB Bubba Bean's picture showed up on Sports Illustrated. Not the regional version of SI that we're all accustomed to today. The ONLY version. It was the curse of death!

Bubba Bean (the pride of Kirbyville, TX!): ?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF8789215ABF3343C02EA548ED2B8F2022FD49C26C2C626DE7EBF495A126B5E07AD63795

Then came the debacle in Little Rock, with us getting outscored 6-31. To this day, I still don't know what took our MOJO away. Perhaps it was too much celebrating after the Horn win especially after what happened just the year prior and we lost focus. Anway, that loss put us in a 3-way tie for the SWC, with the Pigs, the Horns, and the Ags all at 6-1. The contract arrangements of the day had the SWC winner going to the Cotton Bowl (only), and other SWC teams could go to lesser bowls like the Liberty Bowl in Memphis or the now defunct Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston.

Here's the kicker and the reason why we were thiiiiiissss close to earning a national championship:

• Ohio State was #1 that year, and the Big Ten was contractually obligated to play the Pac Ten champion in the Rose Bowl. So, #1 Ohio State played #11 UCLA, and the Bruins won in an upset, 23-10. This opened the doors to the #2 team in the land (which shoulda/coulda/woulda been the Ags!
  
• Oklahoma took the #2 spot after the Ags' loss to Arkansas, and played #4 Michigan in the Orange Bowl. The won that game, and thus became the National Champions that year.
  
• #18 Arkansas played #22 Georgia in the Cotton Bowl and won handily, 31-10. (I, like many, believe had the Ags beat Arky in the first place that they would have cleaned house with the Bulldogs in the Cotton Bowl.)
  
• The demoralized Ags played unranked USC in the Liberty Bowl, and lost miserably, 20-0.

That, my friend, is the proverbial one that got away. Had we won that game in the hills of Arkansas, a lot of things would have been different at Aggieland over the years.

Oh and a rather young RC Slocum was a DL coach on that team, too! He worked for "Mad Dog" Robertson, who was a masterful defensive coordinator.

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Thanks Cotton. I got sick again remembering that loss.

We fumbled, then fumbled some more, and when we were done with that, we fumbled again.

My Dad and I drove up from Houston to Kurten TX to watch the game on a friends ranch... That was 45 years ago, doesn't seem like yesterday, but sure doesn't seem like 45 years.

Weed ??? ... did not see any mention of the nine days between the Thursday/Turkey Day thrashing of Texas ... which should have been the winning of the SWC title, and the Saturday of the rescheduled disaster vs Arky.

Weed + booze ??? It was widely reported and discussed at the time, that the week + 2 days after the tu victory was much less than productive under the effect of "celebratory influences."

So much to the effect that after arriving back in CS and after the realization of losing to Arky and losing the outright conference crown and opportunity to play for the NC in the Cotton Bowl had set in ... when the fog had clearly passed, the team basically exploded in Cain Hall doing damage somewhat like we just witnessed in downtowns Seattle and Portland. ... several thousands of $$$ of damages.

That was the word on campus in '75. S

I was in an M60A-1, in an ARTEP exercise at Ft. Hood, listening to that fiasco on a transistor radio while trying to lead my platoon.

Depressing.

I went back and read an article on David Walker to refresh my memory. I remember him being a fan favorite and a major catalyst for the offense in 76 (didn't really have a great 77) but barely remember how he played in 74 (when we were rarely on tv). That article didn't make Bellard look good at all. I wonder why Bellard had it in for him to such a degree? Just doesn't make sense.

yeah, 45 years....makes me older than dirt....I remember that game and loss. Funny, I had a neighbor that was a student at A&M. He was the major influence that made me an Aggie. He bled maroon and I thought he was gonna kill himself after that game.....didn't understand it then, I do now..

rrtodds said:

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Weed ??? ... did not see any mention of the nine days between the Thursday/Turkey Day thrashing of Texas ... which should have been the winning of the SWC title, and the Saturday of the rescheduled disaster vs Arky.

Weed + booze ??? It was widely reported and discussed at the time, that the week + 2 days after the tu victory was much less than productive under the effect of "celebratory influences."

So much to the effect that after arriving back in CS and after the realization of losing to Arky and losing the outright conference crown and opportunity to play for the NC in the Cotton Bowl had set in ... when the fog had clearly passed, the team basically exploded in Cain Hall doing damage somewhat like we just witnessed in downtowns Seattle and Portland. ... several thousands of $$$ of damages.

That was the word on campus in '75. S

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It wasn't all that long ago that the players might beat you to Northgate after a game.

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The Mich loss in Ann Arbor still hurts. circa 1975 or so

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October 1, 1977. I was working in Detroit at the time and was able to attend. I remember the top of the stadium was at street level, pretty much, so we ended up walking down the entire big bowl to get to our seats. Game was competitive briefly but we ended up getting rolled 41-3. Very disappointing for our offense as we had David Walker, Curtis Dickey and George Woodard in the backfield and a very decent OLine. Defense had Jacob Green and Phil Bennett.

I believe it was 7-3 at the half. Then UM found Jimmy Hamilton in our secondary.

I stand corrected from an earlier post. We did in fact play Michigan in 1970, Part of three week stretch, LSU, Michigan, and tOSU all on the road. That was the reality of the day. We played a schedule like that for the same reason Jessie James robed banks and Al Capone sold beer. For the money. However, the Michigan game in question was during the Bellard era. It was not a pretty sight.