LITTLE ROCK — When Southwest Conference members disbanded in the 1990s, I figured the quality of their football programs - persistently strong, persistently weak or somewhere in between - would continue to look about the same in new surroundings.
Almost 20 years later, only the Texas Christian Horned Frogs have surprised me.
In 1990, Arkansas withdrew from the malaise-stricken SWC and cast its lot with the burgeoning SEC. Texas members jeered briefly before starting a frantic search for new affiliations of their own. By 1995, the SWC was ready for the archives.
Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor created the Big 12 by joining the Big Eight. TCU, Rice and SMU joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1996, but didn’t tarry long.
Houston joined Conference USA as a charter member in 1996, and stayed. Rice switched from WAC to Conference USA in 2005,as did SMU. TCU spent 2001-2004 in Conference USA before switching to the Mountain West in 2005.
From 1930 until the Razorbacks’ final SWC football season in 1991, Arkansas opened its conference schedule against the Horned Frogs.
In 1959, Texas, Arkansas and TCU were SWC tri-champions. The Hogs beat an 8-3 TCU team 3-0 on a Fred Akers field goal in Fayetteville. Amazingly, that started a 22-game winning streak for the Razorbacks against the Frogs.
Arkansas went 30-3 against TCU between 1959-1991. There was a five year stretch, 1974-1978, where TCU’s records were 1-10, 1-10, 0-11,2-9, 2-9, including losses of 49-0, 19-8, 46-14, 42-0 and 42-3 against the Razorbacks.
Finally in 1981, a 2-7-2 TCU team broke the Hogs’ 22-game winning streak, 28-24, after trailing into the final six minutes of the game.
Shortly before daylight on Sunday morning, former Arkansas running back David Dickey’s phone started ringing in Little Rock. It was Dickey’s brother, a TCU devotee, calling to chide him about the game.
Dickey said “Hey, must you call and wake me up each and every time TCU beats Arkansas?”
Two weeks later, Texas visited Fayetteville ranked No. 1 in the country and lost 42-11 to an 8-4 Arkansas squad that wound up losing to North Carolina in a fog-shrouded Gator Bowl.
As Orville Henry’s game story put it: “Texas made so many mistakes in front of its goal, it had an average of 88 yards to go, and Arkansas, only 44. In effect, Texas played the game from the bottom of a well - and drowned.”
Dennis Franchione started rebuilding the TCU program, but Coach Gary Patterson, starting in 2000, took the process several steps further. The Horned Frogs have been regular Top 25 finishers in the past 10 years.
In 2005, the Frogs’ first Mountain West season, TCU was picked to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack. That was the year they opened by knocking off Oklahoma 17-10, then going 11-1 and finishing 11th in the polls.
As you’ve probably noticed, the relative merits of TCU and Boise State in their struggle to finish third in the BCS standings, seem to stir more arguments and speculation than either No. 1 Oregon or No. 2 Auburn.
I don’t think either Boise State or TCU could lead the standings of the SEC, Big Ten, Pacific-10, Big 12, Big East or ACC across a regular season. However, if lightening struck on a one-shot BCS basis, either team might knock off a giant.
Sports, Pages 18 on 11/23/2010