Let the good times roll for Texas, LSU in long-overdue meeting

ByLARRY CARLSON Sep 4, 2019

The last time Texas and LSU got down to football business, Nick Saban was the restless Bayou Bengal head coach prowling the sidelines as his team jumped out to a 17-7 lead, early in the second quarter of the Jan. 1, 2003 Cotton Bowl.

The Tigers' lead didn't last. Texas got a fuel injection in the form of a singularly-talented offensive star and led by halftime, 21-17. Then they finished out a 35-20 victory that put New Year's pizzazz on a nifty season that gave Mack Brown's team its second straight 11-2 mark.

Longhorn receiver Roy Williams provided the jolt that juiced a UT offense that had been punchless in the opening quarter. Only a 46-yard fumble returned for a touchdown by linebacker Lee Jackson kept Texas in the game, early on. But then Williams converted a slant pass from senior quarterback Chris Simms into a 51-yard touchdown.

For his next trick, the Odessa kid went high in the Dallas sky to spear a too-tall pass and zoomed 75 yards with it.

Come the third quarter, Williams stunned LSU's defense by jetting 39 yards for a touchdown on an end-around play after Simms lured in the Tigers with a fake to Cedric Benson.

"He might be the best football player I've seen all year," Saban said in saluting Williams after the game.

The angular one in jersey No. 4 would go on to perform more magic in future outings for the Steers, but 181 yards on just five touches that day was arguably the biggest performance of a superlative career.

A year later, Williams would finish his UT days in full ownership of virtually the entire receiving record book.

Don't expect any of the Longhorns who will take on the Tigers at Royal-Memorial Stadium on Saturday to recall Roy W's deeds. They were babies or toddlers at the time. And most of their parents hadn't even been born when Texas lost to LSU, 13-0, 40 long years to the day before Williams's heroics.

Yep, just two meetings of the blue-bloods from neighboring southern states in the past 65 years.

Purple and burnt orange weren't always clashing that rarely. The Longhorns and Tigers rivalry goes all the way back to 1896, and they duked it out 10 times in the two-decade span between 1935-1954. But for whatever reasons, Texas and LSU haven't butted heads in a regular-season game since September '54 when UT whipped the Bengals, 20-6, in Austin. Texas leads the series, 9-7-1.

Consider this: Even before LSU and Texas A&M became SEC West rivals this decade, those schools had already played 25 times. And Rice has gone jaw-to-jaw with the Tigers, in what was for several decades in the mid-20th century a highly-competitive neighborhood rivalry, some 56 times.

But Texas and Louisiana State have kept their 500-mile distance and just haven't cared to trade recipes for chili and gumbo.

Lifelong Horns of a certain vintage can and will easily recall — or look up — the fun facts from Roy Williams' career day in Dallas more than 16 years ago. And some of us who are, well, slightly more seasoned in Longhorn lore, still wince at the memories from that aforementioned '63 Cotton Bowl loss to an 8-1-1 Tiger team. It came after UT's first unbeaten (9-0-1) regular season.

Let it be duly noted that those wise and pesky Rice Owls had played spoiler by tying both teams that earned berths in that big Cotton Bowl date.

And here's your trivia vitamin for Saturday's renewal of Texas-LSU big-game status. The MVP who led LSU on the first day of '63 was Lynn Amedee. He quarterbacked the Tigers, kicked two field goals and played rugged defense (LSU gave up only 34 points all season), even recovering a fumble that led to one of his field goals.

More than a quarter-century later, Amedee earned celebrity status for a brief time in Austin, serving as offensive coordinator for coach David McWilliams for three years. The colorful, good ol' Louisiana boy hosted his own weekly radio show at a popular bar and grill, holding court before enthusiastic crowds during the "Shock the Nation" 1990 campaign when Texas rolled to a 10-1 regular season.

A few years later, he returned to Baton Rouge as OC at his alma mater.

Today, Amedee is a rare link between what suddenly, at least for now and next season looms large as the Sabine River Showdown. Time to resume the crawfish versus barbecue debate during the high stakes "Texas Hold 'em" or Cajun bourre at the card tables.

As they like to drawl in bayou country, "Laissez les bon temps rouler."

Write to Larry Carlson at lc13@txstate.edu