TEXAS-OU: THE HOT WAR

by Larry Carlson for TLSN https://texaslsn.org

This October ritual is an assault on the senses. Most every fan involved is hot and sticky, stomach churning from corny dogs, funnel cakes and too much to drink in the wee hours before gametime. The sickening sweet scent of cotton candy wafts in the lazy autumn air that usually still feels like midsummer.

Out on the field, the sunlight is glaring, the bands are blaring and the opponents are staring each other down. Adrenaline is off the charts. And this is just during warmups.

It is naughty by nature, this sublimely brutal Texas-OU football rivalry. Half the crowd crammed inside the cobwebbed old Cotton Bowl like ninety-two thousand steamed sardines, will go wild at the outcome of each play. Conversely, half will sink to their seats, hands on heads, dazed by the failure of a two-yard gain or three-yard loss.

The intensity from the gladiators is turned up to eleven. At least.

"You don't want to get caught standing around, counting your change," Tyson King, a rugged linebacker for the Horns in the mid-'90s, once said.

In a TLSN interview last year, All-America kicker Jeff Ward reflected on his first taste of Texas-OU combat, the '84 game played in a relentless downpour. "The game was played in an angry way, and the entire stadium had an angry vibe, for good reason," Ward said. His field goal for the top-ranked Horns as time ran out ended the game in a 15-15 stalemate.

"You go to Texas to win championships, and you can't do that without beating OU," That was the matter-of-fact statement Lance Taylor gave me this week when I asked him for some recollections from his days at middle linebacker for the Horns, 1976-1979.

Taylor, who in '77 became only the second UT linebacker to earn first-team all-conference honors as a mere sophomore, is sandwiched between Tommy Nobis and Derrick Johnson on that short, elite list.

He recalled being told by Texas linebackers Morgan Copeland and Mark Hamilton, while being recruited out of El Paso's Coronado High, that there was nothing like playing in the Texas-OU game.

"They were right," Taylor testifies. "Walking down the tunnel, it felt like you were walking on air. Then you come out to bright sunlight, half burnt orange and half crimson all around. The loudest cheers and boos

I have ever heard at one time."

As a mere bystander near the bench for Texas-OU, I'll never forget the ferocious, shoulder-pad-popping noise from the gang tackles rolling up on the sidelines. "Yes, the hitting was at a whole new level of intensity on both sides," Lance confirmed. "Each team wanted to intimidate the other."

With safetyman Ricky Churchman playing behind him on run support, Taylor knew some nasty hits were coming in. "Churchman was a heat-seeking missile. Plus, if you were on the bottom of the pile with Ricky, and you were an OU running back, you probably got grabbed in places you shouldn't have."

Taylor was the leading tackler in the epic '77 duel, with an amazing 17 stops, and the Longhorns ended a six-year winless streak. Texas won behind the incomparable Earl Campbell, punter/kicker Russell Erxleben, a cool third-team QB named Randy McEachern and a suffocating defense that shut down the high-powered Sooner offense.

Texas got its points on a Campbell TD run and monster field goals of 64 and 58 yards by Erxleben, who would end his career in '78 as a three-time All-American.

Oklahoma was trailing, 13-6, and on the move in the red zone with the clock winding low in the fourth quarter. The stakes could not have been higher between second-ranked OU and fifth-rated UT. But Lance Taylor remembers that the defensive unit was confident about keeping the Okies out of the end zone as they stifled three charges and set up an all-or-nothing fourth and goal.

"We were a team...no yelling at each other or arguing, knowing that each brother would pick up for the other. There was a real calmness, no panic."

But Taylor recalls that defensive coordinator Leon Fuller had dialed up a defense the Horns seldom ran. It was the flex, popularized by the Dallas Cowboys.

"It required everyone to take their strong side gap. And if they run weakside, the middle linebacker (Taylor) has to scrape off to the gap outside the end."

Lance detailed that the weakest point for the defense then would be OU running an option to the weakside.

That is precisely what the Sooners decided to try.

"I was so concerned about (QB) Thomas Lott not beating me to the corner that I flew outside," Lance remembers. "Unfortunately, I overran him but did turn him inside. As I turned to look, there was Johnnie Johnson and Brad Shearer stopping him dead in his tracks for no gain."

The high-low combo shot from two All-Americans would become known as one of the most legendary plays in UT history.

"Johnnie used to joke that he couldn't make any tackles because I would get them before they got to him. I told him, 'Yes, but I saved the best one for you,'" Taylor gleefully recounts.

That terrific Longhorn defense featured seven, count 'em, seven, sophomores: Taylor, Churchman, Johnson, LB Mark Martignoni, DT Steve McMichael, DE Henry Lee Williams and DB Derrick Hatchett. "Maybe we were young and too stupid to know what we were up against," says Taylor.

But the joy from the memorable stand was short-lived, as the Horns' offense could barely nudge the ball forward, away from the goal line's shade, on three rushing attempts.

With several minutes still remaining, Erxleben would have no spare room to operate, punting from deep in the end zone. At lunch last week, Russell told me he remembers the moment well.

"I told Ricky Churchman (the upback) to watch out...if he backed up one step, I was gonna end up kicking him in the butt," Erxleben chuckled.

Oklahoma's Barry Switzer, it turns out, had already learned a hard lesson. It was nigh impossible to rattle the unflappable Texas punter/kicker. Switzer elected to not waste an all-out attempt to block the punt, opting to set up a return and get the ball in good field position for one last shot at a TD drive.

"But Russell had other ideas," Taylor said this week from his home in Tulsa.

"He booted the ball 69 yards and completely flipped the field position."

The Sooners, with no room to run all day, were stopped again on four plays from their own Indian Territory.

The Horns ran out the clock. They had cleared a tall hurdle and would continue on their way to a mystical 11-0 regular season.

Lance Taylor, whose UT teams went 2-1-1 against Oklahoma, looks back at his four seasons in the Texas-OU sun with reverence for the rivalry.

"Although we both wanted to win badly, there was a respect between two great football traditions,"

he explains.

"It was nothing like the aggies."

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