Texas vs. Arkansas, 1969 The "Game of the Century" (1969 version) |
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Date | December 6, 1969 | ||||||||||||||||||
Season | 1969 | ||||||||||||||||||
Stadium | Razorback Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||
Location | Fayetteville, Arkansas | ||||||||||||||||||
Referee | Carl Landiss | ||||||||||||||||||
Attendance | 47,500 | ||||||||||||||||||
United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
Network | ABC | ||||||||||||||||||
Announcers | Chris Schenkel and Bud Wilkinson | ||||||||||||||||||
Nielsen ratings | 52.1 |
The 1969 Texas vs. Arkansas football game, sometimes referred to as the "Game of the Century", was a college football game played on December 6, 1969, in which No. 1 Texas visited No. 2 Arkansas at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Longhorns came back from a 14–0 deficit after three quarters to win 15–14. They went on to win the Cotton Bowl Classic and were selected as national champions.
The relative parity which had existed within the Southwest Conference ended with the arrival of Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles at their respective schools, with either Texas or Arkansas winning or sharing the SWC crown 8 out of the 10 years leading up to the game. Both Texas and Arkansas had won one national championship in the 1960s, and the schools developed a rivalry after Arkansas defeated in consecutive years top-ranked Texas teams in 1964 and 1965. In 1968 Texas handed Arkansas their only loss of the year.
The 1969 season marked the 100th anniversary of college football. This game would decide the Southwest Conference Championship, as well as its berth in the Cotton Bowl Classic, and ABC television executive Beano Cook arranged for Texas and Arkansas to play the final game of the regular season, moving their usual October date to the first weekend in December. ABC Sports executive Roone Arledge persuaded Arkansas coach Frank Broyles to move the game with a promise that President Richard Nixon would attend the game, and ABC would televise Arkansas' season opener in 1970 against Stanford (and its star quarterback, Jim Plunkett). Broyles even talked Arkansas officials into installing AstroTurf, then still a novelty, at Razorback Stadium. The game would kick off at Noon Central Standard Time since the stadium in Fayetteville did not have lights at the time. There were early discussions of moving the game to an evening start at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, where Arkansas played two or three home games per season, but ABC did not consider the lights at Little Rock to be sufficient.