Texas Tech University Athletics
Southwest Conference Flashback
September 12, 2014 | Football
Former Red Raider Rodney Allison - who is currently the Director of the Double T Varsity Club - was the Red Raiders quarterback from 1975-77.
BY NICK KOSMIDER
Special to TexasTech.com
When Rodney Allison began planning months ago for a massive reunion of former Texas Tech football coaches and players, there was only one date and one game that he deemed worthy of such a gathering.
Sept. 13, 2014. Arkansas.
"I'm bringing back almost every single assistant coach who has ever coached here," said Allison, the former Texas Tech quarterback from 1974-77 who now runs the Double T Varsity Club, which helps the university connect with its alumni.
"I picked Arkansas for that very reason. Almost every single one of them coached in the Southwest Conference. This is a special game."
A new generation of fans, coaches and players may be unfamiliar with the team from Arkansas. For those from earlier eras, however, a visit from the Razorbacks brings back strong memories of the Southwest Conference, the league in which the Red Raiders played for 40 years -- from 1956 to 1996. Arkansas played in the league from 1915 to 1991, and there were no shortage of memorable clashes between the two programs from neighboring states.
Joe Hornaday can pull memories from many of those games like they were rolls of game film sitting on a shelf. The former longtime Texas Tech sports information director can still pinpoint the moment the Red Raiders and Razorbacks became a rivalry worth watching. Or, as a Hornaday put it, "a true headliner."
It was 1965 and the Red Raiders, led by do-it-all senior Donny Anderson, were 8-1 and 5-1 in the SWC. Arkansas, coming off a national championship the previous season and ranked No. 2 in the country, was 9-0 and 6-0.
The teams met on Nov. 20 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in a game broadcast on national television, with the Southwest Conference title up for grabs.
"It was a publicized game and a big deal," said Hornaday.
The Red Raiders fell short, 42-24, but the game set the stage for a riveting rematch the following season -- one that would be remembered as perhaps the greatest upset of the 1960s.
After losing their top playmaker Anderson to the NFL following the 1965 season, as well as several other key senior leaders, the Red Raiders faced a rebuilding project in 1966.
Texas Tech entered its annual regular-season finale against the Razorbacks with a 1-5 record in the SWC, their only conference victory coming against last-place Rice.
The Razorbacks, enjoying one of the best stretches in program history, were ranked No. 6 and headed to Lubbock as a heavy favorite.
"To go to the Cotton Bowl," Hornaday said, "all they needed to do was beat us."
The Red Raiders made sure that wouldn't be an easy task. After the Razorbacks jumped out to a 10-0 lead early, Texas Tech scored a combined three touchdowns during the second and third quarters to grab a 21-10 lead over an Arkansas team that entered the game having yielded only 45 points all season.
The Red Raiders then limited the Razorbacks to just one score in the fourth quarter, holding on for an improbable 21-16 victory that knocked Arkansas out of the Cotton Bowl.
"Arkansas wasn't too happy about that one," said Hornaday, who added that winning the final two conference games against the Razorbacks in 1990 and 1991 was also a memorable stretch in the series for Texas Tech.
Allison was just a young boy in 1966 when the Red Raiders grabbed that monumental win over Arkansas, but he would help write his own chapter in the rivalry 10 years later. In one of Texas Tech's best seasons in program history in 1976, the Red Raiders were 8-0 before suffering a heartbreaking 27-19 loss to No. 9 Houston in Lubbock on Nov. 20.
Players were crushed, having seen their dreams of an undefeated season slip away. But with many goals left to accomplish, there was little time for hurt feelings with a trip to Little Rock to play Arkansas scheduled the next week.
The Red Raiders licked their wounds in a major way, cruising to a 27-0 lead after three quarters and holding on for a 30-7 victory that helped Texas Tech share the Southwest Conference title that season.
"It was a huge win at the time after a really tough loss to Houston the week before," Allison said. "The team just really played well. It was just a huge win."
None of the players, or even most of the coaches, on the current Red Raiders team were born when Texas Tech and Arkansas played in those games Hornaday and Allison remember so fondly. But there will be plenty of fans at Jones AT&T Stadium watching the key non-conference matchup on Saturday who still vividly remember those good old days.
The crew Allison has invited back to town is sure to have some memories flood back, too.
"It's kind of neat to relive those days," Allison said. "A lot of former Tech athletes, that's what they knew, the Southwest Conference. That's the conference they played in. It was such a good conference for such a long time, arguably the top one or two in the country during that time.
With Arkansas, I don't think it would be up there with Texas or Texas A&M, but it was definitely a rivalry."
