Something Nice - Arkansas Have you ever been to Fayetteville, Arkansas? If you haven't, I understand why. It has to be the most difficult major college town to get to in the nation. I've been to State College, Pennsylvania and Charlottesville, Virginia and getting there is a piece of cake compared to the trek it takes to reach the University of Arkansas (Though Pullman, Washington or Corvallis, Oregon might give Fayetteville a run for its money). Perhaps this is one reason that Arkansas has played only three or four games a season in Fayetteville for most of this century. I can tell you that the condition of Razorback Stadium is not a reason that home games are often played in Little Rock. The stadium is in fine shape and offers one of the more majestic views in the country. Majestic is not the word for Arkansas' early football venues. Originally, the Hawgs played in a field where currently the university's Fine Arts Building is located. There were no bleachers and pretty much no fans. If a crowd did manage to show, the university would put a rope around the field to keep people back. Eventually bleachers did arrive, and capacity reached as high as 6,000 (though I found a few sources that said 2,500 was a more accurate figure), but it wasn't until Razorback stadium opened did the University of Arkansas have a "legitimate" place to play football.. On September 24, 1938, a crowd of 13,500 watched the Hawgs defeat Oklahoma A&M (later to be Oklahoma State) 24-7, in the venue's first game. At that time it was known as Bailey Stadium (in honor of Carl E. Bailey, who was the governor of Arkansas), but the name didn't stick. The stadium was part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's WPA plan. The university only spent $68,000 of its own funds, while the federal government paid the rest. In their book, "Razorbacks", Orville Henry and Jim Bailey describe how the funding worked: "The Highway department sold shovels to the U of A for which it was receiving $100 per shovel in WPA funds. The U of A sold the shovels back to the Highway Department for $3,500 at the completion of the job." (I hope they at least cleaned them). Like all of the stadiums of the Southeastern Conference, Razorback stadium has seen its share of exciting games: -Arkansas vs. Southern Methodist 11/13/48 A Razorback Stadium record crowd of 23,000 showed up to see a pair of Heisman hopefuls, UA's Clyde Scott and SMU's Doak Walker. The fans were in for a kind of "good new/bad news" situation. The bad news was, early in the second quarter both Scott and Walker would get injured on the same play. The good news was, it was still a hell of a game. On the first play of the second quarter Walker was hit hard and had to be escorted to the Mustang's bench. Though he would later return, he wasn't much of a factor. On the same play Scott injured a ligament and never played football again for the Hawgs. The underdog Razorbacks forged to a 12-0 lead late in the third quarter on a 68 yard run by 'Muscles' Campbell. SMU came back to cut the lead to 12-7 on a run by Klye Rote, but the scoring would cease until the final few seconds. With time running out, SMU managed to drive deep in to Arkansas territory. With the clock ticking down the final few seconds, Mustang quarterback Gil Johnson, forced a pass to Walker on the goal line. The Hawgs' Alvin Duke, intercepted the ball before Walker could get it. The fans went nuts and the Arkansas team began to celebrate, but (you guessed it) there was a flag. The Razorbacks were called for being offsides and SMU would get one more chance. They would make the most of it. The clock hit :00 as Johnson threw a pass to Paul Page. Page grabbed it at the two and darted in to the endzone to "steal" the win away from the Hawgs. Walker punched through the extra point and SMU came away with a 14-12 win. -Arkansas vs Texas 12/6/69 Talk about a big game. On December 2, 1969 the number ranked Texas Longhorns would meet the number two ranked Arkansas Razorbacks. The winner would go to the Cotton Bowl and meet Notre Dame for a chance at a national championship (The Fighting Irish had ended their self-imposed bowl ban and were going to play in a post season game for the first time in 45 years). Fayetteville was buzzing in the days leading up to the game. President Richard Nixon was coming. Billy Graham was going to do the invocation. Texas had a 18 game win streak. The Hawgs had their own 15 game streak. The city had never seen anything like the build up that was surrounding this match. At 12:20 CST, the biggest game in Arkansas football history began. The Razorbacks didn't disappoint the crowd of 40,000. On the game's second play Arkansas recovered a Texas fumble and only four plays later the Razorbacks were in the endzone (Nixon not only missed the touchdown, but he missed the entire 1st quarter. He showed up via helicopter at the start of the second stanza, landing in an adjacent practice field). In the third quarter, Arkansas quarterback Billy Montgomery found split end Chuck Discus for a 29 yard touchdown. With only one quarter remaining, the Hawgs led #1 Texas 14-0. But for the Razorbacks, it was going to be a long quarter. Texas quarterback James Street, who had been contained most of the day, broke free on a 42 yard run for a score. He then ran in the two point conversion and one play in to the final quarter, it was suddenly 14-8. Arkansas came right back and drove deep in to Texas territory. If the Hawgs could score a touchdown they would pretty much "seal" the victory. Even a field goal would give them a nine point lead and force the Longhorns to score twice. They would get neither. On third down from the Texas eight, Montgomery rolled left and thought he had Discus open for another touchdown, but instead he threw the pass behind the receiver, thus allowing a Longhorn defensive back to come up with a huge turnover. Texas couldn't mount a drive after their interception, but they would get the ball back late in the quarter, with one last chance to win the game. Facing a 4th and three from their own 43, Texas sent only one receiver out, tight end Randy Peschel. Street managed to loft a pass to him and Peschel galloped all the way to the Arkansas eleven. Two plays later Texas was in the endzone and after the extra point was successful, they found themselves leading 15-14. Arkansas still had almost four minutes to get in field goal range, and they almost did. They reached the Texas 39, but on the next play Montgomery was intercepted and Texas held on to win. Arkansas vs. Texas 10/81 Being the only non-Texas school in the old Southwest Conference always made the University of Arkansas feel like a "step child". So any win over one of their Lone Star neighbors was particualry gratifying. But no win was as sweet as one over the University of Texas. Over the years the Longhorns had found many ways to break the hearts of Razorbacks everywhere, but on one glorious October Saturday back in 1981, the Hawgs paid Texas back "in full". Texas came in to the game with a 5-0 record and the number one ranking in the country. Arkansas was 4-1, but their one loss was to a lousy TCU squad. The Longhorns were favored to win once again in Fayetteville. But just like the '69 UA/UT game, the Longhorns fumbled on the game's second play. A few plays later Gary Anderson ran it in for Arkansas and the rout was on. By the time it was all over, the Lou "I'm not nuts!" Holtz led Razorbacks had crushed Texas 42-11. It was the second worst defeat a #1 ranked team had ever been handed. (The all-time worst was Holy Cross' 55-12 win over #1 Boston College). Presently, the '81 UA/UT game ranks number 4 on the all-time list, behind Penn State's 34 point win over Pitt in '81 and the Gators 32 point triumph over FSU in '97. For the first time in 40 years (Also a win over Texas) the goalposts came down in Fayetteville. The Gators have played only once in Razorback Stadium, winning 42-7. Though one trip to Fayetteville was all it took for Steve Spurrier to endear himself to the Hawg faithful. With the Gators holding a commanding lead over Arkansas with ten minutes left in the game, it was brought to Spurrier's attention that Danny Wuerffel needed only 15 yards to break the UF single game passing record. Spurrier put Danny back in and had him throw a pass to break the total passing yards in a game mark. The crowd, unaware of any Gator record, booed Wuerffel, Spurrier and the Gators. After the game, Steve had this to say about the moment: "Those Arkansas people, they get mad when you throw when you're ahead. I guess that's against the rules around here in Arkansas." Razorback Stadium is kind of an odd place, and I mean this in a good way. It's not some "cookie-cutter" NFL stadium. So many of the current NFL stadiums are interchangeable. They have no distinguishing features, they have no charm (Hell, the Jets hang green drapes over the railing of Giant Stadium to make it look like "home") and they have no warmth. To put it mildly they are no more than big concrete toilets. Razorback Stadium has character (and appeal if you're a mountain climber). The West side is very steep. Sitting in it's upper deck, you get the feeling you are going to topple over the edge. On it's North side is the Broyles Athletic Center. The center is home to the Jones-Lindsey Hall of Champions, a museum showcasing the history of Arkansas football. The Stadium's East side is scheduled to be expanded by the year 2000. The addition calls for an upper deck (so you can experience vertigo from both sides) and luxury boxes adding 24,000 seats which and bringing total attendance to 73,000. I mentioned earlier how difficult it is to reach Fayetteville (the only thing more difficult than getting to Fayetteville, is trying to get a hotel room there on a football weekend), if you are going, I suggest you take a plane. Not only will this save you hours (or in some situations, days) in travel time, but you'll fly directly over campus and get a great aerial view of the stadium.