Nt Mention In New Book About Texas Stadium

[Eagle-96]

My wife bought me the new Mac Engel book "Texas Stadium: Americas Home Field - Reliving the Legends... ". The book details some of the memorable moments, events, and games in the stadium. It covers Cowboys, college, high school. It even covers the Von Erichs and Billy Graham.

1. I never knew that North Texas played the first ever football game at the new stadium when we beat Louisville 20-17 on October 16, 1971. The Cowboys and the city of Irving used the game as a "dry run" to determine traffic flow for Cowboys games. Attendance was around 12,000. It is tagged as the "First Upset" in Texas Stadium history. Nice write up about the game.

2. The next page in the book deals with our loss to SMU 7-6 on September 14, 1974 and is titled "The What If Game" as a win could have been a big boost to our program. It was also Hayden's first crack at his old school. Mac considers this one of the greatest games ever played at Texas Stadium.

3. Riley Dodge is pictured celebrating after Carroll's win against Trinity in 2006.

A good read for fans of local football. Not just the Cowboys.

Anybody on the board at either of those two games?

Edited September 25, 2008 by Eagle-96

[greenminer]

North Texas has been a part of many stadium firsts/lasts.

In addition to the above, don't forget we played last year in the final football game in the Orange Bowl (maybe just final college?)

Also, we played Texas Western in the debut of the Sun Bowl Stadium in El Paso, September 21, 1963.

Edited September 25, 2008 by greenminer

[letsgiveacheer]

I was at both of these games. The "first game" in Texas Stadium was certainly billed as such but, actually, I understand it was not. Two historically black college teams played there on the previous Thursday. I recall one of them being Texas Southern, but this may not be correct. As they were not 'major" college, it didn't count!

Playing Louisville (Corso was coach then) in that huge stadium in front of 12,000 (probably closer to 8,000) fans was about as exciting as watching roller derby without the women. The game with SMU was a better, but still that crowd was rather small. I recall about 26,000 as the announced attendance. It was very exciting and disappointing to lose by such a small margin.

Coming from Virginia as a freshman in 1971, I remember picking up the football schedule and seeing all home games being played at Texas Stadium. I knew nothing about Texas Stadium and assumed that it was on the campus in Denton. I found Fouts, but no Texas stadium. After walking all over the campus looking for Texas Stadium, I finally asked someone where it was and they looked at me like I came in from the moon! I then learned that our "home" stadium was about 40 miles away.

As Texas Stadium was not ready for our opening game against BYU, we played our first "home" game at the Cotton Bowl. Every Mormon in Texas was at the game and the visiting fans outnumbered the home fans by a huge majority.

By then, I learned that things were not quite normal with North Texas football and I am happy to see that nothing has changed. This is what makes it so enduring to me. I have no intention of going away as I can wait to see what happens next!

[Charlie NT 73]

My 3 favorite North Texas games at Texas Stadium are:

1975 North Texas 28, Houston 0. NT offense run up and down the

field all game long, and the defense shut down Bill Yoeman's

famous "Houston Veer" offense! On the way home after the game,

I was listening to a radio sports update, and the radio announcer stated

the score surely was reported wrong, and he announced that Houston

had won 30 to nothing. Later the announcer had a corrected score report,

and just said North Texas 30 Houston zero.

1977 North Texas 24, $mu 13. The NT defense stoped $mu's offense on

several critical conversions, and the offense drove the length of the

field for long time consuming drives.

1978 North Texas 12, Okie State 7. Big defensive battle right to the end

of the game. If I remember correctly, NT scored 2 TD's but missed both

extra points. Ok State was driving the length of the field with just a minute

or two left, but the NT defense stopped them cold. The offense ran out the

time remaining to seal the win.

[KRAM1]

I saw that 1978 UNT win over Oklahoma State...as a grad of both schools it is always fun for me to go to one of these games...basketball or football, etc., etc. I can't lose! Ha! However, I cheer for UNT to win and OSU to play a great game and lose late. So, this '78 game was a good one...I remember being excited about the stop by UNT at the end of the game, but sad for OSU at the same time. FUN..FUN! I have to be careful when the games are in Stillwater!

[NT80]

I was at both of these games. The "first game" in Texas Stadium was certainly billed as such but, actually, I understand it was not. Two historically black college teams played there on the previous Thursday. I recall one of them being Texas Southern, but this may not be correct. As they were not 'major" college, it didn't count!

Playing Louisville (Corso was coach then) in that huge stadium in front of 12,000 (probably closer to 8,000) fans was about as exciting as watching roller derby without the women. The game with SMU was a better, but still that crowd was rather small. I recall about 26,000 as the announced attendance. It was very exciting and disappointing to lose by such a small margin.

Coming from Virginia as a freshman in 1971, I remember picking up the football schedule and seeing all home games being played at Texas Stadium. I knew nothing about Texas Stadium and assumed that it was on the campus in Denton. I found Fouts, but no Texas stadium. After walking all over the campus looking for Texas Stadium, I finally asked someone where it was and they looked at me like I came in from the moon! I then learned that our "home" stadium was about 40 miles away.

As Texas Stadium was not ready for our opening game against BYU, we played our first "home" game at the Cotton Bowl. Every Mormon in Texas was at the game and the visiting fans outnumbered the home fans by a huge majority.

By then, I learned that things were not quite normal with North Texas football and I am happy to see that nothing has changed. This is what makes it so enduring to me. I have no intention of going away as I can wait to see what happens next!

You are correct, NT was scheduled to be the first game in Texas Stadium but it wasn't ready. Two small colleges actually played the first game there.

[JesseMartin]

Somebody gave the LD on this earlier this year (or maybe late last year).