The Way Back: Dog Days

By Eliza Pillsbury in Sept | Oct 2024, The Way Back, TXEX on September 1, 2024 at 1:19 am | No Comments

The Longhorns’ first season in the Southeastern Conference will involve plenty of familiar faces, old rivals whom we might not have encountered in decades. Our last matchup against Vanderbilt, for example, was in 1928, when Clyde Littlefield was the head football coach.

But the University of Georgia has had some memorable meetings with UT. Remember when Bevo XV charged Uga, the Bulldogs’ mascot, at the 2019 Sugar Bowl? The Horns would go on to beat Georgia 28-21, and no animals were harmed in the process. However, not least of those games was commemorated in this illustration from a 1958 football program.   

When the cover of this 25-cent gameday pamphlet was printed, UT had beat Georgia twice before: 41-28 in 1949 and 26-7 in 1957. The weather was mild on Sept. 20, 1958, when the teams (and 32,000 onlookers) met at the then-called Memorial Stadium. Significantly, the season was the first to be played after college football’s adoption of the two-point conversion rule—which the Georgia team put to good use in the fourth quarter to take the lead over Texas’ first-quarter touchdown and PAT kick.   

But Coach Darrell K Royal, Life Member, pulled out a win, with the clinching touchdown scored by Bobby Gurwitz, BBA ’62, Life Member, “a speedy 165-pound sophomore halfback, on a one-yard scamper on a pitchout from [quarterback Bobby Lackey, Life Member],” reported The Macon Telegraph the next day.   

Georgia has only managed one victory against the Longhorns, in the 1984 Cotton Bowl. This year, on Oct. 19, the Bulldogs are once again making their way to Texas. We’re sure to find an explosive match.

CREDIT: Cover illustration by John Churchill Chase; UT Ephemera Collection, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin