Travel, kicking, pass protection mishaps highlighted UK’s last game at Texas 73 years ago

jon hale

Tue, Nov 19, 2024, 6:45 a.m.·6 min read

Mark Stoops will hope for smoother travel for his Kentucky football team to Texas this week than the only previous trip by the Wildcats to Austin.

Despite chartering a plane for the flight from Lexington, the Bear Bryant-coached 1951 Wildcats needed eight hours to make the trip as strong headwinds forced the pilot to take a circuitous route to Texas, according to the Sept. 22, 1951, edition of the Lexington Leader. The late arrival meant Bryant led his final practice in near-dark conditions at Texas’ Memorial Stadium, which had no floodlights at the time.

“Bryant, who runs his team on a tight, minute-by-minute schedule, didn’t seem concerned particularly about the late arrival or handicapped workout,” Larry Shropshire wrote for the Lexington Leader on the morning of the game. “Perhaps he was worried more about the psychological effect of his rookie-heavy squad when a stadium almost full of proud Texans roars out a confident ‘The Eyes of Texas’ in mighty chorus just ahead of the opening kickoff.”

Nerves did not end up appearing to be much of a difference in the game, as the No. 6-ranked Wildcats fell 7-6 to the No. 11-ranked Longhorns. A botched Kentucky extra-point attempt prevented the game from ending in a tie, but in a storyline current Wildcat fans will find familiar, it was struggles in pass protection that prevented star quarterback Babe Parilli and the UK offense from clicking.

A Parilli sack fumble set up Texas’s only touchdown in the game. He was stopped behind the line of scrimmage three times, netting a loss of 28 rushing yards for the game.

“I always watch our team in a game, but every time I looked up I couldn’t help but see (Texas defensive end Paul) Williams,” Bryant said after the game. “We haven’t blocked him yet.”

“I couldn’t throw deep today because of (Williams),” Parilli said. “He kept forcing me back so that I had no forward momentum with my throws. We had men behind their safety three times and I didn’t hit ‘em. … Why, that’s three touchdowns and the ball game.”

University of Kentucky halfback Larry Jones, left, and All America quarterback Babe Parilli, right, rubbed the head of freshman William Spicer on Sept. 21, 1951, as they waited to board their plane at Blue Grass Field taking the football team to Austin for their game against the University of Texas.

While Parilli entered the 1951 season as one of the stars of college football, the rest of his team relied largely on underclassmen filling holes left after the upset of No. 1 Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl the previous season. While UK was ranked No. 6 in the preseason poll and opened the season with a 72-13 blowout of Tennessee Tech, the Texas loss was the first of three consecutive defeats.

Considering the win extended Texas’ streak of victory in its home opener to 50 consecutive years, reviews of Kentucky’s play were generally positive. The Wildcats gained 13 more first downs and 98 more yards than Texas.

That perception could be viewed as foreshadowing in hindsight as the young Wildcats rallied from the 1-3 start to finish at 8-4 with a Cotton Bowl win against TCU.

“Almost everything we tried worked,” UK running back Tom Fillion said. “I wish we had another chance at them.”

That chance would not come for 73 years though until conference expansion brought Texas to the SEC.

Kentucky was already scheduled to play at Texas A&M in 1952. That game, the 1951 trip to Austin, the Cotton Bowl bid in Dallas that would follow and a 1953 game at Rice in Houston, combined to bring the Wildcats to Texas four times over the span of just more than two years.

UK has played a game in the Longhorn State only four times since (at Baylor in 1963 and 1977, at Houston in 1965 and at Texas A&M in 2018). With Texas and Texas A&M both now in the SEC and the league abandoning its two-division format, trips to Texas will be much more common in the years ahead, but Saturday’s game will still join the 1951 trip to Austin as the farthest west Kentucky has played a football game.

While Texas plays in the same stadium today it did in 1951, the facility (now dubbed Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium) has been expanded by more than 40,000 seats since Kentucky’s only previous game there. That expansion should leave more room for UK fans looking to make a new trip this weekend, but a few thousand Kentucky fans were reported to have made the trip in 1951 as well.

One group arranged a “Governor’s Special” travel package that included overnight train passage from Louisville to Austin and back. According to Shropshire’s report in the Sept. 28 edition of The Leader, UK alumnus Jere Beam, son of Jim Beam, flew from a business meeting in Seattle to Austin by way of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas to attend the game. Shropshire reported three other UK fans joined together to drive the nearly 1,200 miles from Lexington to Austin nonstop and made it home in time for work on Monday. At least two UK fans flew from their homes in New York to Austin for the game.

When the 2024 schedule was released, UK’s first trip to Texas as SEC rivals drew immediate attention and plenty of fan interest. A disappointing season thus far might have dulled some of the enthusiasm for the trip, but it would still not be a surprise to see a large amount of UK blue in Austin over the weekend.

Kentucky is no stranger to facing college football’s elite, but even for a founding member of the SEC this week offers a new chance to play a game in a bucket list venue. The odds of a UK win against the No. 3 Longhorns are even slimmer than they were in 1951, but Stoops’ team has shown a propensity for playing its best against the most difficult competition.

“I do get excited about it and I hope our team does,” Stoops said Monday. “That’s something I hope I have to talk to our team about, is, ‘Let’s dial in on our preparation.’ You hear me say that a lot but it’s very true, because I hope they’re excited to embrace this great challenge we have.

“But what an opportunity. It does start with being excited today, and tomorrow and Wednesday, and if you don’t do that work, you have no chance.”