I don’t believe it’s any secret that I’ve had a pretty tough week. Tough enough, in fact, to raise memories of those late ’60s/early ’70s Rice football seasons:
Cheer up, kids! We’ll lick ’em next week.
Bonus: There were quite a few like this one on a contact sheet of photos taken by Bob Roosth ’70,’71.
Here’s a happier time for Vicki Douglass: https://ricehistorycorner.com/2018/05/30/say-cheese-circa-1969/
Early 70’s? I seem to remember a game in the late 1970’s where Billy Sims was on the opposing team (UT I think) and Rice lost by some huge margin like 88-6. Maybe I am conflating this with another game, but I remember a game where UT visited Rice. The UT band would barely finish their post-touchdown short music before their side would score yet another touchdown and it would start over again. Beck was busy that day.
Bad autocorrect. Bevo was busy that day.
You made me wonder if Beck was a member of the band at UT.
Billy Sims played for Oklahoma, not Texas, and won the Heisman Trophy in 1978. Oklahoma beat Rice 66-7 that year. Rice’s 1978 pre-conference schedule opened with Iowa State, then Oklahoma, Texas, and LSU.
Billy Sims played for the University of Oklahoma and won the Heisman in 1978. He is from Hooks, Texas (near Texarkana), however. Oklahoma defeated Rice 66 – 7 in 1978 in Norman and 63 – 21 in 1979 in Rice Stadium. Texas defeated Rice 72 – 15 in 1977 in Austin. As you said, you are probably conflating these forgetable games.
“Get them next week” I was a freshman in the fall of 1968. That year “next week” never came, as the football team went 0 wins, 9 loses, 1 tie. Thankfully, that was before the College Football Division 1 “Bottom Ten” list was developed.
One story about this Rice Football season:
Here are the stats, https://riceowls.com/documents/2015/4/30/_rice_m_footbl__1968stats.pdf
I came from Tennessee and had a lot of friends attending the other UT, the University of Tennessee, with bright orange instead of burnt orange for the Texas UT.
The third game of the season Tennessee came to Houston and beat Rice 52 to 0.
Later in the season Texas beat Rice 38 to 14.
On Jan 1, 1969 Tennessee played Texas in the Cotton Bowl. I told all my University of Tennessee friends that, based on the common opponent of Rice, Tennessee should beat Texas by 2 or 3 touchdowns. I was as good at predicting the Cotton Bowl game as Rice was at football that season. Texas lead Tennessee 28 to 0 at the half and won 36 to 13, dominating the stats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cotton_Bowl_Classic