Texas
For the first time, West Texas has a permanent LGBTQ+ community center
/static.texastribune.org/media/files/3663955ba9bd18b9ed13a4916638cc23/0608%20Pride%20Fest%20Odessa%20CC%2028.jpg "For the first time, West Texas has a permanent LGBTQ+ community center")
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ODESSA — Patty Reeves stood centerstage overlooking a park dotted with dozens of people from West Texas’ LGBTQ+ community. There were clusters of families and friend groups. A local church brought congregants who sat in lawn chairs in the front row.
The cheerful atmosphere at the fifth annual pride festival in West Texas had shifted. A suicide had rocked the community. Luna Harris, a 19-year-old gender-nonconforming person, died two days earlier.
As a warm gust carried dust through the park, Reeves delivered her speech.
“What I see in West Texas is a community that says, ‘I am here. I am thriving. You will not erase us,’” she said.
Like many present that day, Reeves, the president of PFLAG’s Midland and Odessa chapter, wanted to believe in her message. But at that moment, she couldn’t.
“I said those words because that’s what I hope for,” Reeves said offstage. “But then I thought: Are we really?”
The sudden loss hovered over the festivities meant to close a busy week of events, which included the grand opening of a brick-and-mortar community center for the region’s LGBTQ+ community.
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PFLAG President Patty Reeves discusses the need to help trans children in Texas during the Pride Festival hosted by Basin Pride at The Vine in Odessa.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
Left: The crowd watches the speakers and performances at the Pride Festival in Odessa, Texas. Right: Maverick Dance Team performs during the event.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
It was also, Reeves and others said, a sobering reminder that underscored how necessary spaces like the festival and the community center are — especially in a state such as Texas where Republican lawmakers and other policymakers are working to limit how LGBTQ+ people live their lives.
During the last decade, several organizations that support the Permian Basin’s LGBTQ+ community have sprung up. None have had a permanent — and visible — home of their own. That changed in April when Pride Center West Texas opened its doors to the public.
The center’s grand opening was four years in the making. It all started when Bryan and Clint Wilson moved to Midland, from Florida in 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple shuttered their consulting services to move back and be closer to family.
The married couple had been active in LGBTQ+ nonprofits in Florida, and registered Pride Center West Texas as a nonprofit with plans to open a center once they settled. That summer, the first center opened on the third floor of a building in downtown Odessa with a conference room and group spaces, Clint said.
The center outgrew that space. And in 2021, they moved the center to another building downtown, next to a bank. There, the Wilsons, volunteers and the center’s board held events and group sessions for two years before outgrowing the space again. In 2023, the couple moved the center to a church. But after the Wilsons held a drag show for adults, members of the church’s board voted to evict them. Until this year, the couple operated the center out of Sanctuary Wyrd, a shop that sells gems, crystals and art — and has doubled as a refuge, opening its doors to other organizations that hosted monthly meetings and movie nights.
Now the center is tucked away in a nondescript strip mall behind a busy Italian restaurant.
A rainbow placard hangs on the glass facing the street. At the entrance, the Wilsons have placed desks for people to work at. They do not charge patrons for using the space. A clerk sits by the window, welcoming every straggler. Farther down the hall, visitors may chat on a sofa and chairs while others study the collection of books on a shelf. Pamphlets containing information about sexually transmitted diseases line the countertop of a bar area in the back.
Among its programming, it offers youth groups for adults aged 18-25 to discuss different subjects. Some weeks, it hosts group discussions on religion. On Fridays, visitors can drop in for Queer Connection, a support group for adults. The center also offers its space as an office to other local organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community.
Reeves, the PFLAG president, also moved to Midland from Arlington in 2020 with her husband and trans teenager, Milo. Before looking for a house, Reeves said, she and her husband searched for available resources for her teen, who is now 17. Bryan and Clint helped the family by connecting them to the local network of organizations focused on supporting LGBTQ+ youth. Reeves volunteered for a year before becoming president of PFLAG in 2021.
“Finding the Pride Center was the best thing that happened to us,” Reeves said. “I came as a parent, I didn’t know what to do.”
Funding such community centers is a priority for Texas Pride Impact Fund, a nonprofit charity organization that grants money to support programs and community centers across Texas. Since 2018, it has awarded $2 million to organizations in Abilene, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Lubbock, Eagle Pass, the Rio Grande Valley and others. The fund traveled to Odessa in June to document the center and show the results of its work to donors in Fort Worth.
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Youth administrator Zero Galindo, left, pick board games with Bryson and Michael during a facilitated youth group at Pride Center West Texas in Odessa.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
Ron Guillard, the fund’s executive director, said it’s unclear how many similar organizations exist across Texas — especially outside the major metropolitan areas. A national database suggested there are 20, but not all operate out of a physical space. For many, Guillard said, a brick-and-mortar is aspirational.
Míchél Macklin, the fund’s communications and administrative coordinator, said rural community centers do more with a fraction of the budget of bigger cities. A challenge for the community hubs like the West Texas center, they said, is working with scarce resources. The fund found that the support the organizations provide to each other has enabled their success.
“I think the folks who are in the Permian Basin are creating connective tissue among each other and pooling the resources, however small they may be … to create a larger compound or silo of resources that can be shared among one another,” Macklin said.
Guillard agreed: “What I find most striking is that [rural centers] appear to be more cohesive than the major cities because they’re led by a younger set of activists,” Guillard said. “Especially in towns like Eagle Pass and Odessa, there are communities, those on the frontlines working across the spectrum. And they understand that that is the fight.”
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Texas Pride Impact Funds members Ron Guillard and Míchél Macklin interview Emily Parks, board president of Pride Center West Texas, during a tour to Odessa to document the impact of the nonprofit’s funding on the community center.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
Guillard said he had seen promising examples of other LGBTQ+ organizations aiming to open brick-and-mortar centers in El Paso, Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley.
Harris, the 19-year-old who died by suicide, was a regular volunteer at the center since 2022. They helped organize meetings and events. And they helped produce the local Pride celebration, often performing original songs. Full of ideas, they proposed a chocolate bar stand and a firecracker sale to help raise money.
They were talkative and outgoing, their friends said. They wrote songs and performed them with an operatic tone, people close to them said. In high school, Harris sang in a choir. For the 2024 Pride festival, Harris had volunteered to face-paint and perform a song.
The Wilsons and other advocates were stunned. How could this happen to someone so deeply involved with the tight-knit community?
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Bryan Wilson, CEO and founder of Pride Center West Texas, holds a meeting with board members at the center.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
“What is enough?” Clint said. “How many resources are enough resources? What is enough for a community to feel accepted? It’s a very hard question.”
Nationwide, 42% of transgender adults will attempt suicide, according to a 2023 report by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, which used data from the U.S. Transgender Population Health Survey. Nearly as many, 44%, said they considered it.
Contributing to this harsh reality in Texas is a Legislature that has introduced scores of bills seeking to regulate how LGBTQ+ people live. Republican lawmakers filed more than 100 bills between the last legislative session and the following special sessions. Some passed, including a ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans kids, limiting the college sports teams trans athletes can join and an attempt to limit where drag performances can take place.
“All LGBTQ people have to be really resilient because we know our rights are always on the line,” said Brad Pritchett, executive director of Equality Texas, a statewide political advocacy organization. “In places like Texas, where you’re under a constant barrage from lawmakers trying to find new and creative ways to harm your community, it really does take an extra ounce of resilience to continue saying, ‘This is my home, I’m not leaving it, I’m gonna stay and defend it.’”
While LGBTQ+ organizations have been staples in major American cities since the 1970s, it has only been in the last decade that similar groups have started in Midland and Odessa. Among them are the West Texas chapter of PFLAG, the first organization in the country dedicated to advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families, which arrived in Midland and Odessa in 2014. There is also Out West Texas, which serves transgender West Texans and started in 2017, and Basin Pride, founded in 2019, has arranged the logistics for putting together Pride festivals.
“This is hard work, to keep the community going,” said Adriana Aguilar, who joined Basin Pride in 2021 and now serves as its chair. Aguilar, 28, volunteered for the center in 2020.
The effort to establish and grow more inclusive spaces can draw unwanted attention.
Last January, Aguilar, Basin Pride chair, said she and a group of volunteers attempted to host a family-friendly, Barbie-themed event that included a drag show and local artists. The group secured a venue, performers and volunteers. But days before the event, organized protesters flocked the surrounding area, and the county sheriff was called. Agitators threatened Aguilar with protests. Aguilar postponed the event indefinitely. And because of the event, several sponsors who had offered to support the Pride festival backed out. Aguilar said she had two months to regroup and find other financial supporters.
“Basin Pride is growing, which is great,” she said. “But that means we have more eyes on us, that we’re under certain radars that we weren’t before.”
And on Tuesday, an Odessa City Council member suggested the city should limit the use of public restrooms based on a person’s sex assigned at birth, the Odessa American reported. Such policies are routinely used to discriminate against transgender people.
Other Odessans have responded positively to their growth — or are at least indifferent.
Earlier this year, the center began hosting a bingo night at the Odessa Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. The Wilsons and other volunteers wear grey shirts with long, pink sleeves, floating through the hall selling bingo cards and dobbers. Lorraine Wilson, Bryan’s mom, calls the evening’s numbers.
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Eddie Almendariz participates in the first night of bingo hosted by Pride Center West Texas at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post 4372 in Odessa.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
Left: Bryan Wilson, CEO and founder of Pride Center West Texas, sells playing cards during bingo night. Right: Lorraine Wilson, mother of Bryan Wilson, calls out numbers to bingo participants at the VFW hall in Odessa.
Credit:
Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
It was Lorraine’s idea. She proposed it to Rick Mitchell, the VFW hall’s commander in February, who then brought it to his members for a vote. It was unanimous.
“They’re a human being just like I’m a human being is the way I see it,” said Mitchell, a lifelong conservative from Kermit who lives in Odessa. “It doesn’t affect me one bit.”
Samantha Washington has been playing bingo at the hall for 15 years. The 49-year-old introduced her daughters, Elisha and Mesha, to the tradition. Bingo nights are a family getaway, she said. That the proceeds from Monday night help fund the Pride Center doesn’t bother her one bit, she said, so long as there is bingo.
“I don’t mind supporting them,” Washington said. “It’s people’s rights.”
The proceeds from bingo night don’t cover the expenses of running the center, but it helps, the Wilsons said. The couple hopes they will someday earn enough from that and other grants to expand their services and reach.
After Harris’ death, they said, their services are crucial to the community.
“We have to be able to give what we have now,” Clint said. “We have to rally and still continue what we have now. The main question that Bryan and I had was, how could this happen on our watch? It forces us to see how we can improve our reach.”
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At SEC media days in July, Steve Sarkisian inadvertently described a good portion of college football in a single line. “I feel like when you go to Arkansas,” the Texas Longhorns coach said, “I almost at times feel like they hate Texas more than they like themselves. That’s a real rivalry.”
Later that week, Arkansas Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman confirmed Sarkisian’s take. “We hadn’t played Texas for years,” he said, “and when we played them a couple of years back, it was the most excited our fan base has been in a while. So I would say he’s probably right.”
Houston Nutt can testify. Nutt grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. He idolized legendary Arkansas coach Frank Broyles and watched him battle Darrell Royal and the Longhorns before playing for the Razorbacks himself.
“When Texas came to play Arkansas, it was this huge, huge thing,” he told ESPN in 2019. “I remember being taught at the age of 6 outside War Memorial Stadium [in Little Rock] how to do the Hook ‘Em Horns Down sign.”
Nutt beat the Horns as the Hogs’ coach, a 27-6 win in the 2000 Cotton Bowl, Arkansas’ first bowl win since 1985. He turned around, and threw the Horns Down to the Arkansas fans.
“It was a sea of red, and they were mostly doing the Hook ‘Em Horns Down,” Nutt said. “What did I do? I can’t help it. I’m right there with ’em.”
Conference realignment has broken countless rivalries through the years. There are no Oklahoma-Oklahoma State games on the schedule; Missouri and Kansas haven’t played since 2011; Cal has traded playing UCLA for playing NC State; Oregon-Oregon State and Washington-Washington State have been moved from the traditional bottom of the schedule to the top; Pitt and West Virginia play only sporadically, as do Oklahoma and Nebraska. But in the “thank God for small favors” department, this latest round of realignment at least reignited a few rivalries to replace the further ones we lost. Longtime Big 8 and Big 12 rivals Oklahoma and Missouri played this past Saturday for the first time in 13 years (and celebrated the occasion with a particularly wacky finish), and on Nov. 30 not only will we get our first Texas vs. Texas A&M game since 2011 but it also might have enormous College Football Playoff stakes.
While we wait for Aggies-Horns, however, we get a rivalry game that, for quite a while, outshined Texas-A&M and defined Southwest Conference football. On Saturday, Texas and Arkansas will play for just the fourth time in 20 years and will play as conference rivals for the first time in 33. Most rivalries fit into certain parameters — the dueling heavyweights that split the wins over time, the heavyweight against the aspirant that measures itself by how well it’s faring against the big dog, etc. — but over the course of a few decades, Arkansas-Texas fit into multiple categories. Arkansas was the aggrieved and aspirant underdog for much of the series, but for much of the 1960s, when Royal and Broyles were at the top of their respective games, this was the biggest game in college football. Whichever flavor it takes on at a given time, this game remains spicy.
Texas is 8-1 and listed as a favorite by more than two touchdowns Saturday, while Arkansas is 5-4, having handed Tennessee its only loss of the season but suffered two blowout losses in its past four games. The Razorbacks are volatile underdogs; the Longhorns are SEC title favorites; and, for at least a little while Saturday, Razorback Stadium will be an absolute cauldron. To prepare ourselves, let’s look back at 10 of the most noteworthy games in this revived rivalry’s history.
No. 3 Texas 20, No. 14 Arkansas 0 (1946)
“Steers Trounce Tough Porkers For 5th Victory” was the headline in the Austin American. At 3-0-1, Arkansas was off to its best start in 13 years, and for the first time these teams met as mutually ranked foes. But Texas, also unbeaten and the winner of three of the past four Southwest Conference (SWC) crowns, handled both the moment and the muggy conditions better. Future pro and college football Hall of Famer Bobby Layne threw a pair of touchdown passes — one to Hub Bechtol for 50 yards, one to Jim Canady for 47 — and the Longhorns had scored all their points by halftime. This was a pretty common result: Aside from a mid-1930s run in which Texas lost its way as a program and Arkansas won five of six games between them, UT dominated the early stages of this rivalry, winning 29 of the first 35 battles. It’s been a lot closer since then.
This was the high-water mark for the “Steers,” by the way, as they would fall via road upset to both Rice and TCU, handing Arkansas only its second SWC title. The Razorbacks would head to Dallas, where they endured a 0-0 tie with LSU in the Cotton Bowl.
No. 3 Texas 13, No. 12 Arkansas 12 (1959)
After falling apart under Edwin Price in the mid-1950s, Texas righted the ship by hiring Royal, a former Oklahoma Sooner, to lead the program in 1957. In 1959 the Longhorns embarked on a run of nine top-10 finishes and two national titles in 14 years. Royal won his first two games against Arkansas by a combined 41-6, but second-year head coach Broyles also had things up and running by 1959. The Razorbacks would enjoy eight top-10 finishes in 11 years from 1959 to 1969; in this tight loss, they served notice as to what was coming.
As with much of 1950s college football, this game was decided by disasters. Both teams lost four fumbles; Arkansas recovered a loose ball to set up its first touchdown, but, with Texas trailing 12-7 in the third quarter, another future Hall of Famer, Lance Alworth, muffed a punt, which set up a game-winning touchdown pass from Bart Shirley to Jack Collins. Between 1959 and 1969, eight of 11 Steers-Porkers games would be decided by five or fewer points.
No. 8 Arkansas 14, No. 1 Texas 13 (1964)
Texas won its first national title under Royal in 1963; the Longhorns shined in big games that season, beating No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Navy by a combined 56-13, but they managed only a 17-13 win over Arkansas in Fayetteville. They advanced their winning streak to 15 games early in 1964, but Broyles was building a title-worthy squad of his own by then.
For the third time in four years, this was a matchup of top-10 teams. The most famous members of the 1964 Razorbacks were future Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and future college and NFL title winner Jimmy Johnson, but future Arkansas coach Ken Hatfield made the difference in this one. His 81-yard punt return gave Arkansas a 7-0 halftime lead, and after Texas tied the score in the fourth quarter, Fred Marshall found Bobby Crockett for a 34-yard touchdown to put Arkansas ahead once more. With about a minute left, Ernie Koy scored on a 1-yard plunge; Royal, entirely uninterested in a tie, elected to go for two points and the win, but a pass attempt came up short. Texas’ winning streak was over, and Arkansas would go on to finish 11-0 and score a share of its first national title.
No. 3 Arkansas 27, No. 1 Texas 24 (1965)
By October 1965, Arkansas had extended its winning streak to 16 games, winning its first four games of 1965 by a combined 114-33. But Texas had leapfrogged the Razorbacks to get back to No. 1, thanks in part to a 19-0 win over Oklahoma. That put the chip firmly back on Arkansas’ shoulder.
With the extra dose of motivation — plus, perhaps, some divine intervention: Fayetteville’s First Baptist Church famously posted “Football is only a game, eternal things are spiritual. Nevertheless, beat Texas” that week — Arkansas raced to an early lead thanks to a pair of Phil Harris fumbles. Martine Bercher recovered the first one in the end zone, then Tommy Trantham took another one 77 yards for a score.
Arkansas went up 20-0 after a Jon Brittenum-to-Bobby Crockett touchdown, but Texas charged back. It was 20-11 by halftime, and David Conway’s 34-yard field goal made it 24-20 Longhorns with just five minutes left. Brittenum scored from a yard out with 1:32 remaining, though, and Arkansas had its second of three straight wins in the series.
The Hogs would run their overall winning streak to 22 before falling to LSU 14-7 in the Cotton Bowl.
No. 1 Texas 15, No. 2 Arkansas 14 (1969)
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? Texas usually played Oklahoma and Arkansas back-to-back in early October, but Roone Arledge, the innovative head of ABC Sports, had an idea in the offseason. Texas had finished 1968 as the hottest team in the country, winning its last nine games and averaging 37 points per game with offensive coordinator Emory Bellard’s innovative wishbone scheme. Arkansas, meanwhile, finished 10-1 with only a 39-29 loss at Texas. The Longhorns and Razorbacks finished third and sixth, respectively, in the AP poll and headed into 1969, college football’s centennial season, as obvious national title contenders.
According to Terry Frei’s “Horns, Hogs, and Nixon’s Coming,” ABC publicist (and future ESPN analyst) Beano Cook pored over the schedules and determined that Arkansas, Texas and Penn State all had good chances of going unbeaten. “My recommendation involved Penn State and Arkansas finishing the regular season with perfect records and then playing for the national title,” Cook told Frei. “I said we should move Texas-Arkansas to December 6, because I thought Texas might be undefeated then, too.” Arledge told the coaches that former Oklahoma coach and politician Bud Wilkinson could make sure that new President Richard Nixon was likely to attend the game as well. It was going to be a spectacle unlike anything college football had seen.
Sure enough, the Longhorns and Razorbacks both reached December unbeaten (as did Penn State), and Nixon was there in the stands for a game that somehow lived up to all expectations.
With Texas’ offense discombobulated early — the Horns turned the ball over on their first two drives — Arkansas scored on a short Bill Burnett run and, early in the third quarter, a 29-yard catch by star receiver Chuck Dicus. Texas quarterback James Street scored on the first play of the fourth quarter, then scored on a 2-point conversion as well. (Royal decided before the game that he once again wanted to avoid a tie at all costs.)
With the score 14-8, Arkansas drove the length of the field and was on the verge of putting the game away until Danny Lester picked off a Bill Montgomery pass in the end zone. Then came “Right 53 Veer Pass”: On a fourth-and-3 near midfield, Street threw a bomb to Cotton Speyrer for 44 yards.
#TBT – 1969: Texas defeats Arkansas 15-14.#ThisIsTexas #HookEm pic.twitter.com/xoqn5cbhFm
— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) October 17, 2019
Two plays later, Texas went ahead with a short Jim Bertelsen touchdown. Arkansas drove near field goal range in the final seconds, but Tom Campbell picked off Montgomery to ice the game, and Nixon declared Texas the national champion in the locker room after the game. (This rather annoyed Penn State’s Joe Paterno, whose team was also unbeaten.)
College football’s explosion as a television product can be ascribed to countless things, but ABC’s innovative approach to broadcasting, followed by a couple of all-time classics — this and 1971 Oklahoma-Nebraska, to name two — in short succession, certainly didn’t hurt.
No. 1 Texas 42, No. 4 Arkansas 7 (1970)
The sequel often fails to live up to the billing. Almost exactly a year after the 1969 classic, Texas was riding a 29-game winning streak, while 9-1 Arkansas was ranked fourth in the AP poll and looking for revenge on national television. It didn’t quite work out.
Texas rushed for 464 yards — Bertelsen and Steve Worster combined for 315 on their own, with five of the Longhorns’ six touchdowns — and picked off Montgomery three times. After a goal-line stand by the Longhorns’ defense prevented Arkansas from tying the score early on, the floodgates opened.
The tide had again turned in the rivalry. Arkansas would finally get some measure of revenge the next year with a win in Little Rock, but after winning four of seven over the Horns between 1960-66, the Hogs won only once between 1966-79.
No. 8 Texas 28, No. 3 Arkansas 21 (1978)
A generation ended when both Royal and Broyles retired after matching 5-5-1 seasons in 1976. They both ended up hiring their younger replacements — 38-year old Fred Akers at UT, 40-year old Lou Holtz at Arkansas — as their schools’ respective athletic directors.
Both led immediate rebounds. Holtz won 30 games, Akers won 29, and both schools finished in the AP top 12 each year from 1977 to 1979. In 1978, Akers’ Longhorns played a unique role, too: spoiler. They welcomed unbeaten Arkansas to Austin and ended the Hogs’ 11-game winning streak. Two Randy McEachern touchdown passes in the final minute of the first half turned a tie into a 20-7 Texas lead, and when Arkansas charged back to take the lead, Johnny “Lam” Jones caught McEachern’s third TD pass, and Johnnie Johnson picked off one pass and broke up another on a fourth down to seal the win. This was the first of four straight upsets in the series, with the lower-ranked team winning every year from 1978 to 1981. My favorite rivalries are the ones that make no sense.
Arkansas 42, No. 1 Texas 11 (1981)
And now for maybe the most shocking result in the history of the rivalry. Akers’ Longhorns entered the 1981 game No. 1 in the country, having just blown out Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma 34-14 to move to 4-0. Arkansas, meanwhile, had fallen out of the AP rankings two weeks earlier after a road loss to an awful TCU team that would finish 2-7-2. Surely a blowout was in store, right?
This was indeed a blowout, but not the one anyone expected. Two fumbles and a safety from an airmailed punt snap gave Arkansas a quick 15-0 lead, and the Longhorns never got closer. The Hogs led 25-3 at halftime and 39-3 after three quarters; Texas actually outgained the home team 421-323, but seven turnovers sabotaged all efforts. A turnaround in the series? Not so much. The last two Akers-Holtz battles ended up a combined 64-10 in favor of the team in burnt orange. But this one was an awfully big thumb in the eye, and it would prevent the Horns from winning a national title — they ended up second in the polls behind Clemson.
Arkansas 14, Texas 13 (1991)
“Ain’t no rematch. Best thing of all, ain’t gonna be no rematch.” That’s Arkansas head coach Jack Crowe, celebrating a Hogs win in the final SWC matchup between the two rivals. He had just weathered one of the silliest games in the series to secure permanent (well, permanent-ish) bragging rights. Arkansas led 14-0 at halftime after touchdowns from Ron Dickerson Jr. and Kerwin Price, but a 14-yard Phil Brown touchdown made it 14-7 heading into the fourth quarter, and a 55-yard burst from Brown tied the score. Or at least, it should have: The Longhorns missed the PAT, then missed a 39-yard field goal attempt with 3:45 left.
The teams weren’t particularly memorable, even if the game was. Crowe’s Razorbacks went 6-6 in their last season in the SWC, while David McWilliams’ fifth and final Texas team went 5-6. The teams had weathered ups and downs, splitting the previous six meetings and producing zero top-10 finishes from 1984 to 1991 as the SWC wobbled through controversies and discontent. In 1990, the SEC announced it was adding Arkansas as part of an expansion to 10 teams; the plan had originally included adding not only the Hogs but also Texas and Texas A&M, but the state legislature intervened, and only Arkansas was on its way out the door. So was Crowe: Broyles fired him (and then tried to get away with announcing he’d resigned) after Arkansas began its SEC tenure with a 10-3 loss to The Citadel.
No. 7 Texas 22, Arkansas 20 (2004)
Since 1991, this has basically been a series of pent-up aggression: Whichever rival takes an early lead when they meet just keeps wailing away for a while. Arkansas won two bowl meetings (the 2000 Cotton Bowl and the 2014 Texas Bowl) by a combined 58-13, Texas won a home game in Austin 52-10 in 2008, and Arkansas won a home game in Fayetteville, Steve Sarkisian’s second game in charge at Texas, by a score of 40-21 in 2021.
A 2003-04 home-and-home series produced some drama, though. Arkansas upset No. 6 Texas by a 38-28 margin in 2003, using an early 21-0 run to build some space, getting 217 combined rushing yards from Cedric Cobbs and quarterback Matt Jones and scoring every time it needed to down the stretch.
But with a young quarterback by the name of Vince Young taking over for UT in 2004, the Longhorns got some revenge. Texas built a quick 9-0 advantage with a safety from a bombed punt snap and a 49-yard TD from Young to David Thomas. And from there, it was the Cedric Benson show: The star running back produced 201 yards from scrimmage and scored via both ground and air. Texas held a 22-17 lead into the fourth quarter, and after forcing an Arkansas field goal with 9:58 left, the Longhorns’ defense forced three consecutive turnovers to ice the win. Arkansas would stumble to a disappointing 5-6 record, while Mack Brown’s Longhorns would finish 11-1 before winning the national title a year later.
The most recent Hogs-Horns game might turn out to have been pretty useful. “I don’t know what Darrell Royal did to Arkansas back in the day,” Sarkisian joked with reporters this week, “but they absolutely hate our guts. And I think we learned that the first time around when we went there.”
Texas knows what it’s walking into, at least. They know to expect a Horns Down or two, though we’ll have to wait and see if Sam Pittman gets in on the act.
After watching the Texas Longhorns thrash the Florida Gators in Austin on Saturday during an unofficial visit, Jaime Ffrench is heading back to his home state to take in the sites and sounds of The Swamp.
Ffrench, a 2025 five-star receiver commit for the Longhorns, will be taking an official visit to Florida on Saturday when the Gators host No. 22 LSU, per On3. A Jacksonville, FL. native and Mandarin High School product, Ffrench originally committed to Texas on Aug. 30. He took his official visit to Texas on June 21 before making another unofficial visit on Oct. 10.
He received offers from teams like Alabama, Colorado, USC, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Georgia, Texas A&M, South Carolina, Michigan and many more. However, his finalists consisted of Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Miami and LSU.
Taking the OV with Florida could certainly raise a few eyebrows, especially since Ffrench told On3 after committing to Texas in August that he was shutting down his recruitment.
“I am 100 percent done,” Ffrench told On3. “I am closing my recruitment out and enrolling at Texas in January. … When I took my official visits on June 22, I knew for sure. I made my decision on that visit. On my next visit with the coaches, I told them of my decision, then held it until my mom’s birthday.”
Last season as a junior at Mandarin, Ffrench tallied 62 catches for 1,247 yards and 14 touchdowns. During his sophomore year, he posted in 44 catches for 671 yards and five touchdowns.
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Takeaways from Minnesota’s 54-51 loss to North Texas
The Minnesota Golden Gophers on Wednesday night found themselves on the losing end for the first time this season, falling to North Texas 54-51.
It was an ugly loss for Minnesota, one in which they scored just 14 points in the first half before putting together a better but far-from-good second half. Ultimately the sluggish start was too much to overcome in the loss.
You can read more about the loss, here.
With that, Gophers Nation offers four thoughts on the Golden Gophers loss on Wednesday.
1. A missed opportunity
If the Golden Gophers wanted to make the NCAA Tournament this season, they needed to maximize their opportunities within their non-conference schedule. In the grand scheme of things, it’s one of the weaker non-conference schedules in the country. Oral Roberts, Nebraska Omaha, Bethune Cookman, Fairleigh Dickinson, and Morgan State are all opponents rated by KenPom at 250 or higher.
The only respectable opponents on the Minnesota non-conference schedule were North Texas (65), Yale (104), Wichita State (83), and Florida (21) /Wake Forest (74).
Now, the Gophers are off to a 0-1 start in those four games, and little over the last two games will inspire much confidence that the Gophers will be able to win out the remainder of those three games. Even if the Gophers rebound to have a respectable non-conference record once Big Ten play begins, a quad-three loss could be a deciding factor in the discussions for the NCAA Tournament come March.
That being said, making the NCAA Tournament should be the last thing on the Gophers’ mind currently. Their play over their last two games has been highly concerning even when considering the health of key players.
2. A terrible first half too much to overcome
To start the game 1-for-17 from the field in a game is simply inexcusable and baffling. The Golden Gophers on Wednesday were kept to an embarrassing 14 points in the first 20 minutes of play. Miraculously, they only found themselves trailing 23-14 as Noth Texas seemingly couldn’t get out of their way in the first half as well.
The sloppiness went beyond being unable to buy a basket as well as the Gophers had eight first-half turnovers which resulted in nine points for North Texas on the other side of the court including seven coming off the fast break.
The overwhelming theme of the first-half shooting woes was the Gophers settling for shots. Their first layup attempt of the game didn’t come until the 6:45 mark. Going forward, the Gophers need to do a much better job in their shot selection.
Notably, the Gophers did appear to miss Mike Mitchell’s ability to distribute the ball quite a bit. They had just nine assists in the loss while Mitchell had 12 alone through the first two games. With Mitchell out at least two weeks, the Gophers offense may continue to look sluggish until his return.
3. Will someone not named Dawson Garcia emerge?
If the Golden Gophers are going to have any sort of chance of building momentum this season, someone will have to emerge as an offensive threat beyond Dawson Garcia. Through three games, Garcia has 40% of all the Gophers points scored with 78 of 199 total points.
The next closest Gopher? Lu’Cye Patterson with 27 points and Trey Edmonds is the only other Gopher to total over 20 points so far this season.
Garcia is shooting 66.7% from the field this season making 26-of-39 total shots. No other Gopher this season has made more than nine shots.
If the Gophers’ only true scoring option this season is Dawson Garcia, it’s going to be a very long season for Ben Johnson’s program.
4. Gophers guards struggle without Mitchell
As alluded to above, the Golden Gophers’ guards as a whole struggled without Mike Mitchell. In the loss, Femi Odukale, Brennan Rigsby, Lu’Cye Patterson, and Isaac Asuma went a combined 7-for-35 from the field. They also combined for seven of 13 Minnesota turnovers in the game.
Patterson was especially rough for the Gophers, going 3-for-14 from the field in the loss including 1-for-7 from three-point range. After going 3-for-6 in the season opener against Oral Roberts, Patterson is just 6-for-22 over the last two games, a 27.7% shooting percentage.
Odukale’s struggles are notable as well as he is off to a 3-for-14 start for the season from the field, he’s also missed his only two free throw attempts. The Gophers will need the former Pittsburgh, Seton Hall, and New Mexico State guard to step up his play going forward. There should be hope as well that he can do so as he’s averaged 8.7 points for his career and is a 42% shooter lifetime as well.
The same could be said about Brennan Rigsby who three games is just 5-for-21 including 3-for-12 from three-point range.
For Asuma, freshman struggles are to be expected including Wednesday’s performance which was especially tough as he was 1-for-6 from the field including 1-for-5 from three-point range while turning the ball over three times. The key for the Minnesota native will be to use Wednesday’s game as a learning experience which can sometimes be easier said than done.
With Mike Mitchell Jr likely out for at least another week, the Gophers will need their guards to find their groove quickly starting on Saturday against Yale.
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