Updating the blog to include trip to Starkville for the Longhorns come from behind OT win!
LONGHORN FOOTBALL
STADIUM TOUR
1. Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial
Stadium Austin, TX
·
1986 – 1989:
Many games during my college years, not many highlights and only one
winning season:
o
In ’86, Longhorns went 5-6 (their first losing
season since 1956) and finished 6th in the 9-team Southwest
Conference. Fred Akers was fired;
replaced by David McWilliams.
o
In ’87, Longhorns went 6-5, finished tied with
Arkansas for 2nd in conference behind A&M (A&M and Ark
dominated the conference during my 4 years).
Won the Astro-Bluebonnet Blue (*see Astrodome)
o
In ’88 and ‘89, the Longhorns finished 4-7 and
5-6. Ironically, the following year the Longhorns turned it around to go 10-2
and won the SWC.
2. The Astrodome Houston,
TX
·
1987, 1991, 1993: Likely attended other
Longhorn-Cougar games in the 70’s-80’s, but I remember going to the
Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl on 12/31/87 victory over Pitt. After graduating, I attended both UT-UH games
over the 4 years I lived in Houston.
3.Rice Stadium Houston,
TX
·
1990, 1992, 1997: Also likely attended other
Longhorn-Owl games in 70’s-80’s, but I remember going to the games in Houston
after graduating. The non-conference game
vs. Rice in 1997 (Texas joined Big 12 in ’96) was on 9/27/97, the weekend
before my wedding, this served as my bachelor trip. Went to the game with Barclay, and Texas
narrowly won.
4. Cotton Bowl Dallas,
TX
·
1986 and 1987: TX-OU games. I’ll never forget my freshmen trip to Dallas
with my roommates. The games were losses, rather blowouts to top-ranked OU, but
the experience was unmatched.
·
1/1/2003: Texas-LSU Cotton Bowl. Led by Chris Simms and Roy Williams, Texas
won 35-20. Enjoyed the game with my dad,
Barclay and Jean.
·
10/11/2008: TX-OU: This was a great game between
#1 OU and #5 Texas. John Funk offered
his tickets to my dad, so I made the trip from Memphis to see Texas, behind
Colt McCoy, lead the Horns to a 45-35 win.
5. Superdome (Tulane) New
Orleans, LA
·
9/28/2002: My first and only visit to the
Superdome. Texas crushed Tulane
49-0. I need to go back for a Saints
game. I would like to see another game
in the Superdome after it was renovated after Katrina hit in ’05.
6. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium (Ole
Miss) Oxford, MS
·
9/15/2012: Before the thought of Texas ever
joining the SEC, the Longhorns scheduled a home/home series with the Rebels and
played their first game ever at Ole Miss.
Horns won 66-31 behind QB David Ash.
The Rebels would win the following year in Austin in Mack Brown’s final
year as coach in 2013. Our friends, Jay
and Carrie Oliphant, invited Cindy and I to tailgate with them in the Grove. This was my 2nd game at Ole Miss
after first visiting Oxford for the LSU-Ole Miss game in ’94.
7. Razorback Stadium (Arkansas) Fayetteville,
AR
·
9/11/2021: Highly anticipated renewal of the
historic rivalry (before Texas joined the SEC in ’24), ended with a bad loss to
the Razorbacks, 40-21. This was my first
time visiting Fayetteville. Enjoyed
catching up with my friend and avid Hog fan Phil Stevenson’s tailgate before
the game on the hill overlooking the stadium. I went back to U of Arkansas the following
year to tour the campus on a college visit with Nicole.
8. FirstBank Stadium (Vanderbilt) Nashville,
TN
·
10/26/24: With Texas joining the SEC in ’24,
this was the first stop on my goal of seeing Texas play at all 16 SEC stadiums. Texas fans far outnumbered Vandy fans (from
AI: the announced attendance was 28,934, and a large portion, if
not more than half, of that crowd was comprised of Texas fans...I’d say
easily 60%) It was a competitive game which saw Quinn Ewers throw for 3 TDs as
#5 Texas beat Diego Pavia and the #25 ranked Commodores 27-24.
9. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium – “The
Swamp” (Florida) Gainesville,
FL
·
10/4/25: To celebrate our 28th
anniversary, Cindy and I traveled to Tampa, then made the short 2 hour drive up
to Gainesville for Texas’ first visit to the swamp since 1940 (85 years!) We couldn’t check into our hotel on Saturday
morning because the Longhorns had booked the entire Best Western, so we ubered to
the Surly Horns/Swamp Cruise tailgate and enjoyed pregaming with a couple
hundred Longhorns fans, including a guy, Rene’ from Houston, who is also a stadium
chaser following the Longhorns on the road.
This was his 34th different stadium watching the Longhorns. Although the game ended with a disappointing
29-21 loss, we enjoyed the good college gameday atmosphere in and around the
stadium. The stadium was loud as they had plenty to cheer for, yet it seemed
smaller than the 89,000 capacity.
10. Davis Wade
Stadium (Mississippi State) Starkville,
MS
·
10/25/25: Made the 2 ½ drive south to Starkville
for the Longhorns’ first visit here since 1991. We arrived early and visited
some of my Memphis Bulldog friends’ tailgates (Robert Hubbard, Ray Carroll, Hamp
and Beth Bryan). Believe it or not, I
ran into the guy referenced above from Gainesville walking around the tailgates
– at his 35th Longhorn road game. I remember being quite impressed
with the gameday atmosphere here as this was my 2nd visit to a game in
“fabulous Stark Vegas”. The first game was
in 2012 for the Texas A&M “Johnny Manziel silencing the cowbells” game. At the time, the north end zone was under
construction, so seeing the completed stadium now holding 61,000+ was very
nice. Our seats were near the south end
zone, in the visitors’ Sections 24-25 with a good number of Longhorns and the traveling
band. The cowbells were loud for most of
this competitive game, although thankfully, there were very few State fans around
us. The Bulldogs completed some big plays in the 3rd quarter, and
the Longhorns trailed 38-21 with 9+ minutes to go in the game. Texas scored 10 points on consecutive possessions
while the defense came up with several big stops to force State into punting
with under 2 minutes to go. On the punt
return, Ryan Niblett took it to the house – tie game! In overtime, Texas won 45-38 and once again the
cowbells were silenced.
