ESPN Game of the Century: 1969 Texas Longhorns vs. Arkansas Razorbacks
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DVD details
Actor: Artist Not ProvidedDirector: Artist Not Provided
Brand: ESPN
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 143 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2010-01-12
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 670645
Studio: Virgil Films and Entertainment
Product features:
- "Game of the Century" and it was a battle of the titans between the unbeaten University of Texas Longhorns and the unbeaten University of Arkansas Razorbacks
- Texas averaged 44 points a game but the Razorbacks defense had held opponents to only 6.8 points per game
- President Richard Nixon attended the game with U.S. Representative and future President George H.W. Bush and presented the team with a plaque proclaiming them National Champions
- UT was ranked #1 in rushing and #1 in the Associated Press Poll
- Texas went on to win 15 to 14
DVD Reviews of ESPN Game of the Century: 1969 Texas Longhorns vs. Arkansas Razorbacks
DVD Review: A view from the author of "Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming"
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm the author of "Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming," the 2002 book about this game and the events going on around it. Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming: Texas vs. Arkansas in Dixie's Last Stand Third Down and a War to Go
During the interviewing, research and writing process, I had a small TV with built-in VHS next to my computer and repeatedly watched a VHS of the broadcast. Slow motion, fast motion, pause, everything. It was from a showing on Arkansas television years later.
I was worried when I saw this DVD pre-listed that it would be the truncated version shown on ESPN Classic, which left out significant parts of the game and all but ignored Nixon's post-game visits to the dressing rooms to talk with, among others, Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles. Fortunately, it's a near-full version of the ABC broadcast, with Chris Schenkel and Bud Wilkinson in the booth and Bill Fleming on the field and in the dressing rooms. So it you taped a "Classic" showing, this indeed is a considerable upgrade.
I do wish this DVD included two other elements that are missing: a) the College Football Today pregame segment, in which Wilkinson explains and demonstrates the Wishbone concepts -- significant because the Razorbacks were about to employ innovative defensive strategies against it that others would copy in later years; and, b) The halftime interview with President Richard Nixon in the booth, in which he says some vague, yet prescient things about what might happen in the second half.
It's fascinating to see the 1969 broadcast technology, most notably the simple white on-screen graphics, plus the then-revolutionary and still-a-few-bugs instant replay. It's hard not to apply today's standards to the announcers' work. Let's just say Schenkel is gee-whiz all the way through and Wilkinson, the great football coach, never questions even questionable strategy. To be fair, that's the way it was, at least on college football broadcasts. After the game, Fleming doesn't talk to any players or ask any strategic questions during his appearances in the locker rooms, including about why Texas went for it on fourth down, or how that pass play to Randy Peschel unfolded, why Texas went for two after its first touchdown, why Arkansas just didn't take the field goal that would have put it up 17-8 ... All of that's jarring, but it wasn't atypical of those times.
I'll bet if you're looking here, you know the game was far from perfectly played, but that in some ways makes it even more interesting. The Nixon entourage arrival is fun to watch. Look for Texas Congressman George Bush walking with Arkansas Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt and imagine Hammerschmidt saying of the roar from the stadium: "Hell, Bush, we've already scored!" It's amazing to be reminded that the president and the many VIPs sat right in the middle of the stands. And history also shows us there were many, many dramatic things going on behind the scenes or even in full view that ABC just ignored -- including the antiwar protest on the hill (you can see the peace sign when the broadcast pans the stadium after the game, but all are gone), the black students and supporters preparing to storm the field if the Arkansas band played "Dixie," and even Bill Clinton listening on radio in London three days after writing his eventually controversial letter to Colonel Holmes, the head of Arkansas ROTC and the future father in law of Arkansas tailback Bill Burnett.
Both schools had black scholarship players on their freshman teams, and Arkansas had walkon Hiram McBeth on its "B" team, but this was an all-white game in the dying days of football segregation in the South. And then, of course, there is Texas safety Freddie Steinmark's courage -- playing on a leg being eaten up by cancer. It would be amputated six days later after the cancer was diagnosed and he died in 1971. (I went to Steinmark's Denver-area high school several years behind him, and that's a major reason I became even more interested in this game.)
At least on my DVD, and I assume on all copies, there are a couple of places where it looks like the film is caught in the projector, so to speak, on the print transferred to DVD, but it's nothing major or ruinous.
I also haven't yet listened to the "extra" commentary by long-time Texas sports information director Bill Little and Texas halfback Ted Koy, who became a veterinarian. They're great guys, and I'm assuming they added context and perspective to some of the things you see and hear.
The only real "epilogue" material otherwise added is a bare-bones crawl saying what happened to the teams from there -- the Longhorns going to New York for the Football Foundation/MacArthur Bowl proceedings and hearing of Steinmark's diagnosis, the teams' bowl-game results, Steinmark's fight and death, and Frank Broyles' pronouncement that he never has watched a replay of the game.
After the book came out, the teams were moved to hold a joint reunion in Fayetteville in 2004, when the Longhorns and Razorbacks again met, and I spoke at it. It would have been terrific if footage of that reunion could have been added here -- including Texas tackle Bob McKay's punchline.
There might be some confusion about the title. There was a quickly produced book right after the game with this title. A 2003 book -- designed to be a companion piece to "Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming," since it also was from Simon and Schuster -- also was called "The Game of the Century," but it was about the 1971 Oklahoma-Nebraska game. Royal called the game "The Big Shootout," and many know it by that name.
Yes, Penn State blasted Nixon for his presumptuousness and unfairness in anointing the Longhorns No. 1. They're "right," with these two stipulations: 1, The Nittany Lions turned down a chance to go to the Cotton Bowl and play the winner of this game. They instead went to the Orange Bowl to play Missouri. But even that made sense at the time. The thinking was Ohio State was going to finish undefeated and would repeat as national champions. The Buckeyes couldn't go to the Rose Bowl because of the no-repeat rule ... and then they lost to Michigan in their final game. But the bowl pairings already were set, including with the winner of this game going to the Cotton Bowl and the loser to the Sugar. 2, Even the UPI poll still clung to the notion that bowl games were tacked-on rewards and held its final poll before the bowl games. (The AP had a post-bowl poll, and UPI soon followed.) I don't know what would have happened if Texas had played Penn State, but I do know that bringing that in to belittle the historical and dramatic significance of this game is unnecessarily muddying the waters. That was a GREAT Penn State team. I think everybody concedes that, even more so in retrospect.
All in all, it's great that this now is available on DVD.
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Description of ESPN Game of the Century: 1969 Texas Longhorns vs. Arkansas Razorbacks
On December 6, 1969, the Texas Longhorns battled it out with the Arkansas Razorbacks at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Longhorns came back from a 14-0 deficit after three quarters to win 15-14. The legendary game eventually became known as "The Game of the Century." Relive every exciting moment with this ESPNŽ Greatest Games DVD.Bestsellers in DVD
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