SMU vs. TCU: Through the Years - 1935
Editor’s Note: SMU and TCU meet for the 102nd time at 11:00 a.m. Saturday at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth (FS1). During this week leading up to the game, staff writer Kevin Lonnquist reveals five prominent games in this storied rivalry. The series concludes Friday.
Game: 1935
Result: SMU 20, TCU 14
National Implications: Prior to this meeting, the series was tied, 6-6-3. Both teams entered the game at 10-0 with national championship aspirations at stake. This was Matty Bell’s Mustangs facing Dutch Meyer’s Horned Frogs. Real name power. The winner was expected to receive an invitation to the Rose Bowl.
How it Happened: In the throes of The Great Depression and the early years of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the country was looking for sports as a means to escape the sorrows, frustrations and worries of the times.
SMU vs. TCU more than delivered. NBC filmed the game and broadcast it on radio nationwide. It became the first game in Texas and within the Southwest Conference to earn that honor.
On Nov. 30 in Fort Worth, a fire marshal crowd of between 36,000 and 42,000 squeezed into Amon Carter Stadium to watch what would be known as “The Game of the Century”, termed that by the famous sportswriter Grantland Rice.
As for the game, the Mustangs took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter when Bob Finley plunged over from the one-yard line. SMU then extended it to 14-0 in the second quarter on Bobby Wilson’s TD run. However, TCU answered later in the period thanks to QB Sammy Baugh. The Horned Frogs narrowed it to 14-7 at the half.
Following a scoreless third quarter, the Horned Frogs tied it at 14 early in the fourth quarter on Baugh’s 8-yard touchdown pass to Jimmy Lawrence.
With about nine minutes remaining, the Mustangs faced a fourth down at TCU’s 37-yard line. Rather than punt, Bell asked for his player J.R. Smith to make the call. Smith went for the fake. It worked for the game-winning score. Finley, who went to play Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1943-44, threw a touchdown pass to Wilson. SMU missed the extra point and led 20-14. On TCU’s last hopes, Baugh drove his troops to the SMU 35-yard line. He then threw a pass toward the goal line. However, an SMU defender knocked it down to preserve the win.
TCU finished with 362 yards of total offense to SMU’s 315. Wilson finished with 97 rushing yards.
How 1935 ended: SMU was one of three teams to conclude the regular season undefeated along with Minnesota and Princeton. The Mustangs went to the Rose Bowl and lost to the Stanford Indians, 7-0 and finished 12-1. However, the program claimed a national championship from the Dickinson System, which named national champions before bowl games were played. TCU went to the Sugar Bowl and beat LSU, 3-2, and also finished 12-1. The Williamson System was the only one to name a champion after bowl games and named TCU co-National Champions with LSU. Indeed, both SMU and TCU claimed national titles weeks after playing “The Game of the Century.’’
Notable: The streaks in this series have been interesting to track. TCU has had eight winning streaks of three or more. SMU has had four. The longest streak was SMU’s 15-game stretch that ran from 1972 to 1986. TCU’s longest was seven from 2012-2018. Only one time during the first 101 meetings has there been a stretch of five meetings where the teams traded wins. That was between 1995-99.
Thanks to all of you who read this series and for a moment could go back in time.
