The Texas Longhorns I wish I had seen

I’ve used many bye weeks over the past decade as a sort of lobotomy, especially when they come after a loss smack dab in the middle of a painful season. This season, the bye weeks have been different. Does Texas have questions? Sure. Do they need to get Quinn Ewers right? Absolutely. But instead of using the bye week as an attempt to wipe football from my consciousness, I’m still excited about it. Though the lack of a game this weekend produces a void, I’m wired in such a way that I turn to nostalgia in these moments, me being the type of person who fills holes by reminiscing.

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I’ve written a lot about how my five-year-old son and I have bonded over Earl Campbell and his highlights over the last few years. His younger sister is even named after “The Tyler Rose” (her name isn’t Earl). I have no idea if he’ll be a Texas fan his entire life—he very well might choose not to be, given the contrarian bend to his personality. But I know he will always love Earl and the time we spent searching for and acting out Earl’s epic runs in the front yard. In case you were wondering, I’m usually the defender getting crushed.

We found a new YouTube highlight reel the other day, which we replayed probably eight times, and each viewing produced as many “Wows!” and “Oh my goodnesses” as the one before it. The play that made both of us as giddy as trick-or-treaters who just found the house giving out full-size candy bars was one where Earl’s tackle-busting forearm shove lifted a Red Raider defender clean off the ground, tossing him aside like a ragdoll while Campbell strolled into the end zone. We couldn’t get enough of that play, and it sent us down an even deeper rabbit hole of Earl runs. My son has asked me before how many times I saw Earl play, and I have to respond, “None.” I was born in 1990. I missed Earl’s heyday, and though that produces a bit of longing, it’s been so fun that we’ve essentially experienced Earl together.

But back to the bye week and reminiscing. With our Earl deep dives, it’s made me think about which players besides Earl I didn’t get to see but wish I could have. Here are just a few of mine (of many). I tried to avoid multiple players from the same team. First, some honorable mentions where it was hard to pick just one player: Bobby Layne airing it out before downfield passing took over, the wishbone in its heyday behind James Street and Steve Worster, one of Peter Gardere’s four straight upsets of Oklahoma, and how I wish we could see a game with my wife and her family in which her grandfather was playing in the early 1950s. Who are yours?

Eric Metcalf (RB: 1985-1988)

While defenders who tried to tackle Earl felt him weeks later, would-be tacklers rarely laid a hand on Metcalf. Dare I say Mr. Versatile is the best athlete to ever play for the Longhorns? Metcalf did everything for Texas, including winning two national championships in the long jump. He was positionless football before it was a thing, and he showed that in the NFL, where he amassed 55 touchdowns in a variety of ways. He was Devin Hester, but did way more than just return—he starred as a wide receiver, returner, and carried the ball (mostly for the Cleveland Browns). Today, you might be looking at another Tyreek Hill in Metcalf. I’ve gotten to see electrifying players like Ramonce Taylor and Xavier Worthy, but I wish I could have been in the stands to see Metcalf house one.

Steve McMichael (DT: 1976-1979)

I was hunting near Freer, Texas, recently and strolled into the Liberty Cafe, where they had a big poster up on the wall with a picture of the town’s favorite son that read, “Home of NFL Hall of Famer Steve McMichael.” Before he was a hero for fighting against ALS, an NFL Hall of Famer, a member of the Four Horsemen in WCW, a Super Bowl Shuffler, and a college football hall of famer, he was a Freer Buckaroo. “He tore this place up, I bet,” one of the guys I was with said. He was Mongo in the NFL but Bam Bam at Texas because the wrecking ball on defense looked so much like The Flintstones character. When I watch Bam Bam’s highlights now, it’s obvious he was a force, a game wrecker, and one hell of an athlete (who also kicked a bunch of field goals and extra points for Texas in 1977). Whispers: can he punt for us now? Forces on the field, almost like a storm in real life, just have to be experienced rather than described. Later in my life, just how will I explain or describe a force I witnessed like Byron Murphy? I can’t do it justice. You just had to experience it. It’s the same for McMichael, and I wish I had been there.

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Tommy Nobis: (LB/G 1963-65)

When people recount memories of Earl or Vince Young, it’s as if they’re talking about a figure bigger than football, someone holy. Well, I encourage you to go read some of what people have written about the former national champion and number one overall pick from Snyder. There’s a reason number 60 is immortalized in Austin, and it’s such an honor to wear the number of “the finest two-way player I’ve ever seen,” as Darrell Royal called him. Before there was the stop against Lendale White, there was Nobis’ stop against Joe Namath and Alabama on 4th and Inches in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Nobis never came off the field while at Texas, and he wasn’t just hanging out on the turf—he averaged 20 tackles a freaking game on defense and destroyed the opponents’ best defenders while playing guard. As the indelible Dan Jenkins wrote of Nobis: “He is Tommy Nobis of the Texas Longhorns or, actually, the living, breathing, bear-hugging, stick-’em-in-the-gizzle proof that linebackers, not blondes, have more fun.”