75 Years Ago Today - North Texas Plays Nevada In The Inaugural Salad Bowl

[ADLER]

In its second season since rekindling North Texas football under head coach Odus Mitchell, the team compiled a 10–2 record (6–0 against LSC opponents), beat Florida in Gainesville, won the LSC championship, and lost only to Arkansas in Fayetteville and to Nevada in the 1948 Salad Bowl. 

The 1948 Salad Bowl was a postseason American college football bowl game between the Nevada Wolf Pack and the North Texas State Eagles at Montgomery Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 1, 1948. The game marked the first bowl game for Nevada and the second in a row for North Texas.

It was the 1st edition of the annual Salad Bowl. North Texas represented the Lone Star Conference in the contest, while Nevada competed as an Independent. In a defensive struggle, Nevada would earn their first bowl win with a 13–6 victory.

The site of the game was Montgomery Stadium in Phoenix.

The Eagles entered their second bowl game with a 10–1 record and the Lone Star Conference championship in hand. The 1947 team was dominant, holding 5 opponents scoreless and 10 to a touchdown or less. The Eagles' lone loss was a 12–0 defeat against Arkansas in Little Rock which was followed by a victory in Gainesville against Florida.

The Nevada Wolf Pack also entered its first bowl game with an 8–2 record. The Wolfpack was led by All-American and Heisman Finalist Stan Heath. Nevada originally accepted its invitation to the salad bowl however, weeks prior to the game, the team cowardly voted not to participate in the game. Nevada ultimately attended after the threat of lawsuit.

North Texas scored first before Nevada added a pair of touchdowns, with the second one coming late in the fourth quarter. A missed extra point kept North Texas within a touchdown, but a final drive stalled at the Nevada 28 when a likely game–winning score was dropped in the end zone.

All players received a wristwatch after the game as a token of appreciation.

 

 

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Edited January 3, 2023 by ADLER

[9299]

Thanks for this History. Mitchell was a great Coach for many years!!

 

 

[cousin oliver]

1 hour ago, 9299 said:

Mitchell was a great Coach for many years!!

Odus or Jalie?😢

[ADLER]

On 1/2/2023 at 10:42 AM, 9299 said:

Thanks for this History. Mitchell was a great Coach for many years!!

 

 

Odus Mitchell was hired, with no players on the team, six days before North Texas was scheduled to play at Texas A&M. The Aggies were incredibly deep with all the players that had returned the previous year from WWII.

Odus had to recruit players from campus to create his offense and defense. Unfortunately there was really no time to spend on special teams.

The Aggies dominated, mostly on the back of 339 punt return yards, an NCAA record which will probably never be broken.

To take that rag-tag team to become conference champions his first two years is one of the best football stories of this past century.

Edited January 3, 2023 by ADLER

[SilverEagle]

Thanks Jeff.  There were a lot of (somewhat) obscure colleges that North Texas played..."back in the day".  I finally found out the who and where of Hardin College. They started out in the early 1930's as private Jr. College in Wichita Falls. They eventually became a four-year state college called Midwestern State. The 12,000 attendance @ Eagle Stadium puzzled me because there was no way that you could have crowded 12K into Eagle Stadium. I believe it's maximum cap. was about 6k. The newspaper story said the game was played in WF. 

Later in the season NT played their big rivalry game with East Texas State and the attendance was 6500. According to the story in the DRC, the game was played in Commerce, not Denton.

Besides the game story, there is an interesting story about North Texas needing more space for their rivalry game etc.

 

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 86, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 23, 1947 - Page: 9 of 28 . Magnified. The Portal to Texas History (unt.edu)

 

 

[ADLER]

6 hours ago, SilverEagle said:

Thanks Jeff.  There were a lot of (somewhat) obscure colleges that North Texas played..."back in the day".  I finally found out the who and where of Hardin College. They started out in the early 1930's as private Jr. College in Wichita Falls. They eventually became a four-year state college called Midwestern State. The 12,000 attendance @ Eagle Stadium puzzled me because there was no way that you could have crowded 12K into Eagle Stadium. I believe it's maximum cap. was about 6k. The newspaper story said the game was played in WF. 

Later in the season NT played their big rivalry game with East Texas State and the attendance was 6500. According to the story in the DRC, the game was played in Commerce, not Denton.

Besides the game story, there is an interesting story about North Texas needing more space for their rivalry game etc.

 

Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 86, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 23, 1947 - Page: 9 of 28 . Magnified. The Portal to Texas History (unt.edu)

 

 

The "too many fans for standing room" is what pushed North Texas to build what would eventually be named Fouts Field. Unfortunately the new stadium was built, per AD Fouts, to be a track configuration which could also be used for football. This horrible decision was incredibly detrimental to the football program. It was incredibly hard to sell out the stadium due to it's incredibly bad sight lines, and the negative ninnies would say for the next 60 years " why fix the stadium situation if we're not selling out what we currently have". These ninnies almost killed off North Texas football and they continue today by opposing expanding necessary functional seating at Apogee.