 "Photo: File photo, Daily Texan Staff")
It started with only three teams and an idea from L. Theo Bellmont.
The SWC was formed in 1914 when Texas athletic director L. Theo Bellmont held a conference meeting in Dallas about forming an athletic conference for schools in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
From there some of the nation’s top Universities, both academically and athletically would be categorized under the conference.
The charter members were Texas A&M, Texas, Baylor, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Southwestern and Rice. Bellmont also wanted to include Louisiana State and Mississippi, but they declined. After a couple of years, Southwestern dropped out of the conference then SMU joined followed by TCU a few years later.
Back in the heyday of Southwestern Conference football, Texas was king of the conference. The SWC lasted 82 years, and Texas took the most titles (27 titles, 21 outright). SWC players like Tom Landry, Davey O’Brien, James Street and Earl Campbell transformed into legends, and two of the most renowned coaches of all time, Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles, coached two of the best teams of all time during the SWC reign.
Around this same time, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State left and joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Although the Sooners headed to a different conference, the Texas-OU rivalry remained strong.
After schools went through this add/drop period, the conference settled into season regulation and gained national appeal. In 1940, the conference took control of the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, which established prestige of the bowl and the conference. Then in 1958, Texas Tech joined the SWC, and in 1976, Houston did the same.
The 1960s were the SWC glory years, especially for Texas and Arkansas. Texas won the 1963 National Championship, and Arkansas won in 1964. Then, in 1969, the “Game of the Century” happened — No. 1 Longhorns, coached by Royal, beat Broyles’ No. 2 Razorbacks 15-14. Texas came back from a 14-0 deficit after three quarters to win, and went on to win the Cotton Bowl and become National Champions.
Beginning in the late 1930s and continuing until the conference disbanded in 1996, the SWC was invited to be the host team in the Cotton Bowl game on New Year’s Day. Opponents were usually the runners-up from the Big 8 or SEC conferences. From the 1940s on, this game was considered among the top five major bowl games, and sometimes had national title implications. But then in the 1980s and 1990s, the game declined in importance mainly because of the decline in SWC prominence. The last national championship game played in the Cotton Bowl was in 1977, when Notre Dame beat No. 1 Texas.
Throughout the prestigious years of the SWC, the Texas-Arkansas rivalry was the conference’s main attraction. Since Arkansas’ departure from the SWC in 1991, the Longhorns are still recognized as one of the Razorbacks’ top rivals.
And although the two teams comopete in different conferences now, their rivalry remains as strong as it was when they duked it out for a conference title.
