This date in Texas history: Longhorns beat Baylor due to a mid-game forfeiture
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Today is Nov. 5, 2024. And on this date in Texas history, the UT football team earned a forfeit victory during an odd showdown with Baylor.
A 1-0 victory over Baylor in 1910 remains the only forfeit victory in UT's 1,381-game history. The Longhorns kept their undefeated record intact with that forfeit, but Texas eventually ended the season with a 6-2 record.
From a 2021 American-Statesman about the on-field oddity : Technically, Texas and Baylor each scored six points when their undefeated teams met on a rainy day in Waco on Nov. 5, 1910. Marshall Ramsdell scored for Texas in front of a crowd of 2,000 that included Sen. Joseph Bailey and Oscar Colquitt, the state's recently elected governor. E.T. Adams was responsible for Baylor's touchdown.
Baylor, however, refused to finish the game, and Texas was credited with a 1-0 victory. That remains the only forfeit on record in UT's history, which dates back to the 1893 season.
So why did Baylor forfeit?
According to Baylor's media almanac, the Bears had objected to Texas choosing Dan Blake to be the lead referee. Blake had distant ties to Fielding Yost, who coached Texas coach W.S. Wasmund in college.
The story published in the Austin Daily Statesman the next day said that the "grandstands were extremely sore at the rulings of the officials and at times threatened violence." At one point, Blake obstructed a Baylor fumble return that seemed destined for a touchdown. Baylor later thought it had recovered a third-quarter fumble, but Blake ruled the turnover did not happen because the football had struck him.
The Daily Statesman reported that Baylor handled its first run-in with Blake "in a sportsmanlike manner." The second incident, however, led to the game's abrupt ending.
The umpire and field judge sided with Baylor's contention that the football had not touched Blake and thus a turnover had occurred. Yet Blake's call stood. Baylor coach Ralph Glaze then refused to let his players play another down.
Blake declared a forfeit in UT's favor. That win improved the Longhorns' record to 5-0. For years, Baylor claimed that it was a 6-6 tie. Both programs now recognize the forfeit.Texas went on to close out Wasmund's only season with losses in two of its next three games. Baylor went on to post a 6-1-1 record in 1910. A 3-0 showing in 1900 is still Baylor's only undefeated season.
Two additional footnotes from this game: Folklore in Waco alleges that Adams refused to back his coach. Adams, a future Rhodes Scholar who was nicknamed "Bull," instead challenged the Longhorns to stay on the field and run all of their plays between the tackles. If they would do so, Adams would take on the entire team by himself. Texas declined.
And the following week, the Daily Statesman reported that Texas was so off-put by what it viewed as post-forfeit media reports that favored Baylor that it canceled the upcoming baseball and basketball games between the schools. (The two schools, by the way, did play each other in basketball that winter and baseball that spring.) The Daily Statesman also wrote on Nov. 8 that Adams was out of bounds before he scored his touchdown and that coaches from a certain school in College Station had been spotted on the Baylor sidelines.
In its all-time series against Baylor, Texas owns an 81-28-4 lead. This year marks the first time since 1944 that the Bears and Longhorns won't play.
