Big No. 70 wearing red for Arkansas
Loyd Phillips played college football before recruiting services awarded three, four or five stars to assess a player’s talent.
Before would- be Fellinis with a press card scanned films of prized prospects and filled websites and newsletters with their insights like they were from Mount Sinai. Like this:
“I had a great recruiting visit at Arkansas. The coaches all like me and think I can play right away. It’s too early to pick a school. My mom went to Auburn but says she’s leaving it up to me. I still have some places to visit. This week, Florida; next week, LSU.”
Before Otis Kirk and Richard Davenport staked out the high ground in Arkansas came Max Emfinger from Texas. People waited for national signing day to see which team filled its cupboard highest, mindful that in a time of almost unlimited rosters, Texas would get first pick of blue-chip players every year.
Before “Hooten’s Arkansas Football” graced newsstands in our state, football fans got a sneak preview on Arkansas and Texas schoolboy talent in “Dave Campbell’s Texas Football,” authored by the Waco, Texas, newspaper’s sports editor. This was long before ESPN when a Little Rock TV station presented highlights of the past week’s Southwest Conference games, say, on Tuesday night and a couple of nights later previewed the next Razorback opponent.
Know then that when Loyd Phillips left his native Texas to play at Arkansas, it meant something. Not until I read his obit in Monday’s paper did I know that his choices were Arkansas and Oklahoma, where Phillips could have been in the last recruiting class of Bud Wilkinson.
Frank Broyles thus felt emboldened to mine Texas for top talent. Not only would a Phillips contribute to the Razorbacks, he would be one less great player on the sideline of an SWC rival (read that Texas).
All Philips did was become the standout defensive lineman of Broyles’ 19 years at Arkansas. An All-American in 1965 and 1966, his junior and senior years, Loyd Wade Phillips, big No. 70 in red, earned the Outland Trophy in 1966 as college football’s premier D-lineman.
In his three years on the varsity, the Razorbacks went 29-3 — 11-0, 10-1 and 8-2 from 1964-66. The ‘65 team spent one week atop the Associated Press poll — the only No. 1 ranking for an Arkansas football team — and made the cover of Sports Illustrated, junior Harry Jones (Enid, Okla.) pictured.
Phillips, who died at age 75 on Sunday from complications of a stroke, never lost to Texas as a varsity player. That was when Texas, coached by Darrell Royal, was at or near its burnt-orange peak and its games with Arkansas took on national importance.
Texas was ranked No. 1 nationally when Arkansas slipped by 14-13 at Austin in 1964 and 27-24 at Fayetteville in 1965. The count was 12-7 at Austin in 1966, a season that the Razorbacks at times steamrolled the SWC but let a third-straight Cotton Bowl elude its grasp with surprise losses to Baylor and Texas Tech. Phillips was nursing a knee injury when Arkansas lost at Lub-bock after an SWC officiating crew twice denied quarterback Jon Brittenum forward progress on a goal-line sneak (and you thought this year’s Auburn game was heinous?)
Phillips joined Houston products Ronnie Caviness and
Jerry Lamb on Broyles’ first major foray into Texas. Unable to find a quarterback in Arkansas that would meet his needs after Brittenum left, Broyles went to the Dallas area for Bill Montgomery in 1968. No Razorback quarterback to that time ever played in more big games than Montgomery. Arkansas became known as a passing team; Chuck Dicus, another Dallas product, snagged a touchdown catch in a 16-2 Sugar Bowl surprise of Georgia on Jan. 1, 1969.
Montgomery and Dicus
hooked up for one touchdown ( another was called back) in the most monumental game in Razorback history. The date was Dec. 6, 1969, and with President Richard Nixon watching from the stands in Fayetteville, Texas rallied in the fourth quarter to win 14-13 when ranked No. 1 in the land to Arkansas’ No. 2.
Loyd Phillips’ brother, Terry Don, played for the ‘69 Razorbacks. They were from Longview, Texas, which also produced that day’s Texas quarterback. James Street never lost as a Longhorn starter.
Before the National Football League became a weekly religion in this country, Phillips went in the first round of the 1967 draft (No. 10 pick) to the Chicago Bears. Even with future Hall of Famers Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in uniform and legendary coach George Halas patrolling the sideline, the Bears were in slow decline. Phillips lasted only three seasons in the pros, finishing with the New Orleans Saints.
Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek said in announcing Phillips’ death Sunday, “The Razorback family and college football has lost one of its true legends. Loyd Phillips was a ferocious competitor .. in what was a truly golden era of Razorback football. As his accomplishments attest, he established himself among the best to ever play college football. However, away from the field, Loyd was a humble gentle giant who made a meaningful difference in the lives of generations of young people in our state through his dedicated service in secondary education.”
Spending years in the Springdale and Rogers school districts, Loyd watched son Mackenzie star for ex-Razorback Jarrell Williams’ Springdale Bulldogs and later play for UA. Though he did not achieve his father’s greatness on the field, Mackenzie Phillips bears the name of Loyd’s first defensive coordinator, the late Jim Mackenzie.
Who know, Phillips might have played at OU for Mackenzie, the man who replaced a legend (Bud Wilkinson) in Sooners history. Arkansas people of a certain age still thank Loyd for completing a boomer recruiting crop at Arkansas.