I’d never spoken to Tyler Johnson before Thursday, but I will definitely request him again soon. He has a future in media waiting for him, if he wants it. And the build-up to the 1968 game with Texas was legendary. The 20-20 tie was another step in making 1968 the most fascinating year of UH Athletics ever.
August 4, 2023 | the daily #4
Talking Season. Tyler Johnson was a revelation in our media availability on Thursday. There are good talkers, and there are, ummm, ungood talkers. But Johnson ranks near the top of UH football talkers. Some guys are quiet and introverted, but they are interesting (Donovan Mutin comes to mind), and some out extroverted and gregarious. Tyler is the latter.
Kelvin Sampson’s basketball team has so many opportunities with the media that it’s not a big deal – even down to the freshmen. Part of that is roster size, but another part is how Sampson insists on his team promoting themselves and practicing their interviewing skills. Basketball players have a running joke amongst themselves when they don’t have to talk to the media – it’s like being let out for recess early. But that’s not the case with football – only 2-3 have been available and only once a week. And for the last three years, that’s been via Zoom. It’s hard to establish a relationship or get people out of their shells on video conferencing.
This year, UH Communications is working to change that. They’re making more assistant coaches available and players, too. Tyler riffed on his HS days, recruiting Jaylen Garth to UT and then to UH, and playing the Horns. Johnson also recalled how journeyman OL coach Herb Hand (formerly of UT, now at UCF) explained how his size and versatility could help him play both the interior line and on the outside.
Here’s some of the good stuff from Tyler:
One of the things I’m most proud of in five years of running GoCoogs is our commitment to preserving UH history. We’ll try to add a little Cougar History nugget to the daily every week.
20-20. In game one of the 1968 season, UH scored 40 in the second half en route to destroying Tulane 54-7. With his team off, UT assistant Fred Akers watched the Coogs manhandle the Greenies, telling UH assistant Billy Willingham, “You guys made that scoreboard light up like a pinball machine.”
After a week off, the excitement started to build. UH was going to Austin to play the mighty Longhorns. 1500 UH students began an all-night vigil outside the ticket office before noon on Thursday, some 56 hours before the 7:30 Saturday night game at Memorial Stadium. UH provided the camping students 135 gallons of coffee and 95 gallons of punch.
By the time the ticket office opened, more than 3000 students were in line. As it was in those days, there was no television coverage, so fans without tickets listened to Harry Kalas on the radio. But Kalas played another role the night before at a social gathering.
On the flight to Austin, a few UH coaches discovered Kalas would be at a party with Darrell K. Royal that night. So they sketched out what they believed UT’s new offense would look like. The coaches said it was a full-T, but Kalas saw it differently. He thought it looked like a Y. So he took the sketch to Royal and asked, “Say, coach, what do you call this?”
Royal had been developing the offense secretly and would debut against the Cougars. Royal barked, “Where did you hear about this?” Kalas’ question rattled Royal.
In the end, UH and UT played to a 20-20 tie. Paul Gipson ran for 173 yards and three touchdowns in the most consequential non-win in UH history.
“It was a great game, just one heck of a game,” Bill Yeoman said in the postgame locker room meeting with the media. “Nobody really likes a tie, but there’s no sense in slashing your wrists and rolling on the ground.”
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