In Bill Yeoman’s second game as coach, the Houston Cougars beat Texas A&M 6-3 at Rice Stadium. Joe Lopasky scored the go-ahead touchdown with 2:38 to play in front of 51,000 fans. The 51,000 in attendance was the biggest home crowd for the Cougars from 1958 until 1967.
Yeoman and A&M head coach Hank Foldberg played together at Army and were each in their first year at their respective schools. In 1945, Yeoman briefly attended A&M before enrolling at West Point.
The Cougar scoring drive began when QB Billy Roland hit halfback Gene Ritch on a 62-yard thunderbolt down to the Cougar 18.
In the American-Statesman, future UH beat writer Jerry Wizig wrote that “skittery Billy Roland’s long strike gunned down the Cadets, and Houston made off with a 6-3 victory.”
Three plays after Roland’s bomb, Lopasky went three yards over the right end for the lone TD of the game. It was Lopasky’s fourth touchdown of the season; through two games, he was the only Cougar to find the end zone.
“You boys got up from a lousy first half and played a hell of a second half,” Yeoman said in the celebratory locker room. “One-fourth of the Southwest Conference will attest to that.”
A&M missed field goals in the 3rd and 4th quarters, the latter coming immediately before the UH TD drive. After the A&M kicker missed a 40-yarder, Yeoman instructed Roland to go deep. He found Ritch all alone at the Aggie 45 before the back reached the 18.
Following the long play, Lopasky went three yards on a dive, and Roland tossed it to Billy Smith for a nine-yard gain. After an A&M offsides penalty moved the ball to the 3, Lopasky barreled in for the winning score.
“By golly, you waited long enough (to go ahead),” Yeoman emotionally said after the game. “The mark of a great team is when you can come from behind and win, and that’s what you did.
“You played a lousy first half, but you came back and played a hell of a second half.”
After the A&M win, the next two games were on the road at #7 Ole Miss and #1 Alabama.
Homer Norton was the head coach for A&M’s 1939 national title team. He wrote about the game in the Houston Post:
Houston vs. Texas A&M Gallery
