Tide Football Legend Reflects On 1982 Cotton Bowl Loss To Texas

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Former University of Alabama defensive back Tommy Wilcox is quick to admit he doesn't remember a whole lot of individual moments on the field from his playing days four decades ago.

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And rightfully so. After all, the star high school quarterback from the New Orleans area who went on to become a defensive icon at the Capstone under the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant has likely forgotten more football than most would be able to retain over a lifetime.

But he always loved going to play at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

In a day and age with little more than a dozen postseason bowl games, Wilcox had the opportunity to run out of the tunnel in Dallas twice, facing Baylor his sophomore season and the University of Texas as a junior.

When considering the 2022 season will culminate in 43 postseason bowls, the privilege of getting one of those coveted bids in the 1980s is easy to understand.

What's more, The Cotton Bowl Classic was considered an elite-tier bowl game that played second fiddle only to the iconic Rose Bowl Game at a time before the BCS or the College Football Playoff.

"[The Cotton Bowl Classic] always gave you great gifts and we had played Baylor the year before," Wilcox said in an interview with Patch on the eve of the No. 1 Crimson Tide taking on Texas in Austin. "They would give you those real nice Stetson cowboy hats and really nice brand-name watches, so you always got those. Then they gave you a chance to do some other cowboy stuff. You got to go to rodeos and I think we even got to go to a Willie Nelson concert. They really took care of you."

The college game has obviously evolved by leaps and bounds since Wilcox's time in Tuscaloosa. Yet, the sting of disappointment is one of the few things that has remained relatively unchanged over the last 40 years for anyone who played the sport.

After absolutely drumming Baylor 31-2 in the 1981 Cotton Bowl Classic, the Tide once again made the trip to Dallas the following year for a New Year's Day matchup with the No. 6 Texas Longhorns and head coach Fred Akers in front of a crowd of more than 73,000.

A SEASON ON THE BRINK

While few, if any, may have realized it at the time, the 1981 college football season for Alabama would be the beginning of the end for the Bear Bryant Era.

Bryant — in his late 60s with his health in serious decline — would later admit following his final game on the sidelines in the 1982 Liberty Bowl that his teams in '81 and '82 were much better than their win-loss records indicated.

He viewed the lack of success as his personal failure.

Indeed, in 1981 coming off a 10-2 campaign in 1980, the Crimson Tide sported one of the most iconic defenses in the school's history. But as the archaic wishbone offense on the other side of the ball failed to keep pace with the rapidly-evolving passing game, Alabama failed time and again to match teams throwing 30 to 40 passes a game to wideouts with track-star speed.

After starting the 1981 season with a convincing 24-7 win over LSU in Baton Rouge, many justifiably viewed the Tide as the favorites to win the national title. Those dreams were unexpectedly derailed the following week, though, as Alabama fell 24-21 to a Georgia Tech squad that finished an abysmal 1-10 on the year.

Bryant even said himself it was this loss and a tie with Southern Mississippi at Legion Field that led the legendary coach to begin considering retirement. Despite a win in the Iron Bowl that saw Bryant break the all-time record for coaching wins held by Amos Alonzo Stagg, he would go on to speak publicly about the need for a change in leadership the following season.

Among the losses he mentioned would be the Tide's final matchup of the season against No. 6 Texas in Dallas on New Years Day 1982.

After the 14-12 loss in the 1982 Cotton Bowl Classic and the lackluster 8-4 mark posted by the team during his last season, Bryant told one newspaper reporter that, had the Tide won some of those games, he might have thought twice about stepping away from the game.

"That was a heart-breaker that night," Wilcox recalled of the final game of a season that saw him named a consensus All-American selection at safety. "We should have won the national championship that year and I want to say that, had we beat Texas, we might have been in the mix."

To Wilcox's credit, the Tide definitely had an argument when they took the field on New Year's Day 1982. Ranked No. 3 overall and sharing the SEC title with Georgia, an Alabama win and a couple of convenient losses that day could have just as easily ended up with Bryant winning a record seventh-straight bowl game and a seventh national championship.

Apart from Alabama's loss in Dallas that day, the stars nearly did align in No. 3 Alabama's favor after No. 2 Georgia (10-2) fell to No. 8 Pittsburgh in the Sugar Bowl later that day.

Unfortunately, however, it would be an undefeated Clemson team — one that started the season unranked — to topple the legendary Tom Osborne and his Nebraska Cornhuskers 22-15 in the Orange Bowl to claim the school's first national championship.

A BYGONE AGE — THE 1982 COTTON BOWL CLASSIC

Tommy Wilcox was highly-touted coming out of Bonnabel High and had options when it came to where he would take his talents.

But like scores of young men both famous and obscure, Wilcox came to Tuscaloosa because he wanted to play for an elite program — a winner.

"I knew just coming to play for Alabama, if you played for Alabama you were going to play against the best competition in the country," Wilcox said in an interview with Patch. "Coach Bryant never shied away from competition. We played the Nebraskas and the Southern Cals and the Notre Dames, so you knew you were going to be going against the very best programs."

Bryant was legendary for the matchups he would put his teams in to begin the season and Wilcox said it was this emphasis on playing high-level competition that resulted in so much success for Bryant and the Tide over three decades.

"We used to always open with like Nebraska and people like that, then we did some Georgia Tech games in there," Wilcox recalled. "But [Bryant] felt like if your first game was always a tough team, that would make you work all summer to be that much better, instead of playing Utah State as your first game."

The 1981 Alabama squad did manage to overcome adversity that likely would have derailed lesser programs and, even going into the final matchup of the year against the Longhorns, Wilcox was convinced the team and his performance would deliver him a second national championship ring.

"I knew going against Texas was another one of those teams just like Alabama that had a national following and stuff," he said. "I don't think any of us thought we were gonna lose that game. We just had a heck of a team that year."

Texas was far from a cupcake opponent, though, and for Longhorns quarterback Robert Brewer, it was as if his entire life had been leading to that moment.

The son of legendary Texas quarterback Charley Brewer, Robert's father became a Texas football icon after leading the Longhorns to a 21-6 win over a Texas A&M team in 1955 that was coached by none other than Bear Bryant.

"He didn't say much to me," Robert Brewer told a newspaper reporter regarding his famous father following the Cotton Bowl win. "My dad didn't mention anything to me during the week about beating Bear. He did say something when we beat Texas A&M this year and I was the starter. He is definitely low-key."

Despite the young Texas signal-caller's excitement and nerves prior to the game, though, it would be slow goings for the Longhorns in the first half of the Cotton Bowl, which was nationally-televised on CBS.

The only points scored in the first half came by way of Alabama quarterback Walter Lewis, who tossed a six-yard touchdown strike to Jesse Bendross to put the Tide up 7-0 going into the locker room.

Along with the likes of fellow Alabama defensive legend Jeremiah Castille, Wilcox and the Crimson Tide defense played near-perfect football for much of the game. This was necessary, after all, to make up for turnovers from a slow-moving Crimson Tide offense running out of the wishbone.

The third quarter of the Cotton Bowl proved to be a defensive slugfest that ended in a scoreless stalemate as the score remained 7-0 to begin the fourth quarter.

The only other offensive points for the Tide came early in the final stanza by way of a Peter Kim field goal to extend the lead to 10-0. Holding a two-score lead, glory and immortality were no doubt in sight for Wilcox and his teammates.

"We held Texas and we should have won," Wilcox lamented. "We fumbled so many times, but we were still up at the half."

Known as an innovator in the coaching world, Fred Akers was not one to throw in the towel so easily and neither were his players — especially Robert Brewer.

Despite the Cotton Bowl representing only the fourth start of the season for Brewer, his performance in the final minutes survive in Longhorns football lore as the stuff of legend.

Brewer first used his legs to get the Longhorns on the board at the start of the fourth quarter, when the athletic passer made a snap decision to slow down and change the play.

"We were going to run a double square in," Brewer said. "But when I got to the line, I saw Tommy Wilcox (at strong safety) move up to the line to blitz. So I called time out."

And it would be this adjustment that ultimately cleared the middle of the field for a quarterback draw by Brewer, who broke loose for a 30-yard touchdown run to close the distance at 10-7.

After forcing the Tide to punt with roughly 12 minutes left to play, it was again Brewer who led the Longhorns on an inspired 80-yard drive culminating in an eight-yard touchdown run by Terry Orr to give the Longhorns a lead it would never relinquish.

Talented Crimson Tide return specialist Joey Jones answered in a big way by taking the ensuing kickoff 61-yards to set a Cotton Bowl record for the longest return. But the turnover bug lingered and Lewis threw an interception on the Texas one yard-line for the first play of the drive.

The interception was then followed by arguably one of the most successful coaching gambles in college football postseason history.

Akers, seeing the Herculean task of moving the ball in the shadow of their own goalpost against a talented Alabama defense, opted instead to make his punter take a safety, before a free kick signaled to the Crimson Tide that it would have to be its sluggish offense to would win the game, not the stingy defense made up of headhunters like Wilcox and Castille who had stalled the Longhorns all afternoon.

"I thought it was the best thing to do (taking the safety)," Akers told a reporter following the game. "I wanted them as far away from our goal as we could possibly get them. The eight seconds that (punter) John Goodson wasted running around in the end zone seemed like an eternity."

With 43 seconds remaining on the clock, Alabama started its final drive of the game on its own 41 yard line. Lewis was ultimately swarmed by Texas defenders and time ran out on any hopes of the Tide finishing the season on a positive note, much less winning the 1981 national championship.

Although he saw a once-promising season immediately relegated to a stunning disappointment, Bryant had nothing but respect for the coach on the opposite sideline.

"Well, [taking the safety] worked," Bryant said following the game. "Then at the end our kids were so tired — or something — they were running around there with 11 seconds left (without snapping the ball). We have worked on that before. We should have been able to get that play off in five seconds. They whipped us bad in the fourth quarter."

Conversely, Akers said of the bowl win that it was the greatest victory of his coaching career at that time.

"You will not find a classier man and program than Bear Bryant and Alabama," he said. "I think he showed what a great competitor and operator he is."

When asked by a reporter if his Crimson Tide program was cursed to never get the best of the Longhorns, Bryant brushed off the notion.

Bryant died on Jan. 26, 1983 without ever seeing his alma mater notch a win against the Longhorns. Nearly a year to the day following the Tide's Cotton Bowl loss to Texas, former Bryant player and assistant Ray Perkins was named as his successor ahead of the 1983 Liberty Bowl.

"I don't think there is a Texas whammy on Alabama. Their players and coaches beat us — not a whammy," Bryant commented before being asked if that day represented the most disappointing loss of his career. "No. It was just my latest."

THE LATEST GOLDEN AGE

Wilcox was understandably crushed by the loss and the thought of a national title slipping out of the grasp of the 1981 team. Still, the hard-nosed defender said he doesn't dwell too much on the past these days.

An accomplished outdoorsman and television personality in his own right, Wilcox took time away from filming his television program — "Tommy Wilcox Outdoors" — during a fishing trip in his home state of Louisiana this week to reflect back on that game 40 years ago.

Wilcox said he is regularly asked about certain memories by members of the media, but after playing so much football and living such a full, busy life, the 63-year-old Bryant disciple said the individual memories are sparse, especially when it comes to losses like the 1982 Cotton Bowl that many would rather forget.

"I'll have folks in the press ask me all the time, 'hey man, do you remember that time in 1980 you did this or that,' he said with a laugh. "But I don't remember too many plays."

Ahead of No. 1 Alabama's matchup on Saturday against Texas, however, Wilcox began to think back on just how much the game has changed since he wore the crimson and white.

It's an attitude similar to the one regularly displayed by current Tide head coach Nick Saban, who insists on making every adjustment possible to ensure his team is prepared, while also never underestimating opponents.

"Everybody has heard that we're 20-point favorites in this game and the last time we were 20-point favorites and went into Texas, we got our ass kicked," Saban said during his weekly radio show on Thursday.

While Saban did not elaborate on exactly which team he was referring to, a look back at the short record of competition between the two historic programs makes its obvious that the Crimson Tide coach was thinking back to that 1982 Cotton Bowl.

This is an unreasonable conclusion given the last time Alabama traveled to Austin for a football game against Texas was in 1922. Of the five matchups since, two were played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, while the other three were hosted in New Orleans, Miami and, eventually, in Pasadena for the Tide's very first win over the Longhorns to secure the programs first national championship under Saban.

"It was always great playing another team that was a national power, because Texas was one back then," Wilcox said in a nostalgic tone. "The only thing I can say is, what happened? Today, I can't see how the Nebraskas are not any good anymore. The Miamis are not good anymore and the Penn States are not that good anymore. Where are all the other big-time schools? Where are all the great teams? You've got Ohio State, Clemson and Alabama ... who else is left that's won championships in the last few years? Where's the Notre Dames of the world?"

Don't let Wilcox's cynicism concerning the overall state of college football fool you, though. The legendary defensive back remains a devoted supporter of his alma mater and says he has been in awe of the success ushered in with the Nick Saban Era.

"I never doubted [the Alabama football program] would be this good," he said of the sustained success on the national stage under Saban. "I have been surprised by the number of national championships he has, sure, that has surprised me. It's such an awesome freaking program that they're always going to get a lot of good athletes. But if anyone tries to tell you that [success] doesn't have everything to do what Coach Saban has done, they're lying."

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