1980 SMU game. Complete gut punch. That season started with a nationally broadcast Monday night game in which Texas completely destroyed Arkansas. ABC had moved that game up specifically because they wanted the Texas-Arkansas game to be the first nationally broadcast game of the new decade. This was the game where freshman LB Jeff Leiding did his Superman imitation and almost killed an Arkansas kick off returner, and also almost killed himself in the process. The only time I heard over 80,000 people gasp in unison over a hit. Anyway, Texas dominates that game, wins the next 4 easily, including a pretty convincing win over OU before the bye week created by moving the Arkansas game. So, we go into the SMU game rested and ready at 5-0, sitting at number 2 in the polls. SMU was 3-2 and hadn't beaten Texas in something like 13 years, and was showing no signs of being able to do so this year. The much vaunted "Pony Express" backfield of Craig James and Eric Dickerson hadn't shown much by midway through their sophmore season, so I and everybody else in DKR was expecting an easy win on our way to playing for at national championship, as all of our "hard" games were behind us. All of this made the complete domination of Texas in this game all the more puzzling and infuriating. It was the first time is over a decade that Texas didn't score a TD at home, and the 20-6 final score really doesn't show how thoroughly Texas was beaten down. SMU didn't lose again until BYU beat them with a last second TD in the Holiday Bow, and Texas went on to finish the year at 7-5 with a loss in the Bluebonnet Bowl to UNC, which featured a senior LB name Lawrence Taylor. There is no way to adequately express the suckage that was the 1980 season, and I believe it gave us Longhorn fans the first indication that there might be some kind of rot taking hold and that the wheels were coming off the machine that was Texas football.