TEXAS BOWL: ARKANSAS VS. TEXAS

Bobby's big bash

Allen was the man with a plan in 2000

Texas running back Hodges Mitchell is tackled by a gang of Razorbacks during the first quarter of the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2000.

FAYETTEVILLE -- When Bobby Allen got on the hotel elevator, Steve Whitelaw could see the Arkansas defensive coordinator was tired.

Whitelaw didn't realize how tired until a few seconds later.

It was after 11 p.m. on Dec. 30, 1999, two days before the Razorbacks were going to play Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

Whitelaw, the team chiropractor, had gotten on the elevator in the lobby. Allen got on the elevator from the second floor, where meeting rooms were located.

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Arkansas defensive coordinator Bobby Allen congratulates Delancey Kent following play Saturday, Jan. 1, 2000 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Arkansas won 27-6 over Texas.

After the two exchanged greetings, Whitelaw turned to Allen to say something else.

"I could see he was asleep," Whitelaw said. "He'd been in the elevator about 10 seconds, but he was standing straight up -- not leaning against a wall -- while the elevator was moving, and he had a light snore going. For four or five floors, he was just dead asleep on his feet.

"You could tell he was absolutely exhausted."

As the elevator continued to go up, Whitelaw was quiet so as not to disturb Allen. When the elevator stopped on Whitelaw's floor, he turned to check on Allen.

"I guess the elevator stopping woke him up a little bit," Whitelaw said. "I said, 'Coach, you OK?' He said, 'Yeah, I'm just tired. We've been working hard.'

"Obviously, his hard work paid off."

Did it ever. Arkansas rolled to a 27-6 victory over the Longhorns.

With Allen making the defensive calls, the Razorbacks sacked Major Applewhite and Chris Simms a combined eight times for losses of 64 yards.

"I got crushed," Simms said after the game.

The sacks helped the Razorbacks hold the Longhorns to minus-27 rushing yards and 185 yards in total offense.

"You couldn't have asked for anything to come out better," Allen, who is now Arkansas' director of high school and NFL relations, said this week. "Physically we were just getting off the ball and getting after them. We were playing fast and having fun."

The 2000 Cotton Bowl is a timely topic for the Razorbacks almost 15 years after the game because Arkansas is getting ready to face Texas again in a bowl game. Arkansas (6-6) will play Texas (6-6) Dec. 29 in the Texas Bowl in Houston.

It will be the 78th meeting between the former Southwest Conference rivals, but only their second bowl matchup.

The Allen family will be involved for the Razorbacks this time, too. Brandon and Austin Allen, Bobby's sons, are Arkansas' starting and backup quarterbacks.

After the 2000 Cotton Bowl, Bobby Allen was talking to a reporter outside the Arkansas locker room when he saw his sons -- Brandon was 7 at the time and Austin 5 -- getting on one of the team buses unaccompanied.

Allen had to cut his interview short, knowing his wife, Marcela, had left the boys in his care.

"I started running to the bus, because my wife would have killed me," Allen said with a laugh.

Brandon Allen, a redshirt junior who has started 23 games for Arkansas the past two seasons, remembers going to the 2000 Cotton Bowl, but he doesn't recall specific details of how his dad's defense rocked Texas.

"I don't remember it 100 percent because I was little," Allen said. "I'm sure he was happy about it."

During the 1998 and 1999 seasons, Bobby Allen served as co-defensive coordinator with Keith Burns, but Burns called plays from the sideline while Allen made suggestions from his spot in the press box.

"It was a really good working relationship," Allen said. "Keith would start and then we'd get into a series and he'd ask me, 'What do you think?'

"We'd talk on the headsets. At any time during the series, if I felt like, hey, this might be the call, I'd just say it to him and he'd go ahead and run it or, if he had his gut feeling, he'd call it."

Burns left Arkansas before the Cotton Bowl to become Tulsa's head coach, so Allen moved to the field and made all the calls for the Cotton Bowl.

"He was the unsung hero throughout the year," Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt said of Allen after the Cotton Bowl.

Allen smiled when reminded about falling asleep on an elevator during preparations.

"I know going into that game, obviously with Keith leaving and us playing Texas, we worked hard," Allen said. "It's not like we went down there to have a lot of fun. We went down there to be prepared and try to put together the best game plan and have the kids prepared to play the best they could."

Allen said he wasn't concerned about adding play-calling duties with Burns' departure.

"It wasn't like we were trying to run something that we weren't all comfortable with," he said. "We all knew the defense. I'd had opportunities with Keith throughout the years to be in a situation where I had some input on what we were doing, so it was a matter of just going ahead and calling it from the field."

The 2000 Cotton Bowl kickoff was 10 a.m. Central time, so the Razorbacks ate their pregame meal about 5:30 a.m. and left their hotel for the stadium at 7 a.m.

It was 50 degrees at kickoff, and the sun shined all day -- except on Texas.

"It was a clear, fresh day, and you're thinking, 'I hope the kids are ready to play, because this could really be a fun day,' " Allen said. "Then you can just tell coming out of that little tunnel they were ready to play with the way they attacked the field."

Arkansas set the tone defensively on the second play when tackle D.J. Cooper sacked Applewhite for a 7-yard loss.

Cooper, the Cotton Bowl's defensive MVP, had 2 sacks and 3 tackles for losses totaling 12 yards. Six other Razorbacks had one sack each: Chris Brooks, Chris Chalmers, Quinton Caver, Orlando Green, Jeremiah Harper and Harold Harris.

"Like anything defensively, you kind of get rolling and the kids were playing aggressive and playing with confidence," Allen said. "We got a little blood in the water and it just kept going."

After Arkansas took a 10-3 lead in the third quarter on Clint Stoerner's 30-yard touchdown pass to Cedric Cobbs, Texas drove to the Razorbacks 1, where the Longhorns faced first-and-goal.

Texas couldn't tie the game. Jamel Harris tackled Chris Robertson for no gain on a rushing attempt, Kenoy Kennedy tackled Chad Stevens at the 1 after he caught a pass from Applewhite, and Caver and Jamel Harris tackled Chris Peterson for a 5-yard loss on a toss play.

The Longhorns had to settle for a field goal that made it 10-6.

"If you're on the 1-yard line and can't score a touchdown, you're probably not going to win the game," Texas Coach Mack Brown said after the game. "It was a bad day at the ranch.

"Arkansas played with a lot of energy and tenacity on defense, and I thought that was the biggest part of the game."

Allen said the goal-line stand was the game's turning point.

"The kids came out and we all got together and they said, 'Coach, it doesn't matter, just dial it. We'll do it. Dial it,' " Allen said. "I said, 'All right.' "

The Razorbacks outscored Texas 17-0 in the fourth quarter -- including touchdown runs by Cobbs and Michael Jenkins -- to turn the game into a rout.

As Arkansas fans celebrated in the stands, the Longhorns got the ball with 2:08 left and drove to the Razorbacks 7, where Simms threw four incompletions as Texas failed to score a touchdown in the game.

"When Texas had that last drive of the game, we were all starting to relax a little bit," Allen said. "Then a player -- I can't remember exactly who it was -- said, 'Coach, don't let up now. Don't let them in the end zone.'

"That's how locked-in our players were and how much the game meant to them."

Allen said it's exciting to know his sons will experience the Arkansas-Texas rivalry in the Texas Bowl, but he hasn't thought about it from the perspective that they'll be following in his footsteps, in a sense, because he's been part of the game as a coach.

"I kind of separate those two," Allen said. "One's coaching, and one's being a dad.

"The kids have to go out and make their own memories."

Sports on 12/18/2014