The 1953 East Texas State Lions football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented East Texas State Teachers College—now known as

Texas A&M University–Commerce Texas A&M University–Commerce is a public university in Commerce, Texas. With an enrollment of over 12,000 students as of fall 2017, the university is the third-largest institution in the Texas A&M University System. Founded in 1889, the inst ...

–as a member of the

Lone Star Conference The Lone Star Conference (LSC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in the southwestern United States, with schools in Tex ...

(LSC) during the

1953 college football season The 1953 college football season finished with the Maryland Terrapins capturing the AP, INS, and UPI national championship after Notre Dame held the top spot for the first nine weeks. The No. 4 Oklahoma Sooners defeated Maryland in the Orange ...

. Led by

Milburn Smith Milburn Albert "Catfish" Smith (July 24, 1912 – November 29, 1994) was an American football and basketball coach in the state of Texas. Smith began his coaching career in rural West Texas, where in 1936 he led Carey High, a school with less tha ...

in his third and final season as head coach, the Lions compiled an overall record of 10–0–1 with a mark of 5–0 in conference play, winning the LSC title. East Texas State was invited to the Tangerine Bowl, where the Lions tied

Arkansas State Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage l ...

Schedule

References

East Texas State Texas A&M–Commerce Lions football seasons Lone Star Conference football champion seasons College football undefeated seasons East Texas State Lions football {{Texas-sport-stub