Hall of Fame college and NFL offensive lineman
Texas trailed Arkansas by six points with the national championship on the line when quarterback James Street broke outside on the first play of the fourth quarter and ran 42 yards for a touchdown, the score that turned the 1969 "Big Shootout" into a 15-14 Texas win. The lane Street ran through opened in front of Bob McKay, the Longhorns' offensive tackle. McKay, a consensus All-American on that undefeated national championship team and later a nine-year NFL veteran with the Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots, died September 10, 2026, in Austin, Texas, according to the National Football Foundation. He was 78.
That fourth-quarter block, still recalled whenever the game once billed as the "Game of the Century" comes up, was one moment in a season McKay anchored from the interior of a line that helped Texas outscore opponents 435-119 and lead the nation in both rushing and scoring offense, according to the Texas Longhorns. With McKay at tackle, Texas went 20-1-1 across the 1968 and 1969 seasons, won two Southwest Conference titles, and opened 1969 having finished the prior season ranked third in the country after beating Tennessee 36-13 in the Cotton Bowl.
McKay grew up in Crane, a West Texas oil town of about 3,000 people in the Permian Basin, where he played for Crane High School. He remembered being summoned to his coach's office his senior year certain he was in trouble, only to find a stranger there instead, sunglasses on the desk and feet propped up beside them. "Hi. My name is Mike Campbell. I'm from The University of Texas, and I'd like to talk to you about playing football," the Texas assistant coach told him, McKay recalled years later. "I was surprised he could find Crane. I couldn't say anything but 'yes sir' and 'no sir.' I was as scared of him as I was a man with a loaded shotgun," McKay said. Head coach Darrell Royal made the scholarship offer himself soon after. "We've got a scholarship if you'd like to have it. But if you don't, we've got somebody else that will take it," McKay recalled Royal telling him. "Well, that solves the problem right there," McKay said he answered.
He started as a junior in 1968 and earned consensus first-team All-America honors in 1969, when he was also named All-Southwest Conference and played in the Coaches All-America Game and the Hula Bowl. Teammate Ted Koy, the Longhorns' halfback in the wishbone attack those two seasons, said McKay led without needing to raise his voice. "He was a great leader. But even as big as he was, he didn't try to intimidate anybody. He led by cooperation. He had a way of convincing us to do it together," Koy said. "As a running back, you knew he was always going to do his job. If you just followed him, you were going in the right direction."
The Cleveland Browns made McKay the 21st overall pick of the 1970 NFL Draft, and he spent six seasons at offensive tackle in Cleveland before finishing his career with three seasons in New England, helping both franchises reach the playoffs twice apiece. When he left football, he returned to Austin and worked in commercial sales, later supporting the NFL Children's Benefit and CASH of Austin, according to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Recognition followed him for decades after he left the field. The University of Texas inducted him into its Athletics Hall of Honor in 1990, the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame enshrined him in 2012, and in 2017 the National Football Foundation inducted him into the College Football Hall of Fame, the 19th Longhorn player enshrined in the award's history, honored that December at the organization's awards dinner in New York. He was, at the time, the only player from the unbeaten 1969 team to reach the Hall. "All of us did the work," he said of that team. "You did your job to the best of your ability, and there were ten other guys doing the same thing."
Announcing his death, NFF President and CEO Steve Hatchell said, "Bob McKay was accomplished in everything he did, from his remarkable football career to his professional life, but nothing meant more to him than his family. He was a gentle giant and simply one of those people you loved being around. More than a great football player, Bob was a great person and a good friend."
McKay is survived by Donna, his wife of 50 years; their children, Jill (Scott) and Josh (Katie); eight grandchildren; and his brothers, Don (Kathy) and Mike. His parents, Doris and Charles McKay, preceded him in death.
What McKay left on the field is still visible in film of that December afternoon in Fayetteville, a tackle from a town of 3,000 holding his ground long enough to spring a 42-yard touchdown and a national title. Crane High School, the University of Texas Athletics Hall of Honor, and the College Football Hall of Fame each still count him among their honored few, one of just 19 Longhorn players enshrined in the latter. It is a short list for a program with as much history as Texas, and by his own account, he never stopped crediting the other ten men on the field with him that day.
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Everyone loved Bob McKay and his family in Austin's Northwest Hills where our kids went to school & occasionally there would be a neighborhood get-to-gather. I'd find him (it was easy enough) & we'd stand by a fireplace with a drink & start telling jokes back & forth & laugh much. Yes, he was one of those people you loved being around. Later, I'd see him around Austin at several contractor events. He'd see me & we'd visit like we'd seen each other yesterday. Of course, I wish I'd seen him ten times as much. I never wanted to slow him up to tell him that at my first day at UT in September 1969, two of my friends that were going to run track at UT invited me to eat with them at the More-Hill Hall Athletic cafeteria. i remember it like yesterday that I sat across the long table from Bob & Leo Brooks, both giants in the day & later in the neighborhood. They talked & I listened, & it was a joy to meet them. Both had kids that went to school later in Northwest Hills. Condolences to Donna & the family. God rest his soul & God is good.
Dear McKay family, I was so sorry to hear of Bobs passing. The Anderson High days were where I developed my fondness of all your family. Still hold that in my heart. Diane Haverin
Rest in peace Bob. May God bless you and your family. All those '69 Horns were my heroes as a boy of 9 years growing up in Bonham, Texas!
Everyone loved Bob McKay and his family in Austin's Northwest Hills where our kids went to school & occasionally there would be a neighborhood get-to-gather. I'd find him (it was easy enough) & we'd stand by a fireplace with a drink & start telling jokes back & forth & laugh much. Yes, he was one of those people you loved being around. Later, I'd see him around Austin at several contractor events. He'd see me & we'd visit like we'd seen each other yesterday. Of course, I wish I'd seen him ten times as much. I never wanted to slow him up to tell him that at my first day at UT in September 1969, two of my friends that were going to run track at UT invited me to eat with them at the More-Hill Hall Athletic cafeteria. i remember it like yesterday that I sat across the long table from Bob & Leo Brooks, both giants in the day & later in the neighborhood. They talked & I listened, & it was a joy to meet them. Both had kids that went to school later in Northwest Hills. Condolences to Donna & the family. God rest his soul & God is good.
Dear McKay family, I was so sorry to hear of Bobs passing. The Anderson High days were where I developed my fondness of all your family. Still hold that in my heart. Diane Haverin
Rest in peace Bob. May God bless you and your family. All those '69 Horns were my heroes as a boy of 9 years growing up in Bonham, Texas!
