I have figured it out but need to read some more...
I was missing the:
SysCtlPeripheralEnable(SYSCTL_PERIPH_ETH); before the watchdog and pin setup which is follwed by a SysCtlPeripheralEnable(SYSCTL_PERIPH_ETH); (lwip example clued me in)
I have two questions:
1) Why is the first call needed?
2) Why would the issue only show up when not running through the debugger?
Galen