Bears Preparing for Texas Tech Offensive Attack
10/5/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 5, 2000
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
With a few exceptions, the Baylor-Texas Tech football rivalry has been all feast or all famine for both teams. Recently, it has been all famine for the Baylor Bears.
The two teams renew the rivalry Saturday at Texas Tech's Jones Stadium, which is in the process of being expanded and refurbished to accommodate more than 60,000 Red Raider fans. Current capacity is 50,500.
Kickoff time for the Bruin-Red Raider showdown is scheduled for 6 p.m.
Baylor will be trying to break a 4-game string of defeats in the series, and a losing streak in Lubbock that goes back to 1992. More recently, the Bears have lost by wide margins to the Red Raiders (35-7 last year, 35-14 three seasons ago, 38-7 in 1994) and they have lost by skimpy margins (31-29 in '98), but since 1996 they have always lost.
Indeed, the three most recent games the Bears have won over their West Texas rivals have been by margins that left their partisans with sweaty palms until the very end of the game. Grant Teaff's final victory over the Red Raiders was a narrow 21-15 nail-biter in 1990. Chuck Reedy's forces prevailed by a 28-26 score in 1993 and again in a 9-7 defensive battle in 1995.
But since '95 it has been all Texas Tech.
THIS IS A RIVALRY that took on its dominant characteristics early. Baylor won the first games between the two teams (shutout victories in 1929 and '31) but Texas Tech won the next three and four of the next six (there was one tie). Then Baylor won the next seven meetings.
When Texas Tech finally won membership in the Southwest Conference, after a long and difficult struggle, Baylor became the team that formally introduced the Red Raiders to SWC combat. That was in 1960, in Lubbock, and the heavily-favored Ronnie Bull-led Bears, who had just trounced eventual-SWC champion Arkansas in Fayetteville, finally prevailed, 14-7, but it was no easy walk in the park for the Bears.
John Bridgers coached the Bears to that victory, and Bridgers-coached Bears were often triumphant against the forces from Lubbock (6 victories, 3 defeats), including the final time one of John's teams played the Red Raiders. Tech came to Waco in 1968 with high hopes of at least tying for the SWC crown (the Raiders already had defeated both Texas and Texas A&M, and Arkansas appeared to be their last major potential stumbling block), but in an inspired performance at Baylor Stadium that afternoon, before 20,000 fans, the Bears ruined Tech's hopes, 42-28.
Tech won three straight against Bears coached by Bill Beall, and the Raiders won 6 of their first 7 games against Grant Teaff's teams, the only exception being that 17-10 victory the Bears won in Waco in that star-spangled season of 1974.
THAT TECH SHOWDOWN in '74 came one week after the Bears had produced their unforgettable 34-24 come-from-behind victory against Texas, and most neutrals predicted Baylor was ripe for a huge letdown after such an emotional triumph.
"Aw, after what Baylor did last week against Texas, you know they'll lose this week," the long-time sage of the Houston Post, the late Jack Gallagher, assured me before the Baylor-Tech game that week.
Gallagher knew his history, he knew the Bears seldom had been able to handle success. But Baylor fooled one and all that day and kept fooling them all the way to the Cotton Bowl.
It was after the delicious and historic victory over the Longhorns that Baylor fans were first treated to the poetic talents of Napoleon Tyler, one of Grant Teaff's offensive guards.
Later proclaimed the "poet laureate" of the '74 Bears, Tyler offered these lines after the Bears had defeated the Longhorns:
"Somebody don't want Baylor in a bowl,
So they put 'em in a hole.
But the Bears came out,
And that's what Baylor pride is all about."
Okay, so it wasn't exactly the stuff of a Pulitzer, but you have to admit it did have a certain ring to it.
Maybe it even helped the Bears come from behind to beat Tech that Nov. 16 at Baylor Stadium before an enthralled audience of 32,000.
But after beating coach Jim Carlen's team in that game, the Bears did not beat Tech again until the final year of that decade.
THE WORM STARTED turning in the Baylor-Tech rivalry (and that was the mythical worm written about by Shakespeare in King Henry VI, not the worm Grant Teaff swallowed to fire up his Bears against Texas in 1978) in 1979. The Bears won 10 of their next 12 games against Tech, losing only in 1983 and 1988. But once 1991 arrived, hard times set in for the Bears where the Red Raiders were concerned.
And they've really been hard of late.
The form chart suggests they will stay hard Saturday night in Lubbock. The Red Raiders are coached by rookie mentor Mike Leach, who as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma last season saw his aerial-based Sooner offense torch the Bears, 41-10. The Sooners completed so many passes to so many wide-open receivers that it actually got embarrassing.
Now Leach has brought that style of play to Lubbock where Tech's now-retired Spike Dykes left him a comparatively well-stocked cupboard. The Red Raiders were 6-5 in Spike's last season last year and Tech's 1999 freshmen were judged to be among the best Dykes ever recruited.
Putting all that material to good use, the Raiders carried a 4-0 record to College Station before losing to the Texas Aggies last Saturday, 33-14.
Baylor coach Kevin Steele and his Bears know they can expect their heaviest aerial onslaught of the season. Tech comes out throwing and keeps throwing until either the game's final whistle sounds or sophomore quarterback Kliff Kingsbury's arm fall off. Thus far Kingsbury's arm is holding up just fine.
KINGSBURY AND HIS multitude of receivers are the centerpiece of Leach's 2000 edition although, in all truth, through Tech's first four games the Red Raider defense had stolen the show. In victories over New Mexico (24-3), Utah State (38-16), North Texas (13-7) and Louisiana-Lafayette (26-0), the Tech defense surrendered an average of 6.5 points per game, the best average in all of college football for defense against scoring. The Red Raiders ranked No. 6 nationally in total defense, yielding an average of 200.5 yards per game. And the school's pass defense ranks No. 4 nationally.
"Our defense has just done a phenomenal job. They've made huge plays, kept us in games," said Tech spokesman Chris Cook.
"Nobody talked about our defense before the season started. All the talk was about the offense. But now a lot of our fans have become impatient with the offense. They want us to score 50 points a game. But we're still 4 and 0."
That defense features a good mixture of seniors and sophomore with several talented juniors sandwiched in, a number of them unheralded types when recruited, almost all of them typical of the youngsters Spike Dykes brought to Lubbock and produced such a record of success (winningest coach in Tech history). Certainly Leach and defensive coordinator Greg McMackin have done nothing to foul them up.
THE PRIME-TIME RAIDERS on that defense are senior left tackle Kris Kocurek (6-5, 293), a Caldwell product who has been a good player for the Red Raiders since the day he arrived in Lubbock after being turned down by A&M, strong safety Kevin Curtis (6-3, 209), a Lubbock Coronado alumnus who has blossomed into one of the Big 12's best defensive backs, and a trio of fast, sure-tackling linebackers.
Those three are outside backers John Norman (6-1, 225) and Dorian Pitts (6-4, 210, another home-grown Red Raider), and middle backer Lawrence Flugence (6-1, 221), a rapidly-rising sophomore from Klein.
The Raiders knew Kocurek would be good, they expected Norman to be likewise, and they had high hopes for Curtis. But Flugence has come out of obscurity to achieve star status.
"He's just come out of nowhere. He's bigger and faster this season, he's just been outstanding," said Cook in praising the play of a player who leads the Red Raiders in tackles (52 in four games, with two QB sacks). "He's been everywhere."
Pitts has made 39 stops and Curtis 36, and the Raiders probably can thank Curtis for being undefeated going into last Saturday's A&M showdown. With less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Mean Green quarterback connected with a receiver on a crossing pattern, and the receiver was streaking down the sideline, apparently touchdown bound, when Curtis managed to tackle him at the 12-yard line. He not only tackled him, he punched the ball loose and Tech recovered at its 2-yard line and escaped what likely would have been an embarrassing 14-13 defeat.
OFFENSIVELY, KINGSBURY and his receivers have been just about the whole show. Tech's 6-4, 200-pound sophomore quarterback from New Braunfels (another of Spike Dykes' "steals") threw for 1,120 yards and seven scores in Tech's first four outings, and he did so while connecting with no fewer than 13 different receivers.
Probably the most dangerous of those receivers is former runner back Shaud Williams, a highly-sought youngster from Andrews who sparkled as a freshman tailback last season but now has become more of a wingback. Through four games he was Tech's leading receiver with 23 grabs for 177 yards. But the most productive catcher has been senior wideout Derek Dorris (6-2, 200), who has 21 receptions for 282 yards and two TDs.
At the start of the season a year ago, Tech tailback Ricky Williams was being spotlighted as a Heisman Trophy candidate after finishing fourth in the nation in rushing as a junior. But he tore up a knee in Tech's opening game and was sidelined for the year. Now he is back and fully healthy, but the offensive emphasis is on the pass rather than the run, and Williams' statistics reflect the change. He had only 60 carries for 230 yards and one score in Tech's first four games.
THUS THE SPOTLIGHT remains on Kingsbury. If he should go down, redshirt freshman B.J. Symonds (6-2, 204, from Houston Cypress Creek) would go to the firing line, but in four games he only threw nine passes, completing three for a net of 20 yards.
Up front, the Raiders look to sophomore tackle Rex Richards (6-4, 299) to set a fast pace although they like a couple of redshirt freshmen they're using in the offensive line, too. Those two are Toby Cecil (6-4, 262) and Casey Keck (6-3, 247).
Tech's senior punter, Eric Rosiles, is averaging an impressive 42.3 yards per boot. Kicker Chris Birkholz, also a senior, has not missed an extra attempt and is 6-for-9 on field goal tries.
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
