Dave Campbell's Insider Notepad -- 12/6/00

Football 12/6/2000 12:00:00 AM

Dec. 6, 2000

Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears 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. For an archive of his other columns, click here.

Of this and that. . .

If Baylor (and all Big 12 members other than Oklahoma) were pulling hard for Kansas State to upset the Sooners in the Big 12 championship game last Saturday night in Kansas City, there was a reason. You can color that reason green, as in greenbacks.

If K-State had won, it would automatically have qualified for a berth in a BCS bowl, and Oklahoma, with only one defeat on its record, with strong Heisman candidate Josh Heupel at quarterback, with a history of having been No. 1 since mid-season, would have been almost a cinch choice for a BCS bowl as well.

And having two members in a BCS bowl rather than just one (which is going to be the case now that the Sooners won the game) would have meant an extra $600,000 to $700,000 to each Big 12 member, including the stay-at-homes. . .

If I am a voter in the Associated Press college football poll (I was for about 30 years, but having retired from the Waco Tribune-Herald, I no longer vote), I am going to have a difficult time voting Florida State ahead of Miami. Each lost only one game. Only thing is, when they met head to head on the field of play, Miami won. Doesn't that mean they have already been compared? . . .

MAMA, DON'T RAISE YOUR SONS to be cowboys, raise 'em to be head football coaches. Seems to me the going rate for a good head coach these days suddenly is one million dollars per annum. Latest example: Alabama's new head man Dennis Franchione, late of TCU.

Speaking of Franchione, I am reminded of a conversation that took place in late 1993, Chuck Reedy's first year as head coach at Baylor. Insider readers will recall that when Baylor went to Atlanta that November to play Georgia Tech, Clemson representatives, acting unofficially, came to the game to sound out Reedy, formerly Clemson's offensive coordinator, about his interest in the Clemson job, which was about to become vacant.

For the next several seeks, rumors flew thick and fast that Reedy was Clemson bound. Personally, I thought he was going to be offered the job, and that he would accept it. So one day I asked him, "Chuck, if you do leave, suggest a talented young coach who could come in here (Baylor) and do a good job." He thought a moment and then said this: "Well, there is a fine young coach at New Mexico, Dennis Franchione."

But of course Reedy and Clemson never did have a meeting of minds, and when Franchione did make a move, it was to TCU. And the rest, as they say, is history. . .

THAT GUY SMILING so broadly at the Oklahoma-Kansas State showdown in Kansas City was your old friend Hayden Fry. The former Baylor quarterback and assistant coach, now a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and honored several years ago as a Distinguished Baylor Alumnus, could look out on the playing field at Arrowhead Stadium and note that both teams playing for the Big 12 championship were coached by a couple of his former pupils at Iowa.

K-State's Bill Snyder first joined Fry's staff at North Texas and then followed him to Iowa as his offensive coordinator for 10 years before moving on to Manhattan, taking over the perennial doormat Wildcats and doing the kind of job there that still defies belief. The Wildcats have won at least nine games for eight straight seasons.

Oklahoma's Bob Stoops played for Fry at Iowa and then was a grad assistant on his staff there for five years before starting the trek (assistant coaching jobs at Kent State one year, Kansas State under Snyder for six years, and Florida under Steve Spurrier for two years) that eventually landed him in Norman as head Sooner.

Incidentally, three of Stoops' assistants at OU are also former Fry guys including quarterback coach Chuck Long, a former Heisman Trophy runnerup. . .

Another incidentally, don't you know now that there is talk among Texas and Nebraska fans especially, asking the question: How come Stoops can take over a below-.500 program at OU and turn it into a possible undefeated national champion in just two years, and our guys, who took over programs with more immediate advantages and have been on the job longer, haven't been able to do that?

But before those fans get too frothy of mouth, they should wait to see if OU does beat Florida State. (Personally, I'm guessing the Seminoles will win.) And let's see what OU does next year without a magician like Heupel at quarterback. Remember, in his first year at UT, Fred Akers came within a Cotton Bowl victory of winning a national title. That was when he had Heisman-winning Earl Campbell at tailback. The next year, without Earl, he had to settle for a tie with Arkansas for second as U of Houston won the SWC crown. . .

BAYLOR'S NON-CONFERENCE opponents next football season will be Arkansas State in Waco on Sept. 8, at Minnesota on Sept. 15, and New Mexico in Waco on Sept. 22. For those of you who might have wondered, Arkansas State this season finished 1-10 (but did thump North Texas in its season finale, 53-28, and that, of course, was the same North Texas that Baylor beat 20-7).

Bowl-bound Minnesota finished 6-5, winding up with a 27-24 victory over Iowa after consecutive losses to Indiana, Northwestern and Wisconsin. Those three defeats followed the Gophers' three-victory streak involving Illinois, Penn State and Ohio State. And New Mexico was 5-7 after losing its last three to San Diego State, UNLV and BYU.

As for the Bears' Big 12 opponents, they will get Texas Tech, Texas, Nebraska and Oklahoma State (with a new coach) in Waco, but have to travel to A&M, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Missouri (also with a new coach). They get A&M, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Texas, in that order and on successive Saturdays.

I think that's a tougher schedule than the one they played this past season. But if Kevin Steele can sign the right recruits. . . Well, we'll see.

DR. HOWARD DUDGEON, who died in late November at the age of 89, was best known in Waco as a prominent physician, civic leader and generous Baylor benefactor. (Among other things, he and his wife, Jane, have made a $1 million gift to Baylor - $500,000 to the Armstrong-Baylor Library and $500,000 to the Strecker Museum.) His son, Howard Dudgeon III, is a long-time member of the Baylor administration and for years served as secretary-treasurer of the Baylor Stadium Corporation.

But Dr. Dudgeon was perhaps best known to oldtime Waco football fans as a member of the 1927 Waco High Tigers, coached by the great Paul Tyson and mythical national champions after beating Latin High of Cleveland, Ohio, in a "national championship" game, 44-12. That victory climaxed Waco High's and Tyson's seven-year "golden era" when the Tigers won 80 games, lost two and tied two, and won four state titles and were state finalists in two other seasons.

As far as I can determine, Dr. Dudgeon, a longtime personal friend, was the last living member of that 1927 Tiger team. I loved to hear him talk about the remarkable Mr. Tyson and those '27 Tigers.

Example: In 1927, former Tiger Tommy Henderson had moved on to become a freshman at Rice. Waco High was about to play Jeff Davis of Houston in a state quarterfinals games. Henderson's roommate at Rice was openly skeptical of Waco High's ability. Henderson not only bet him that Waco High would win, he gave him 100 points. The "stupid" bet was the talk of the Rice campus.

Waco High won, 124-0. . .

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