Oct. 17, 2008
By DAVE CAMPBELL
Special to BaylorBears.com
One glance at the latest Associated Press college football poll this week was enough to prompt Grant Teaff's memory bell to start ringing up a storm. Same with former wide receiver Ricky Thompson. And 1974 All-America linebacker Derrel Luce. Also all-star kicker Bubba Hicks. And while I didn't contact them, I'll bet it was that way for some of those other Baylor heroes of 1974, like quarterback Neal Jeffrey and center Aubrey Schulz and tailback Steve Beaird, super stars all.
I know it was that way for me.
You see, what the AP's poll this week told us is that the undefeated Oklahoma State Cowboys are rated the No. 8 college football team in the land.
And when they came charging into Waco that week in late September of 1974, the United Press International poll had them ranked -- you guessed it -- No. 8.
The Associated Press only had them ranked No. 12, but nobody was second-guessing UPI's No. 8 ranking for the Cowboys. They had been 5-4-2 the previous season, their first under their new coach Jim Stanley, who in the mid-Fifties had been a standout lineman on one of Bear Bryant's stellar teams at Texas A&M. Stanley's Cowboys had started their 1974 season by flogging Wichita State, 59-0, and then had traveled to Arkansas and wiped out coach Frank Broyles' No. 10-ranked Razorbacks, 26-7. Only the week before, Arkansas had upset powerful Southern Cal.
Teams just didn't beat Broyles' Razorbacks by such margins in those days. And certainly not in Arkansas. The titanic battle that Texas and Arkansas had waged in Fayetteville for the national championship in December of 1969 was still fresh in voters' minds (the "Big Shootout", remember?). So was the beating Arkansas had handed Texas in Little Rock in 1971 (31-7).
With Charlie Weatherbie at quarterback and Phillip Dokes making big plays in the line, the OSU Cowboys would go on to put together a 7-5-0 season in the Big Eight and then floor WAC champion Brigham Young, 16-6, in the Fiesta Bowl, but on that night of Sept. 28 in Waco, they certainly did not floor the Baylor Bears.
Indeed, the No. 8 team in the land got floored, 31-14. What I remember especially about that game was Beaird catching a screen pass from Jeffrey and speeding 84 yards for a touchdown. I can hear Baylor fans going crazy about that one to this day.
"They were ranked eighth in the country and we just beat the snot out of them," Ricky Thompson was recalling earlier this week.
Ricky was smiling when he said it. But 1974 was a season when the Bears smiled a lot.
They started that season burdened by a 7-game losing streak. And then they lost their first two games in 1974 -- 28-11 to No. 1-ranked Oklahoma in Norman (OU led by only two points at the end of the third quarter and one Oklahoma partisan was moaning in the press box, "this is a nightmare, this is a nightmare"), and 28-21 to Missouri in Columbia.
So that made it nine defeats in a row for the Bears, and my memory does not tell me how many points the Cowboys were favored by when the opening kickoff came in Waco but I imagine they were favored by quite a few.
"They really had a very powerful team and they planned to just overpower us," Teaff recalled.
But Oklahoma with all its heavy weapons had not overpowered the Bears, and Teaff didn't think the Cowboys could either.
"We had a theme set each week in practice and our theme for that game was faith =- faith in self, faith in others, faith in tomorrow. And it paid off," Teaff remembered.
"We had lost nine in a row and I tried to stress to the players, 'We're playing well enough to win, now let's win it and win it in the fourth quarter.' And that's how it happened."
Hicks kicked a 22-yard field goal in the first quarter to give the Bears an early lead and then the two teams matched touchdowns in the second period and again in the third. So the Bears led by a 17-14 margin at the end of the first 45 minutes of play, and then it was Baylor time. The Bears scored 14 points in the fourth quarter to win the game going away, starting a trend they maintained for the next two weeks -- against Florida State (21-17, and all of Baylor's points came in the second half), then against Arkansas in Fayetteville (21-17, and the Bears' winning points came in the last two minutes).
They would go on to win all their remaining games except a hard-fought encounter with the Aggies, but when A&M lost two conference games, the Bears were undisputed Southwest Conference champions and Cotton Bowl bound for the first time in history.
Most of us over the years have pointed to Baylor's comeback victory over Texas (it was UT, 24-7, at the half, but Baylor, 34-24 at the final whistle), but Teaff doesn't agree.
"There would have been no victory over Texas if there had not been that victory over Oklahoma State," he said this week. "That was the turning point. That gave us confidence. At the finish there was absolutely no doubt who was on control of the game."
No question, that was a signal victory for a band of unforgettable Bears.
Am I pointing now to the Bears' decisive victory (38-10) over Iowa State in Waco last Saturday and predicting similar things for coach Art Briles' team this Saturday in Stillwater?
Good heaven's no. Not at all. History has been known to repeat itself but that's not the way to bet.
This Saturday's game will be played in Stillwater, not Waco. This is Briles' first season with the Bears; in 1974, Teaff was in his third season of coaching the Bears. Last year the Cowboys came to Floyd Casey Stadium and routed the Bears, 45-14. And this is a better Oklahoma State team this year. The Cowboys just went to Missouri and beat the No. 3-ranked Tigers. They deserve that No. 8 ranking, believe it.
But you can also believe that Baylor's victory over Iowa State was the best game, all things considered, that the Bears have played since they became a Big 12 member. Briles is starting to wake up the echoes. In my opinion, Robert Griffin is the most exciting Bear that Baylor has put at quarterback since Cody Carlson (1986) or maybe even Don Trull (1963). Kendall Wright is special as a true freshman. And a number of the other Bears are really beginning to make waves. Win or lose, they're fun now to watch.
Believe it, you Baylor fans. Art Briles is the real deal. All he needs is time and a few great recruiting classes, and those will come.
