(reprinted from the Nov. 10, 1974 Waco Tribune-Herald) 

Mr. Webster, back to the old drawing board. Your dictionary is woefully incomplete. It does not yet contain a word to properly describe what the fantastic, intrepid, absolutely mind-boggling Baylor Bears did on a cold, gray, delicious, delightful Saturday afternoon here November 9, 1974.

What the Baylor Bears did was defeat Texas, 34-24. Say it fast and it sounds routine. So, say it slow, slow, slow. Because there was nothing routine about it.

Listen, this was a game that will burn in memory for at least an eon or two, certainly for all those 43,100 witnesses who huddled under umbrellas for the first two quarters and then started shoving them aside as a miracle began unfolding before their very eyes. The skies could have fallen in the second half and breathless Baylor fans wouldn't have noticed. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure the skies didn't fall.

At halftime in the knucks-down battle for survival in the SWC's zany championship chase, the highly favored Longhorns were doing exactly what they had been expected to do – they were beating the Bears like a drum. At halftime they were ahead, 24-7.

And then, in perhaps the most memorable 30 minutes in Baylor's long football history, the Bears:

• Scored 27 points while holding the explosive Longhorns without a single point;
• Moved into a tie for the Southwest Conference lead with the Texas Aggies, who lost Saturday to SMU, and thus jumped into the big middle of the madhouse scramble for a berth in the Cotton Bowl;
• Defeated Darrell Royal for the first time in his long stay at Texas, and beat the Horns for the first time in 18 years;
• Scored more points than any Baylor team has EVER scored against Texas, in a football series that goes back to 1901, and scored more points against a Royal team than any conference team has managed since Rice also got 34 way back in 1958;
• Held Texas' earth-scorching Wishbone, which went into the game as the nation's third-hottest offense in rushing, to a mere 52 yards overland in the game's last two quarters, and to a paltry 84 yards of total offense in that span, and to a single sashay into Baylor territory.

Let Bruin quarterback Neal Jeffrey sum it up because of all of Baylor's many heroes Saturday, Neal Jeffrey deserves to be heard first. "This was the biggest and best," said Neal. "All those four years of work paid off. We were down in the valley, and now we're on the mountain."

All Neal Jeffrey did against Baylor's old nemesis was run for one touchdown himself, throw touchdown passes of 69 and 54 yards, complete 20 of 31 passes for a shattering 351 yards, and guide the poised Bears to touchdowns or field goals on five of their six meaningful possessions during the tell-tale second half.

"Jeffrey's a super passer, and he throws really well under pressure," admired Texas' All-America tackle candidate, 250-pound Doug English.

Jeffrey threw the 69-yarder to Alcy Jackson early in the first quarter. Then, after scoring himself early in the third period, he hurled a 54-yard touchdown to Ricky Thompson who, like Alcy, doubles as a performer in the spring for Clyde Hart's track team. Actually, the passes weren't bombs, the receivers just turned them into bombs with their nifty running.

Phillip Kent ran six yards for Baylor's fourth touchdown of the game, the one that put the Bears ahead to stay, and Bubba Hicks produced the final six points with field goals of 35 and 25 yards.

Bubba also kicked four extra points, but it was his field-goal kicking, made under intense fourth-quarter pressure, that moved the Bears beyond Texas' reach.

Gracious as always in defeat, Darrell Royal went to the dressing room after the game, congratulated the Bears on their victory, and told them to keep on going, all the way to the Cotton Bowl.

To make the Cotton Bowl scene, the Bears, now 3-1 in SWC play, would have to defeat Texas Tech here next Saturday, beat SMU in Dallas and finally defeat Rice here in the season finale; and Texas A&M, now 4-1, would have to lose either to Rice or Texas in the Aggies' remaining games.

"Baylor played an outstanding game, and they deserved to win," Royal told newsmen, and to the Bears themselves he said: "You had a chance to quit and you never did. You carried the fight to us. Don't look back. … Go all the way."

That was a dressing room made up of "immensely proud" Bruins, said an immensely proud Grant Teaff, who became the first Baylor coach to beat Texas since Sam Boyd's Sugar Bowl-bound Bears did it in 1956. "They weren't all that emotional, but they were very happy," said Teaff. "They remind me of a bunch of champions."
 
The Bears scored on the fourth play off the game as Jeffrey threw a short spot pass to Alcy Jackson that Alcy quickly turned into the 69-yard thunderbolt.

Suddenly, with just a minute and 45 seconds gone, the Bears had six points, and Hicks quickly made it seven. That didn't faze Texas. The Longhorns regrouped, grabbed a Baylor fumble and started blistering the Bears. And then in the second half, the Bears got off the floor and did some powerful blistering themselves.

Texas' answer for that opening Baylor salvo was a numbing barrage that went touchdown, touchdown, field goal, touchdown. Billy Schott kicked all the extra points, the Texas band struck up all the winning marches, and Baylor faces just got longer and longer.

Ah, but deliverance was only an intermission away.

And the Bears came back in the third quarter like a runaway express on a one-way track to Dallas.

A blocked punt turned the momentum. Texas put the ball in play to start the third quarter, and the Bears, having adjusted their defense a bit with 6-3, 255-pound Leslie Benson inserted at middle guard to provide more muscle, shut the Wishbone down. Derrel Luce stacked up Leaks on the first play for no gain; that was a sign of things to come.

On fourth down, Texas punter Mike Dean got the snap and even as he swung his foot, Bears were all over him. Reserve rover Johnny Greene blocked the punt and linebacker Johnny Slaughter fell on the ball for Baylor at the Texas 17, and the Bears scored from there in 7 plays – Jeffrey faking to Beaird and rolling to the outside and running around right end for the final yard himself.

Texas responded with a drive of 12 plays that carried 57 yards to the Baylor 23-yard line – the only significant Longhorn drive of the second half. Leaks got the final first down at the Baylor 26, but then the Baylor defense got ferocious. Three plays gained three yards, and on fourth down Schott tried a field goal and his kick sailed wide.

And then, the Bears really shifted into high gear. With each passing down, they gained momentum and confidence. An 8-yard pass to Pat McNeil yielded a first down at the Baylor 33, and Beaird carried to the 46. And then – look out! – Jeffrey threw to Thompson, who juked a defender, weaved and wagged and broke into the clear. Fred Sarchet had a final crack at him and couldn't catch him. It was a 54-yard play, and Hicks' extra point made it a 24-21 game with 52 seconds left in the third quarter.

The word for what developed in the stands at that moment is spelled b-e-d-l-a-m.

Texas moved from its own 10 and to its own 34, and then Ronald Burns blasted Marty Akins as he tried to hand off and Tim Black recovered for the Bears, and Jeffrey got his high-as-a-kite teammates out in front in just four plays.

Beaird caught a swing pass, eluded a tackler and ran for 12 yards to the 21. But he hurt his knee in going down and had to leave the action. Cleveland Franklin, seeing his first duty since the Arkansas game, replaced him and promptly gouged to the Texas 15. Then Kent got loose on the inside reverse and ran to the 6-yard line, and then came right back on the same play and scored. Hicks calmly made it a 28-24 game. And in the stands it was bedlam redoubled.

So now, with the Bears ahead in the fourth quarter, Akins went back to the option but now he was facing Bears of a different mood. The Baylor strategy called for the cornerback, usually Ron Burns, to flatten Marty quick while the defensive end took care of the pitch man. When Akins tried to option, the ball went flying wildly and Marty lost 16 yards in recovering. On fourth down, Dean's punt carried only 22 yards, and the Bears took over on the Texas 37.

Jeffrey quickly hurled a 13-yard pass to Alcy Jackson and then an 11-yarder to Kent, setting up Hicks for a 35-yard field goal with 9:38 to play. Behind by 7 points with 9:38 left, the Longhorns could win now only by scoring and adding a 2-point conversion.

They didn't come close. They notched one first down on Leaks' power running, but when they tried the option again, Tommy Turnipseede dropped Clayborn for a loss of 7, and once again Dean had to punt.

The Bears took over on their own 12 (after a clipping penalty set them back) with 7:04 to go, and they rolled for two first downs on Jeffrey's passes to Alcy Jackson before having to punt. Bill Moore got off a 40-yarder that set the Horns back to their own 17 with 2:41 remaining. They never escaped the trap. Turnipseede intercepted Akins' pass and returned it nine yards to the Texas 34, and Jeffrey threw a 20-yard pass to Kent that made it easy for Hicks to kick a 25-yarder with 43 seconds left, removing all doubt.

There was just enough time left for Scooter Reed to intercept still another pass (this one by Mike Presley) and return it to the Texas 6-yard line. By then, all those jubilant Baylor fans were off somewhere in football's seventh heaven.

The Bears won, for the fifth time in their last six outings. Two hours after the final gun, when the stadium was empty and darkness was closing in, the scoreboard lights still said it all: Baylor 34, Visitors 24. 
At last report, they planned to let those scoreboard lights burn all night. "After 18 years," said one old Baylor grad, "how sweet it is."