Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas

by Nick Eatman

  Not only had that on-campus stadium he envisioned more than a half-decade earlier opened in 2014, with Griffin’s statue nestled in between the east end zone and the Brazos River; but Baylor finished 11–2 en route to defending its Big 12 title and just missing inclusion in college football’s first-ever four-team playoff.

  Having enjoyed a magical rise from perennial doormat to one of the nation’s most attractive programs, the Bears now showcased a fast-paced, high-scoring offense while often wearing cool chrome helmets and all-black uniforms. This certainly wasn’t the Baylor University most of the country remembered … and that’s exactly the way Briles wanted it.

  Or so he thought. During seven full seasons in Waco, there had been only a handful of controversial issues that had come up, the most severe of which was a rape charge against one of Briles’ former players in 2012. In addition, there had been some drug-related suspensions on the team, which included dismissing Josh Gordon, who then went on to become a star receiver in the NFL before more failed marijuana tests derailed his pro career as well. Still, despite these mistakes for the program, there wasn’t a public perception of any problems in the way Briles was running things. In Texas, success on the field has a way of overshadowing everything, especially if it’s newfound success.

  The tide had certainly changed for Briles and his program. And he was no stranger to this shift in perception. It had also happened at his previous head coaching position with the University of Houston, which actually had considered dropping the football program in the early 2000s for financial reasons. But when Briles showed up as one of the lowest-paid coaches in Division I, he quickly turned the Cougars into a respectable team that went to four bowl games in five seasons from 2003 to 2007.

  Prior to that, an even greater transformation occurred at Stephenville High School, where Briles took over a mediocre program in 1988 and went on to become a legendary coach in the high school ranks. The Yellow Jackets grew into a state powerhouse, winning four titles in the 1990s, the last of which came in 1999 with his son, Kendal, as the starting quarterback.

  Just like at Stephenville and then Houston, Briles was now feeling the effects of what he called “going from hunters to the hunted.” Winning forty games in four years at Baylor will do that. To put those numbers in perspective, when Briles took over the program in 2008, the last forty victories spanned thirteen seasons and four different head coaches.

  In those four years from 2011 to 2014, Baylor enjoyed three seasons of at least ten wins. Only once before in school history (1980) had the Bears reached the ten-win plateau. That team was led by longtime coach, Grant Teaff, who has a statue outside of Baylor’s McLane Stadium. Needless to say, in his relatively short tenure, Briles had already far exceeded the success of Teaff or any other coach in school history.

  Ironically enough, the off-season following that 2014 campaign was arguably the first time since Briles’ first year at Baylor that his phone didn’t ring too often from other schools looking to pry him away from his Waco nest.

  There were two different times when he had to turn down Texas Tech University; most Baylor fans never knew the difficulty of his decisions. Briles not only grew up in Rule, Texas, a small town only about two hours away from Lubbock, but he actually graduated from Texas Tech with his girlfriend, Jan, who became his wife in 1978. But despite those calls from the Red Raiders and some interest from schools such as Auburn that he didn’t really consider, there was only one university that even Briles wasn’t sure he could ever deny, and it had come to the forefront the year before.

  The worst-kept secret in the state during the 2013 season was that University of Texas head coach, Mack Brown, was going to be replaced. Had Baylor not dusted off Texas in the regular-season finale to win the conference, the Longhorns would have claimed the Big 12 title and headed to a BCS bowl game. Maybe then Brown would’ve saved his job for another year, although it was clear that the fan base in Austin wanted a change. They wanted something new and exciting. They wanted Briles.

  For a born-and-raised Texan who has never lived outside of the state, being considered for the job certainly would have been flattering for Briles—if it were ever offered. All season long his name was linked to a position that wasn’t even open yet. And when it finally became available in mid-December, as Briles was trying to prepare his team for the Fiesta Bowl, the rumors and speculation started to become overwhelming.

  Briles was contacted by the Longhorns during the weeks leading up to the bowl game and was asked to interview. Trying to maintain his focus for the game, he declined the opportunity with Texas’ search committee. If the job would’ve been flat-out offered to Briles, who knows what color ball cap he might be wearing today? But, it never was. Only a chance to interview was given. And while Briles is as humble as they come, flirting with another job—even one as prestigious as Texas—for the chance to interview was too risky. He didn’t just have a good thing going in Waco. He had a great thing.

  And with that, he announced he would be staying put at Baylor, the only place he really wanted to be.

  Once Briles turned down the University of Texas, it was hard to assume anyone else could get him to leave what was now a powerhouse in Waco. Baylor was entering the 2015 season as one of the “most hunted,” picked to finish among the final four teams in the College Football Playoff.

  Wait, Baylor in the final four—for the entire nation?

  It wasn’t too long again when Baylor fans would’ve settled for a top-four finish in the now-defunct Big 12 South, which housed only six teams. Now, Baylor had not only won the ten-team conference the last two seasons, but had its sights set on the bigger prize.

  For the Baylor fandom, this reversal of fortunes was being celebrated by fans of all ages. Entering 2015, the Bears were coming off a pair of eleven-win seasons. To put those twenty-two victories in the proper perspective, Baylor joined the Big 12 conference in 1996 after the old Southwest Conference folded the year before. But joining the big boys of college football such as Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, and Texas A&M had its early troubles for Baylor, which needed nine seasons after joining the Big 12 to finally accumulate more than twenty-two wins.

  Once the doormats of college football, Baylor fans had reason to stick their chests out even farther these days. The older generation of Baylor fans that remembered the Grant Teaff era (1972–1992) still hadn’t seen five straight bowl games like this team had currently achieved. Even the more recent alumni, the middle-aged fans who saw this school collect eleven conference wins in twelve seasons before Briles’ arrival, now had reason to gloat throughout Texas, especially after consecutive 8–1 conference records.

  It was possible that the current Baylor students had no clue their program was once considered the laughingstock of football. Even a fifth-year senior entering the 2015 season had already seen forty wins in their first four seasons in Waco, a town that until recently didn’t have many apparel shops off campus that carried Baylor merchandise. The sporting goods stores were filled with Texas and Texas A&M gear but only specialty stores would sell the Green & Gold. Now, anything from shirts, polos, caps, socks, and ties to even apparel for pets could be found with Baylor’s logo and colors on it.

  That change occurred in Waco around 2010, when Baylor made its first bowl game in fifteen years. Now, around the entire state, Baylor merchandise was prominently found, especially up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and later TCU had hogged most of the clothing racks.

  Fans were back on the Baylor bandwagon not just for the recent success the school had experienced, but for a bigger prize that perhaps awaited them.

  What made the lofty expectations so remarkable was the lack of experience quarterback Seth Russell brought to the table. Yes, as the backup to Bryce Petty the last two years, Russell had seen some action, even starting one game in 2014 against Northwestern when he threw five touch
down passes. He also relieved an injured Petty that same season against Texas Tech with the Bears up comfortably in the third quarter, but they had to hold on for a two-point win.

  But Russell was really the only unknown about a Baylor team that brought back four seniors on the offensive line, including left tackle Spencer Drango, who even surprised most of the coaching staff with his decision in the spring to return to school and not enter the NFL Draft. On the other side of the line, the Bears were also pleasantly surprised that defensive end Shawn Oakman, the massive specimen that looked more like a WWE superstar than a football player, returned for his final year. A transfer from Penn State, Oakman made his way down to Waco after a tumultuous two seasons that included some off-the-field mishaps, including a reported incident in which Oakman forcefully grabbed a store clerk’s hand after she accused him of stealing a sandwich. Oakman was dismissed by then-PSU head coach Bill O’Brien, and he wound up at Baylor, where Briles had already successfully welcomed defensive end Phil Taylor from Penn State and helped him blossom into a first-round draft pick in 2011. Heading into the 2015 season, Oakman had no reported incidents at Baylor and returned to not only help his stock for the NFL Draft and become Baylor’s all-time sack leader but also to graduate with a health degree. By pairing Oakman with NFL-ready defensive tackle, Andrew Billings, Baylor looked to have its best defense in years.

  And to think, defense had always been the issue for Briles-coached teams, while the offense never seemed to have a problem putting up points.

  So Art Briles had a defense. He had a star-studded offense with a quarterback that he believed in, even if the rest of the country wasn’t so sure. He had the new-look uniforms that today’s players love to wear, and he now had the stadium—on campus—to house them and the excited fan base.

  This team was primed to beat anyone on the field. Little did Briles know, what would ultimately become the team’s and his greatest challenge, both during and after the season, would have nothing to do with the playing field.

  Sunday

  Did he catch it? Or did the NFL officially, painfully get this one right?

  Either way, the 2014 season, as magical as it was for the Dallas Cowboys at times, couldn’t have ended in a more disappointing fashion. For an entire off-season, the Cowboys, including players, coaches, front-office personnel, and, of course, fans, were left with nothing but what-ifs. What if the NFL’s instant replay officials had stuck with the call on the field in Green Bay and awarded Dez Bryant a catch at the Packers’ 1-yard line late in the fourth quarter?

  What if the Cowboys had scored a touchdown there to take the lead? What if they found a way to stop Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers one more time and advance to the NFC Championship Game?

  What if they had gone back to Seattle the following week and what if they defeated the Seahawks just like they did a few months earlier to put themselves on the proverbial NFL map as a team to beat?

  What if? What if? What if?

  But no matter how many Twitter handles were changed to “Dez Caught It” or T-shirts and bumper stickers were printed with similar messages, one fact still remained the same heading into the 2015 season: the Cowboys were back to 0–0 once again. The 12–4 season from 2014 that included their first NFC East title under head coach Jason Garrett, who then also collected his first career playoff win, was all in the rearview mirror.

  And that process actually began just a week after the unfortunate loss to the Packers. The Cowboys’ coaching staff worked the Pro Bowl in Arizona, and it was there that veteran defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli dismissed any talk of the “B” word.

  “You don’t build on anything in this league,” the seventy-one-year-old said to a few surprised reporters who thought they had delivered a layup question. “No, we’re not going to build. You tear it all down, and you start over. If you don’t have that mindset, you get lazy. We won’t be lazy. Just like last year, we’re going to start over.”

  If there was one major carryover, it occurred immediately after the Green Bay loss as owner and general manager, Jerry Jones, locked up Garrett with a five-year contract extension worth $30 million, proving the point that players aren’t the only ones who can succeed in a “contract year.” Garrett spent 2014 in the final year of his deal, after Jones had stood by his coach despite three 8–8 seasons. He’d nearly pulled the plug on Garrett’s tenure as head coach at the end of 2013, and sources in the front office say Jones probably would have if quarterback Tony Romo had not suffered a back injury that kept him out of the season finale against the Eagles with the division title on the line. The Cowboys lost the game with their backup, Kyle Orton, behind center—an ugly case of foreshadowing that would be revisited more than the team could have ever imagined—and finished with a .500 record for the third straight year, dropping the last game of the season all three times.

  But Garrett was Jones’ guy from the start. He had handpicked him to be the offensive coordinator in 2007, even before he hired Wade Phillips to become head coach. Jones wanted Garrett, the former Princeton standout who served as the Cowboys’ primary backup behind quarterback Troy Aikman during the 1990s, to eventually become the head coach long before he was even ready.

  That’s why Garrett got the interim job in 2010 when the Cowboys were 1–7 under Phillips. That’s why, after then finishing 5–3 over the second half of the schedule, Garrett was officially named head coach the following off-season. And that’s why Jones never decided to remove him despite repeated losses in the final game of the season when the playoffs were within reach.

  The billionaire in Jones isn’t afraid to spend money, but there likely wasn’t another $30 million purchase he was more excited about that year than this extension for Garrett.

  It’s often been said around the Cowboys’ headquarters in Valley Ranch, a northern neighborhood in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, that while Jones wants to win, he wants to win his way. His way was with Garrett leading the charge, and he couldn’t have been happier to extend his contract and prove that his guy was the right guy.

  Garrett, always calculated in his words and demeanor, is as businesslike as they come, and he has gotten used to the “splash” moves the Cowboys seem to make every off-season. And 2015 was no different, if not for being a little extreme.

  Most teams would roll out the red carpet for a player who not only won the Associated Press Offensive Player of the Year Award, but also set a franchise record with 1,845 rushing yards, surpassing a nineteen-year-old mark set by Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith. The only red DeMarco Murray saw, however, was the exit sign as he left—for the rival Philadelphia Eagles to boot.

  Now, it’s not as if the Cowboys didn’t want their starting tailback to return, but after watching him develop over four seasons, many in the organization feared he was only “a good back,” not special. Maybe it wasn’t so much Murray, but an offensive line that featured three first-round picks, not to mention the greatness of Romo, along with Jason Witten and Dez Bryant, that made the 2014 offense click so well.

  The Cowboys had a ceiling of about $6.5 million per season for Murray at the start of free agency. And had they proposed the same deal the previous October instead of the four-year, $16 million contract they offered, it’s likely Murray would’ve remained a Cowboy. Instead, he tested the market and found a lot more green—figuratively and literally.

  Murray’s $42 million deal, worth more than $8 million a year, was too rich to pass up, even if it meant he had to join the hated Eagles. Business is business, and while the Cowboys’ fan base seemed to be split on losing such an accomplished player, the blow was softened just a day later when Dallas signed running back Darren McFadden, a former first-round pick, fourth overall, of the Oakland Raiders in 2008. While he had never been healthy enough to meet the lofty expectations of being such a high selection, McFadden still had enough name power to generate some excitement.

 
And then there was Greg Hardy. Talk about name recognition. The Cowboys stirred the pot when they inked him on March 18 to a one-year, incentive-based deal that could’ve paid him more than $13 million, depending on his availability with the league. At the time of the signing, Hardy was awaiting word from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on a possible suspension stemming from a domestic violence charge that was later dismissed.

  Hardy was accused and found guilty of assaulting his girlfriend in July 2014, and was thus placed on the Exempt/Commissioner’s Permission List, which required him to sit out fifteen games that season with the Panthers, who eventually waived him. But after Hardy appealed the judge’s decision to a trial jury, the alleged victim failed to show up in the courtroom to testify. Whether or not the two reached a civil settlement was never determined, but the charges on Hardy were dropped, and he was free to sign with any club.

  Regardless of the legal system’s outcome, though, Hardy still faced a suspension from the NFL for conduct detrimental to the league. The Cowboys signed him hoping for a two- to four-game suspension, although reports from the commissioner’s office suggested something in the range of eight to ten games. Of course, Hardy’s case wasn’t front and center on Goodell’s mind at the time, as he was trying to make a decision on the Deflategate saga involving Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

  And that was all before April’s draft.

  Dallas then found a way to make yet another splash despite picking twenty-seventh overall. Getting athletic University of Connecticut cornerback Byron Jones in the first round was a safe, smart pick; but even with Hardy already in the fold, the Cowboys still showed they weren’t afraid of adding a little more controversy.

  Thanks to having failed a drug test at the annual NFL Scouting Combine in late February, University of Nebraska defensive end Randy Gregory fell right to the Cowboys at number sixty overall. And then after the draft, the salesman in Jones rounded up Romo, Witten, and some of his talented offensive linemen to help recruit rookie free agent La’el Collins, who had to leave the NFL Draft in Chicago to meet with police investigators back in Louisiana for a possible involvement with the murder of his ex-girlfriend. The untimely circumstance cost Collins, who was considered one of the top linemen in the draft, millions of dollars, as he not only fell out of the first round but also went undrafted.