Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas

by Nick Eatman

  That’s because it was a mannequin, one from a department store to display men’s clothing. He was actually given to the Cowboys and head coach Jason Garrett by a suit salesman in an attempt to do business with players who needed to purchase a suit, perhaps for the annual kickoff luncheon a few weeks back.

  But with the mannequin remaining at the facility, Garrett used him to send another message to his team.

  With no face and wearing a nameless white 55 jersey, this mannequin was the “nameless, faceless opponent” Garrett had been referring to for several years, standing right here before the team in real life (sort of).

  This was Garrett’s way to remind his team once again to focus on themselves, and not worry about the opponent, and of course, one particular player on that team, regardless of where they were a year ago.

  “It’s been around a long time,” Garrett said of the phrase. “Nameless, faceless opponent. It’s not really about anybody else but us. So putting that out there has nothing to do with this week, but it has something to do with every week.”

  While he was supposed to be nameless, the players gave him plenty of nicknames, such as “Woody” and “Rolando,” for the number it wore. And even Barry Church said the players just started calling him “Randy” because they thought it was fitting.

  Either way, he got to make all of the road trips, as the equipment staff would take him apart, put him in a long duffel bag, and send him on each road trip, where he would eventually be placed in the team meeting rooms.

  The Cowboys actually did bring a living and breathing new player during the week in an attempt to provide some help at wide receiver. Dez Bryant had undergone foot surgery on Tuesday, September 15, and was hoping to return in just four weeks, although the Cowboys’ medical staff thought six weeks was more realistic.

  The Cowboys traded for veteran Brice Butler, who had been with the Raiders the past two years. Right away, Butler impressed some of the members of the Cowboys’ operations team with his knowledge of team history, something that often escapes the younger generation of players, especially one such as Butler who grew up in California.

  Butler had worn 12 on his jersey for three years with the Raiders, but he knew better than to even ask the equipment guys for that number.

  “I know Roger Staubach wore that, so that’s out,” Butler said on the phone to a Cowboys’ personnel staffer who was trying to line up his flight information to get him to Dallas before Wednesday’s first practice.

  Butler began his career at Southern Cal before heading to San Diego State. But he chose 19, knowing that Keyshawn Johnson had once donned that jersey for two seasons in Dallas. More important than the number he wore, Butler made it to every practice that week, showing the coaches enough to make him active for the game. To put that in perspective, the Cowboys were now on their second week with running back Christine Michael, but he still wasn’t suiting up for games.

  As the Cowboys arrived in Philadelphia the Saturday before the game, Garrett reminded the players of a team outing they took back in Oxnard, California, just three weeks earlier. When his players, coaches, and staff members crammed into the movie theater one evening at camp, they were all rather stunned to see Rocky III come up on the screen.

  Yes, everyone has heard the song “Eye of the Tiger,” but many of the players hadn’t seen this 1982 film starring Sylvester Stallone. And shockingly enough, many of these players hadn’t heard of Mr. T, who played the role of “Clubber Lang” and had two matches with Rocky in the film.

  But Garrett had a reason to show this particular movie, which actually turned into a challenging project for staff members, who searched for a movie theater with the capability of showing this thirty-five-year-old movie on the HD screen. Garrett didn’t reveal his reason for showing Rocky III until the night before the Philly game.

  “Guys, it’s going to get loud out there, and they’re going to play that Rocky music and get the fans all fired up,” Garrett said. “But what they don’t realize is that’s our song now. That’s the movie we saw. That can be our song. Don’t let them get fired up over our song. Let’s create the environment for ourselves.”

  When the game began, the Cowboys’ defense didn’t let the Eagles do much of anything, especially run the ball. Not only did Philly have Murray, but they also had signed Ryan Mathews in free agency, both to go along with speedy, all-purpose back Darren Sproles.

  Together, those three ran for seven yards—for the game. The Eagles ran it seventeen times and got seven whopping yards. Murray’s much-anticipated matchup against his former club was a complete non-factor as he rushed for two yards on thirteen attempts. Linebacker Sean Lee, who had missed the entire 2014 season with a knee injury, was all over the field, chasing down Murray from sideline to sideline. Lee got an interception in the end zone as well and was eventually named NFC Defensive Player of the Week.

  But the Cowboys’ offense wasn’t taking advantage on their end. While Randle wasn’t being shut down like Murray, he only finished with fifty-one yards on eighteen carries for the game. In fact, it was a blocked punt for a touchdown on special teams that gave the team its only touchdown through three quarters.

  Still, the Cowboys were holding on, leading 13–0 at the start of the fourth quarter and looking for some insurance on the scoreboard. What happened next was an on-field disaster that would change the course of the entire season.

  Flushed out of the pocket and rolling to his left, Tony Romo tried to avoid the pressure coming from Eagles linebacker Jordan Hicks. Romo fumbled the ball, while Hicks drove Romo to the ground, landing on his left shoulder.

  The Eagles recovered the ball, but that wasn’t the loss the Cowboys were sick about. Lying on the field holding his shoulder, Romo knew this was the same injury he experienced in 2010, when he missed ten games with a broken collarbone.

  “I felt it right away,” Romo said after the game. “I’ve had that feeling before. Your body goes into a little bit of shock.”

  The Cowboys’ owner did as well. Up in his owner’s suite, surrounded by his family, Jerry Jones could only bury his head into his hands, refusing to hide the sickening feeling. After the game, when asked how he felt to see his star quarterback writhing in pain and not getting up to his feet, Jones didn’t mince words.

  “Just about as low as a crippled cricket’s ass,” Jones said, prompting a few laughs from the media members, although he wasn’t joining them in laughter. “And I was feeling sorry for myself. I thought the world was picking on me. I just thought about Tony, how disappointing it was because of the expectations.”

  The Cowboys still managed to win this game, as backup Brandon Weeden came in to complete seven straight passes, including a 42-yard strike to Terrance Williams, who burned the Eagles defense for a touchdown, giving the Cowboys a 20–10 win and a 2–0 start to the season.

  Without Dez Bryant was one thing. Without Romo was another.

  Without them both was something the Cowboys didn’t even want to think about. But it was stone-cold reality, one that even the head coach couldn’t avoid, but not before praising a defense that limited the high-powered, fast-paced Eagles to just 226 yards of offense, nearly all of it by air.

  “Defense, one of the greatest efforts I’ve seen in my life,” Garrett said in the middle of the locker room. “I’ve been around ball a long time, and I haven’t seen a defense shut down an offense like that in a long, long time. And special teams, you ignited us when the game was nut-cutting time. That’s big time.

  “I’m going to be real with you guys. We’re going to have some adversity. We had guys step up today but we have to keep stepping up. We’re going to do this thing together. Let’s get on in here, guys.”

  And with that, the team huddled up and raised their hands together as one. One week after losing their emotional sparkplug in Dez Bryant, the Cowboys had now lost their general.
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  With his sport coat draped around his shoulder, Jones had been fielding questions for about forty-five minutes in the middle of the locker room. As he was finally set to walk away, one more reporter came in, asking the owner/general manager if the Cowboys were built to win just as easily without Romo.

  “Of course not,” Jones said. “We’re a different team. But we’re a team that can win football games in the NFL without Romo.”

  Or so he thought.

  Chapter 5

  GOING, GOING … GONE

  Friday

  When the Plano coaches arrived at the school on Saturday morning, some of them might have been surprised by the glare coming from the sky.

  Yes, that was indeed the sun. And as bad as the 65–0 loss to rival Allen felt the night before, the sun did come up as it always does and was shining brighter than ever on the quiet campus, which had just a dozen or so cars in the parking lot.

  Win or lose, Saturdays are always long days for the Plano coaches, who get in around 11 a.m. and review the Friday night game film, grade out each player at his position, start evaluating the next opponent, and also meet as a staff throughout the day as they formulate a game plan.

  Typically, the coaches stick around for eight to nine hours, but after the Allen game, they knew this day would be even longer. The Wildcats were now 0–2 in district play, and none of them could recall a beating like the one they had just received.

  “We had to make sure we didn’t lose more than that one game,” Jaydon McCullough said, referring to the psyche of his team. “It was a bad loss, but it was one loss. As a coach, you have to get your kids believing they can win. We knew we couldn’t dwell on one game.”

  While different ideas were being tossed around by the coaches on how to approach the upcoming week, one of which was to only show the first half of the tape to the team and not remind them of the second-half turnovers, the best motivational tool with which they could come up suddenly landed square in their laps.

  And they didn’t have to do a thing.

  While looking through the scouting report of the upcoming opponent, Flower Mound High School, the coaches were made aware of a three-word tweet that came from Jaguars quarterback Noble Newton, who had just led his team to an upset win over Boyd High School in McKinney, Texas, the previous night. And he most certainly knew of the Wildcats’ 65–0 loss to Allen.

  So he took to Twitter to share his thoughts on the next matchup, which was still six days away.

  “Plano ain’t ready.”

  That’s it. Just three little words, but they were powerful. The coaches were able to screenshot the tweet, print it out, and insert it into the scouting report for the upcoming game, making sure every Plano Wildcat saw it. Many of them had already been made aware of Newton’s tweet at some point during the weekend, but seeing it again on Monday in the scouting report served as a quick reminder.

  If there was one player not too fired up about what Flower Mound’s quarterback was saying on social media, it had to be Plano’s own quarterback, whose thumbs had gotten him in trouble just a few days earlier.

  Going against McCullough’s advice early in the season when he told Matt Keys to “be very, very careful about what you say on Twitter,” Keys had tweeted before the Allen game that despite the school’s three-year run as state champs, he “wasn’t afraid” of their upcoming opponent.

  He should’ve been. Not only did the Eagles dominate the game, hitting him so hard that he even threw up into his facemask while on the field, but Keys also had to see members of Allen’s team flood his Twitter timeline with messages regarding his “not afraid” tweet.

  “A couple of players found it,” Keys said. “They tore me up. I should’ve listened to Coach McCullough about Twitter. He was right.”

  So while Keys was trying his best to ignore the Twitter messages on his end, his teammates were using Newton’s tweets as pure motivation.

  On the day of the game, Plano’s buses rolled out of the parking lots of the Senior High around 3:30 p.m., giving them ample time to make the 25-mile trek across town, despite heavier traffic on Fridays. But while everyone expected to break quite a sweat later that night, nearly all of the players and coaches were perspiring long before kickoff. Thanks to old air-conditioning units in the school buses, the afternoon ride was a steamy one. Getting slowed down by traffic only made it worse as the players started to voice their displeasure.

  “The kids usually don’t say a lot on the buses,” McCullough said. “They’re always pretty focused, but they were ready to get off that bus and get on the field.”

  Whether it was ridding themselves of the sour taste from the Allen loss, or being 0–2 in district play, or perhaps looking to show Flower Mound and its quarterback how ready they were, Plano came firing out of the tunnel.

  After two losses, star running back Brandon Stephens was embracing the role of a leader, knowing that all eyes were looking at him to right the ship. Just before the opening kickoff, Stephens went up to every offensive lineman, hugging each of the starters while adding an encouraging word. He then turned around to see defensive backs coach Chris Fisher approaching him for a quick, but blunt message.

  “Put on a show tonight,” Fisher said. “Put on a show. We need it.”

  “Yes, sir, coach. Yes, sir.”

  Knowing that his future teammates at Stanford were also playing that night at Oregon State in a rare Friday game, Stephens obliged Fisher’s request and delivered his best performance of the year, although it took a while for him to heat up. Plano recovered a fumble on the second play of the game, but only managed a field goal on its opening possession.

  Later in the second quarter, Plano trailed 7–6 with the Jaguars driving past midfield. From the sideline, Fisher saw the Flower Mound coaches call an audible and couldn’t get his defensive backs to adjust, leaving the middle of the field wide open. Just before the snap, Fisher ripped his headset off in disgust and said to bystanders within earshot, “Well, here comes a touchdown for them.”

  Sure enough, Newton found his tight end running free down the seam for a 45-yard score that was never contested.

  Plano trailed 14–6 before the half, when Keys then got hot, hitting Garrett Frederick for a 41-yard pass down the sideline to the 23, and then teaming up with Frederick again on the next play for a touchdown, trimming the Jags’ lead to 14–13 at the break. The score prevented Plano from going eight quarters and an overtime without finding the end zone.

  In the second half, with the help of Stephens, Plano lit up the scoreboard for 23 points. The senior running back weaved through Flower Mound’s defense for a 67-yard touchdown early in the third quarter with Keys throwing his second touchdown of the game on Plano’s next drive. In the fourth frame, Stephens added another 10-yard score, which put him over the 200-yard rushing mark.

  The Wildcats didn’t exactly put the game away, but with Plano leading 36–24 in the final four minutes, the team’s defense came up with critical stops on the goal line to burn precious seconds off the clock. When the Jaguars finally scored, only 1:36 remained on the clock. Plano then recovered the onside kick, preserving the victory.

  Seven days after getting beat by sixty-five points, the Wildcats responded with a win that, according to the Plano coaches, saved the season.

  “Guys, we still control our own destiny,” McCullough told the team afterward. “We still have everything in front of us, and we know what we have to do. I’m so proud of the effort tonight. It was a fight from the start. We were challenged, but we fought back, and that’s all we ever ask from you. We know we can play better and we will, but let’s enjoy this win tonight.”

  And the players certainly did, not wasting any time busting into their victory chant, which began just three years earlier when defensive standout David Griffith, who was now playing at the University of Louisiana-Monroe, b
egan a postgame chant that has since continued.

  The captains, who on this occasion included Stephens, jumped up and down in the middle of the group the entire time, igniting a raucous back-and-forth exchange.

  “Plano! … (Plano!) … Plano! … (Plano!)”

  “Yeah, we rock! … (Yeah, we rock!) … Yeah, we rock! … (Yeah, we rock!)”

  This went on for about a minute, with even some of the coaches getting involved in the mosh pit–style celebration.

  Beating Flower Mound didn’t stay on the players’ minds for too long, though. Sure, they needed the win, but moving on this week would be easy.

  “We had to get this game,” Keys said afterward, “but now we can really focus on West. That’s all we care about right now.”

  Somewhat true, but Stephens had his mind on another game that was going on simultaneously.

  “What’s the score?” Stephens asked a few friends and family around him, figuring they were keeping track of his future team as it faced Oregon State. It didn’t take long for someone to relay an update: “Stanford up by seven.”

  “That’s good. That’s good. Let’s keep it up. I’m looking for two wins tonight,” Stephens said as he slung his equipment bag over his shoulder and headed toward the buses.

  Stanford would win the game, 42–24, making Stephens’ night complete. And now, like his teammates, he could shift his attention to Plano West, a school for which he had developed quite a disdain. Well, for at least all but one of its students.

  Saturday

  For most college teams, the regular season would still seem rather new and fresh after just two games. With ten more to go on the schedule, and hopefully eleven, late-September is very early in the grind.

  So why did Art Briles feel so tired?

  Well, it certainly wasn’t age catching up to him. Briles was probably in better shape than 99 percent of the fifty-nine-year-olds out there, whether they coached football or not. He preached physical fitness not only to his players, but to his assistants as well. You won’t see many overweight coaches on his staff, and if they are, it’s not for a lack of trying.