Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas

by Nick Eatman

  “Kids want to play at home,” Briles said. “They want mama and daddy to be there. So getting to play in Dallas, in one of the greatest places in the world, is a big deal.”

  In this rivalry game, the teams alternate each year as the home team. For this one, it was Baylor’s turn to be the home squad, which was huge for the walk-ons and redshirt players, considering that they got to hop on the buses and travel up to Dallas for the game. The NCAA limits the number of players who can travel for road games, but with Baylor being the home team, the entire roster of more than one hundred got to make the trek north. And for the twenty-six kids from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it was a chance to play in front of an adoring crowd.

  “It’s always a thrill to go up to AT&T Stadium,” said Baylor safety Chance Waz, who is from Pflugerville, Texas, near Austin. “The bulk of our team is from Dallas. It’s fun for them to go to their hometown and have their families supporting us. NFL teams play there, so it’s a fun time.”

  Fun for the players, but not always as fun for the coaches, considering how intense and wild the rivalry has become.

  Texas Tech hadn’t beaten Baylor since 2010, with the Bears averaging 57.25 points in their last four wins. The Red Raiders had averaged over forty-one points themselves in those losses, and rallied back the previous season to tie Baylor before falling short, 48–46. There’s a reason this game is called a “shootout.”

  A caravan of ten buses carrying players, coaches, cheerleaders, band members, and other support staff rolled out of Waco around 8 a.m., arriving at the stadium by mid-morning.

  As the buses pulled into the parking lot, Briles couldn’t help but have flashbacks to just eight months earlier when his team surrendered a 20-point fourth quarter lead in the Cotton Bowl to Michigan State, losing 42–41 at this very stadium. Briles called it “one of the toughest losses” he’s ever endured, knowing that a win would’ve given his team a 12–1 record and probably a number-three ranking in the final polls, instead of a seventh-place finish.

  “This stadium owes us one,” he said to the coaches within earshot of him, sitting like always on the first row of Bus 1. “We didn’t get to fulfill our destiny. I don’t know if we can clean the slate, but we can at least clear it. It’ll never be cleaned until we win a Cotton Bowl.”

  For now, winning this game would at least help.

  Already, Baylor and Tech fans were in the stadium’s parking lots, barking back and forth with “Sic ’em” and “Wreck ’em” chants, respectively.

  AT&T Stadium has at least eight different locker room areas, aside from the Cowboys’ home locker room. Even when the Cowboys aren’t there, the room remains intact for stadium tours, as fans always cherish the opportunity to take pictures in front of the lockers of players such as Tony Romo or Dez Bryant.

  The Bears had used the same locker room for each of their games at AT&T, right outside the end-zone tunnel in the southwest corner of the stadium. But the yelps and howls that sounded like grade-schoolers could likely be heard all over the stadium when the Baylor players arrived.

  They had already seen these new “gunmetal” gray uniforms before, but now as the uniforms hung in front of their lockers, it brought out a different level of excitement. The players had wanted to break out these uniforms for the first game against SMU, and then for the first home game against Lamar.

  “Nah, we held these back for this game,” Briles said. “It was the first conference game, it was indoors; we knew everything would look good and pristine under the lights.”

  Whether they admit it or not, college coaches do care about what their schools’ uniforms look like. Oftentimes, it’s a battle between tradition and style, with the boosters and older alums rarely wanting to see changes, while the younger generation always asks for something new, hip, and “out there.”

  For most schools, tradition wins out. At Baylor, Briles goes the other way, a decision he made about two years after arriving in Waco.

  “I decided to do that when I decided to get more attractive to good football players,” Briles said. “That’s the bottom line. Some universities can operate with decades of tradition and some can’t. We are in a position where we needed to stand out and be different. People tend to like to look good. You don’t put on something to wear and say, ‘This doesn’t look good.’ It’s the same with uniforms.”

  In the last few years, with the help of Nike, Baylor has become one of the more fashionable teams in college football, donning chrome gold helmets in its last two bowl games. Their equipment manager, Jeff Barlow, did an interview before the season with ESPN, stating they have 120 uniform combinations, meaning they could switch out either the helmet, jersey, or pants to give themselves a different look in every game for ten straight years.

  Initially, there was some flak from older fans who remembered seeing nothing but green and gold, which just so happens to also be the last words of the school’s fight song.

  “We had some of that at first, but once you start winning more games, it died down,” Briles said. “But really, it’s about the kids. Looking at the big picture, our brand has to be attractive to fifteen- to twenty-five-year-olds, initially. That’s who is judging us first—kids. We have to be attractive to the young people.”

  Needless to say, these all-gray uniforms were quite attractive to the Baylor players.

  “This is the best uniform I’ve had since we’ve been here,” senior defensive end Kevin Palmer said. “It’s just tight. You want to look clean out there, and I think we did. When you look good, you play good.”

  On this day, Baylor did both.

  Right before kickoff, Kendal Briles, standing in the center of a huddle that included the quarterbacks and running backs, set the bar high for his offense.

  “Let’s get out there, take care of the football, and score every time we have the ball.”

  In the first half, Baylor nearly did just that, scoring on its first four possessions and seven of its first eight, totaling forty-nine points before halftime. The tone was set on the third play from scrimmage when Shock Linwood did something that finally got his position coach, Jeff Lebby, off his back. On third down from the Bears’ 21-yard line, Linwood busted a huge run right up the middle, outracing the entire defense for a 79-yard touchdown, the game’s first score.

  “We hadn’t had a run over sixty yards in two years,” Lebby said. “I stay on the backs about breaking off a big run, and we give them hell when they don’t. So for him to break one like that, and really just get us off on the right foot, was a huge play.”

  With one half of the stadium already in a frenzy, the red-and-black side got going just a few plays later as Tech answered with a 55-yard touchdown pass to Zach Austin. The receiver had gotten behind safety Orion Stewart, who also jumped too early trying to knock the ball down.

  “What was thaaaat?!” defensive coordinator, Phil Bennett, screamed at Stewart in disbelief. “You know better than to do that. Watch the ball!”

  Stewart, already beating his chest as if to say “my bad,” went straight to his defensive teammates and said, “I’ll get it back.”

  But he didn’t have to, as the Bears offense was absolutely rolling. Knowing games like this are going to be high scoring, every possession is critical just to hold serve. But as Baylor had a third-and-long at the Tech 18-yard line, Art Briles had one thing on his mind before quarterback Seth Russell took the snap.

  “Can I get some water real quick,” he said to anyone within earshot behind him. After a young trainer hurried over with a water bottle, Briles calmly grabbed a quick swig, and then went back to the edge of the sidelines, seemingly knowing that Russell would indeed hit wide receiver Corey Coleman over the middle for a touchdown—as if it was a foregone conclusion.

  And perhaps it was for Briles and the coaching staff. Running up and down the field on the Red Raiders was something they w
ere getting used to, although it didn’t mean they were comfortable. They all remembered having a 45–20 lead late in the third quarter of the 2014 game. Starting quarterback Bryce Petty got knocked out with a concussion, leaving Russell to finish the job. The offense stumbled and Tech made a huge flurry, nearly coming all the way back before Baylor’s defense prevented a two-point conversion and then recovered an onside kick to escape with the win.

  “Remember what happened last year,” the strength coaches, led by the ultra-intense Kaz Kazadi, repeatedly shouted up and down the sidelines. “We’re not letting them come back on us. Don’t let up on them. Don’t let up.”

  However, it was the Baylor coaching staff that eventually let up, calling off the dogs midway through the third quarter with the Bears comfortably in front by twenty-eight points. Baylor still ran its offense, though, and still scored a fourth-quarter touchdown. They even waited until the last possession to insert freshman Jarrett Stidham, who always received a warm welcome from the observant Baylor fans when he took the field, knowing he was likely going to be the future star quarterback of this team.

  But on this day, the other side of the stadium was paying attention as well. A round of boos came from the Red Raiders fans who hadn’t forgotten that Stidham initially committed to Tech, but changed his mind and eventually signed with the Bears.

  For the fourth straight game, Stidham saw action in the second half, but this would be the first time he didn’t throw or run for a touchdown. The high-paced action slowed down immediately. And Tech knew it.

  Just before the final gun, coaches from both teams who were upstairs in the booth got on the elevators at the same time to head down to the field. One of them leaned over to the group of Baylor offensive coaches, trying not to let his fellow Red Raiders colleagues hear him.

  “Thanks. I think we both know you could’ve scored eighty on us if you wanted to.”

  Probably so, but Briles didn’t want to. The head coach on the other side of the field, Kliff Kingsbury, used to spend hours upon hours in his office when Briles was the running backs coach at Texas Tech from 2000 to 2002, and Kingsbury was the Red Raiders’ star quarterback. Briles thought highly of Kingsbury and wanted him to succeed as much as one coach from the same conference can hope for.

  The 63–35 win was lopsided enough for his taste.

  At the podium in his postgame press conference, Briles was absolutely out of breath. And his comments sounded more like a guy coming off one of the rides at Six Flags, which is only two miles down the road from the stadium.

  “It’s just an insane game and has been for the last four or five years,” he said. “You can’t breathe for a half-second. If you had any hair, it’s blowing backward, and you’re just screaming the whole time. But we’ve got some firepower, too. We can get on people when we really want to. This is probably the best team win we’ve had, certainly this year.”

  Outside of the press conference room, which is the same one the Cowboys use after their home games, Briles jumped in a golf cart to head back to the Bears’ locker room. Before he took off, a couple of Baylor boosters stopped him to shake hands and congratulate him on the win.

  “Thank you, thanks for coming,” he said with a big smile. “This was big. This ride will feel better than the last time.”

  The last ride left Briles wondering just how his team would respond to such a gut-wrenching loss to end the season. This ride let him know that his team had bounced back better than he ever could’ve imagined.

  Sunday

  Other than the state championship, it rarely happens in high school. In college, maybe it occurs with a few selected bowl games.

  But in the pros, at least three times a week, teams will find themselves playing the only football game on in the country.

  Each Sunday and Monday, and now every Thursday, the only game is the NFL’s featured matchup, putting eyeballs across the nation solely on that game. For some, the week is nearing the end and fantasy football owners need a big conclusion with whatever players they’ve got in these final games. And others, they’re just football junkies that will watch whatever is on the tube.

  There’s a reason the Cowboys have the moniker “America’s Team.” Sure, they’ve got a sizeable fan base in their own state, even in Houston, where the Texans reside as the state’s other NFL team. But outside the Lone Star State and even the country, there are many die-hard fans who bleed the Blue & Silver.

  These days, cable packages such as DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket offer fans opportunities to watch outside-of-market games from their living room. And just about every legitimate sports bar will offer up all the games as well.

  But for this Sunday night, watching the Cowboys was made easy—as the team beloved by so many traveled to the Big Easy to face the struggling Saints, who were 0–3 and desperate for their first victory.

  This wasn’t exactly what the NBC producers had in mind for their Sunday Night Football coverage. The Cowboys were without Tony Romo and Dez Bryant, and it wasn’t certain until moments before kickoff if Saints’ All-Pro quarterback, Drew Brees, would play with his ailing shoulder.

  But to the Cowboys’ nation, this was a chance to catch their team on their local NBC affiliate, whether they lived in Dallas’ popular uptown district or in Virginia, which oddly enough ranks in the top five among U.S. states in traffic for the team’s website, DallasCowboys.com, behind Florida, New York, California, and of course, Texas.

  And for this game, many Cowboys fans were getting another infrequent treat—watching their team in their favorite uniform. Since the Cowboys are one of the few home teams in the NFL to regularly wear white jerseys at home, fans rarely get to see their team in the blue road jerseys, outlined with silver pants that match the silver helmets.

  The strong consensus of Cowboys fans suggests they actually favor the blue jersey the best, maybe because it’s only worn once or twice a season if that. But such as the case with teams like the Yankees and Cubs in baseball, or even the Lakers and Celtics in the NBA, the Cowboys don’t often mess with changing the uniform. Owner Jerry Jones is considered cavalier about many things, but changing the historic look of the Cowboys’ uniform is something he knows is a sensitive subject to a fan base that doesn’t like change. He tried it during the 1994 season, introducing a new white jersey that had blue stars on the shoulder pads. Had the Cowboys not been tripped up by the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game that year, spoiling their quest for a third straight Super Bowl title, Jones and the Cowboys might have kept that jersey around longer. Instead, it was shelved by the next year, and the Cowboys have kept the traditional whites for all non-Thanksgiving games.

  Longtime general manager, Tex Schramm, who is often considered the architect to many of the historic traditions associated with the Cowboys, decided years ago to put his team in white jerseys at home, offering the Dallas fans a chance to see different colors each week. Instead of always seeing opponents in white, he thought it would give a different, refreshing look to see the Eagles’ green or the red jerseys of the Cardinals or the Giants wearing blue.

  That’s one thing Jerry Jones hasn’t changed, although the Cowboys have tinkered with a different Thanksgiving uniform at times and ended up wearing blue the last couple of seasons.

  And to be precise, the road uniform is a navy color, and has been since after the 1980 season. That’s when Schramm decided to alter the royal blue road jerseys for a darker look. Current assistant equipment manager, Bucky Buchanan, whose dad, “Buck,” was the longtime Cowboys’ equipment boss for twenty-five years (1973–1998), recalls a telephone call from Schramm that triggered the change.

  “Tex called the house one day in the early eighties, right around 1981,” Buchanan said. “He wanted to talk to Dad and said he wanted us to match the San Diego Chargers uniform. They had a navy jersey they had just switched to, and so he got Dad to find that exact color and that�
�s what we switched to.”

  And that’s been the Cowboys’ road jersey ever since—although it’s rarely used on the road.

  But on this night, the Saints had chosen to wear white at home, but it had nothing to do with their 0–3 record. The NFL requires all teams to turn in their uniform assignments before the season. Actually this year, the Cowboys had already worn the navy jerseys once in Philadelphia and would wear them in consecutive weeks in November against the Bucs and Dolphins.

  Under the bright Superdome lights in New Orleans, the silver and blue seemed to gloss even brighter.

  Wide receiver Terrance Williams seemed to think so, as he trotted out to the field during pregame warm-ups. “Let’s go, fellas. We’re looking good. If you look good, you play good.”

  Earlier in the week, Williams stood in front of his locker back at the Valley Ranch headquarters and told media reporters the receivers, including himself, needed to step up and help Brandon Weeden better than they did a week ago.

  “It’s our job as receivers to make it quarterback-friendly like we do for Tony (Romo),” said Williams, who cited a critical dropped pass late in the Falcons game. “That’s not going to happen again. No excuses. When he comes my way, I’m going to catch it.”

  For the second straight game, the Cowboys tried to take the pressure off of Weeden with a strong running attack. Versatile quick back Lance Dunbar had an impressive 45-yard run early in the game, displaying a dose of speed that had been missing in the offense, especially with Dez Bryant still banged up.

  Early in the second quarter, Weeden moved the offense down to the Saints’ 1 for a first-and-goal. Joseph Randle again got the call, and once again, decided to leap over the top of the pile. This time, making matters worse, he held the ball out with one arm to cross the goal line. Almost instantaneously, Randle was met by a Saints defender who jarred the ball loose, and New Orleans recovered for what seemed to be a turnover.