Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas

by Nick Eatman

  People who share those sentiments weren’t on any of the nine buses that rolled out of the luxurious Hilton Orlando hotel and trekked over to the Citrus Bowl for a Monday night matchup against North Carolina on December 29.

  Among the most prestigious bowl games in college football, the Russell Athletic Bowl might rank somewhere in the middle, but it was by far the biggest and most important game Baylor was going to play all year. At least that’s what Art Briles and his staff made their players believe all week in practice as they prepared for a Tar Heels team that had just seen its 11-game winning streak come to an end against Clemson, the number-one team in the country.

  Ironically enough, Clemson and Oklahoma were meeting in one of the national semifinal games on January 1, but it was actually a rematch of a bowl game the two programs had played a year earlier in, yes, the Russell Athletic Bowl.

  And don’t think some of the coaches weren’t reminding their players of that fact, especially some of the younger guys who were coming back the next year. No, this wasn’t where the Bears thought they would end up, but if Clemson and Oklahoma could take the leap from this bowl game to the playoffs in one season, Baylor was convinced it could do the same.

  But first, they had to put on a show, something most national pundits didn’t think could happen, especially with Baylor missing its top two quarterbacks in Seth Russell and Jarrett Stidham, its leading rusher, Shock Linwood, and the nation’s best receiver in Corey Coleman. Baylor went from a 3-point favorite initially to a 3-point underdog by most Las Vegas oddsmakers. A 6-point swing is rare for point spreads, but as key players for Baylor kept dropping like flies, the team’s chances to win appeared to be going down at a similar rate.

  In the lobby of the hotel, the players had to make a long walk from the elevators to the buses. Surrounded by fans and supporters on both sides, many were loose, wearing big smiles, just excited to play this final game in what had been a grueling season.

  One player who wasn’t all smiles, though, was running back Johnny Jefferson. And that was quite a change for the sophomore, who rarely walked around without a smile on his face. But his focus was at an all-time high even a few hours before kickoff.

  Earlier in the week, Jefferson addressed the entire team, apologizing for his costly fumble in the Texas game that wiped out a chance to complete a second-half comeback. He promised his fellow players that he would make up for the “big mistake.” But as confident as he was, and as anxious as he was to redeem himself, not even Jefferson could foresee what was about to happen.

  The game began just as the prognosticators predicted. With Chris Johnson taking most of the snaps, Baylor had trouble sustaining its first drive, failing to score on its first possession for now the second straight game after starting the season with eleven consecutive opening-series touchdowns. On the flip side, North Carolina used four third-down conversions to find the end zone and take an early 7–0 lead.

  But on the next series, Johnson did something that seemingly changed the entire course of the game: he overthrew a wide-open KD Cannon about forty-five yards down the field.

  Yes, an incomplete deep pass, which was actually his second of the game after also overthrowing a receiver on the first series. Usually, passes that don’t connect are considered wasted opportunities, but in this case they were highly effective.

  Even though Johnson didn’t hit Cannon streaking down the right sideline, the play showed everyone, including North Carolina’s defensive coaches, that Johnson had an arm and Cannon had the speed. It made the Tar Heels stay back for most of the game, which opened a crack in the door that Baylor needed.

  Another key moment occurred on a fourth-down play during that same drive when Baylor needed three yards. With Jefferson back as the only “snap-catcher,” he surprisingly got to throw it, winging a pass out to the left flat for Ishmael Zamora, who picked up the first down. That drive saw Johnson, Jefferson, Cannon, Devin Chafin, Terence Williams, and Lynx Hawthorne all take snaps, with Hawthorne tying the game on a short run.

  There were sweeps to the left, pitches to the right, smash runs up the middle, delay counters, and draws—and North Carolina wasn’t prepared for any of it.

  “After that first drive, I think we knew we had something,” said Jeff Lebby. “We were confident all week that we could get it rolling. But not until you get out there do you really know if it’s going to work.”

  It worked. It worked all night long, and it was mainly Jefferson doing the damage.

  In the second quarter, Baylor broke open a 14–10 game with two rushing touchdowns by Jefferson, who was simply running through gaping holes provided by the offensive line. Led by four seniors, including left tackle Spencer Drango, Baylor’s big men wore out the Tar Heels.

  Chafin and Williams provided some of the dirty runs up the middle, but it was Jefferson’s slashing that did most of the damage, as he finished off two straight drives with scores to build a 28–10 lead.

  But a late first-half touchdown by the Tar Heels, which was aided by a penalty on defensive end Shawn Oakman for continuing to run after the quarterback despite losing his helmet, had Briles as agitated as he’d been at any point during the regular season.

  “Helmets don’t just come off!” he yelled at the side judge and any other official who could hear him. “It got ripped right off. How can you not see that? I’ve never seen a helmet just fly off.”

  Briles was upset for about five minutes, and his kicker missing a field-goal attempt just before halftime didn’t improve the coach’s mood any. It showed on his way off the field, as he had testy interviews with ESPN’s sideline reporter and then Baylor’s radio broadcast.

  To the country watching, it was just another bowl game between a couple of teams ranked in the top twenty. To Briles and Baylor, these next thirty minutes of football were about to define their entire season.

  But unlike the previous game against Texas, where Baylor coaches were scurrying to come up with their “WildBear” formation on the fly, this halftime was more about tweaking and polishing. Their plan was working, and nothing North Carolina could do defensively could stop it.

  And so it continued in the second half, with the turning point occurring after Baylor pushed the lead to 35–24. North Carolina came right back and drove to the 5-yard line, but a forced fumble—one of the many great plays in the game by linebacker Aiavion Edwards—was recovered by the Bears in the end zone for a touchback.

  On the next play, Jefferson then dropped the hammer on the Heels, busting loose for an 80-yard run that served as the backbreaker, extending the lead to 42–24. The only player who might have caught Jefferson on the play was Kendal Briles, who usually stands even with the line of scrimmage on the snap. He took off down his own sideline, cruising past the entire bench area and arriving down by the goal line at nearly the same time as Jefferson.

  Kendal was one of the first to jump on Jefferson on the sideline as the Bears, now up eighteen points late in the third, started to sense the game was theirs. And that’s when Kaz Kazadi gave them a flashback to 362 days ago.

  “Don’t forget about last year,” Kazadi said, referring to the Bears’ 20-point fourth-quarter lead in the Cotton Bowl that vanished, leading to Michigan State’s stunning 42–41 win on New Year’s Day. “That’s not happening again. We won’t let up.”

  The intensity on the field was extreme, but the trash talking in the stands was rather “suite” as well. The head coach of each team is given a luxury suite for the game, filled with food and beverages for their families. But the indoor suites also have an outside patio that overlooks the field. Just a four-foot barrier separated the two suites, which just so happened to have some frustrated UNC fans in one who were going back and forth with Briles’ family in the other.

  No two individuals are more into a Baylor game than Briles’ two daughters, Jancy and Staley. Both in their thirties, the
two sisters rarely miss anything that occurs on the field, whether it’s a penalty that wasn’t called or an injury to one of the players. And when it comes to voicing both pleasure and disdain, the two rarely have much voice left after each game.

  The verbal jabs had been going back and forth with one UNC fan in particular throughout the night, and after the Tar Heels scored to make it 42–31, Jancy and Staley started to hear more chirping from the nearby suite.

  “Just throw the ball one time, I dare you,” the man said, referring to Baylor’s run-oriented offense that was having so much success. “You don’t even have a quarterback to throw it.”

  A few plays later, Baylor was back in the end zone, thanks to a 13-play drive that saw eleven runs, including rushes on the final seven snaps. Williams powered the ball over the goal line for a 49–31 lead, prompting Jancy, who is usually the more conservative one of the two, to simply lose it.

  Standing up, with her veins about to pop out of her neck, the now red-faced oldest daughter shouted back:

  “You don’t have to pass it … when you can … run it up your ass!!!”

  That comment even shocked some of her own family members, who at this point were trying to calm her down and remind her of the 18-point lead.

  But her intensity was just another example how much this game meant to Baylor. She was a proud daughter who would cringe when she heard comments about her dad’s 2–6 record in bowl games. This matchup didn’t just mean a lot to Baylor. It was perhaps even more important to the Briles household—a fact some poor UNC fan had to experience the hard way.

  In the fourth quarter, Jefferson more than kept his promise to his teammates. With a Baylor school record 299 rushing yards, he was able to finish the year with an even 1,000 yards, which along with Linwood’s 1,329 yards gave the Bears two 1,000-yard rushers in a season for the first time in school history.

  As the final seconds ticked off, Briles was trying to seek out North Carolina head coach, Larry Fedora, for the postgame handshake when his life suddenly turned cold. A Gatorade bucket of ice water drenched his backside, but Briles didn’t mind. He grabbed the culprit, fifth-year senior Jay Lee, and gave him a big hug. It was the best worst feeling Briles had ever felt.

  The team celebrated on the field like they had just advanced to the championship. Briles kissed the trophy up on the stage, and many players posed with the hardware or just with each other, sporting their Russell Athletic Bowl–winning T-shirts.

  Inside the locker room afterward was an even wilder scene, as Briles awarded the game ball to offensive line coach, Randy Clements, announcing to the players that Baylor had just set an NCAA bowl record with 645 rushing yards in the game. That was followed by Briles’ ever-popular “Whose house?” chant that turned into a raucous, water-tossing mosh pit that was so loud and over the top that it interrupted North Carolina’s postgame press conference, which was being held on the other side of the locker room wall.

  But this was Baylor’s time to rejoice. After everything that had occurred before the season with the investigation, followed by injury after injury after injury, the Bears got to go out in style, finishing on the highest of high notes.

  No quarterback, no backup, no starting tailback, and no superstar receiver—absolutely no problem for Briles and his staff. The game plan was downright wizardry, starting from two weeks earlier when he had declared Johnson the starting quarterback. But Baylor was able to keep its plan quiet, knowing all along that they were going to build off the second-half success against Texas, polish up the “WildBear” formation, and then proceed to run right over and through North Carolina’s defense.

  One player who didn’t want the party to end was fifth-year senior Trevor Clemons-Valdez, who had started the season as a coaching intern but later suited up as a tight end. Now, he sat there in the locker room and just watched the entire scene before him.

  “I was getting calls and texts from my family waiting on me,” he said, “but I just sat there and didn’t want to take my uniform off. I knew once I did, I probably wouldn’t wear another football uniform again, so I just wanted to soak it all in. I was probably the last guy to take off my jersey that night.”

  Briles decided not to do his postgame press conference, sending Kendal to take his place. He did remind his son to mention that Baylor had now won fifty games in five years. But he didn’t have to remind any of the coaches of the streak, as it was something the entire staff was pointing out with each hug and high-five.

  “Fifty wins in five years,” Lebby said. “How about that? Unreal.”

  For a program that had never earned more than thirty-six wins in a five-year period before Briles arrived in Waco, getting to fifty was proof that Baylor football was indeed higher than it had ever been.

  And to think, this 10–3 season was actually a down year.

  But while it appeared Baylor had finally pulled the season out of the ditch and was able to finish the season on a positive note, they had no clue what was waiting for them in the ensuing off-season—something that would completely turn the program upside down.

  Sunday

  There’s an old saying in football, and it holds true at virtually all levels:

  If you’ve got two quarterbacks, you’ve got none.

  Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, but normally, if one guy hasn’t separated himself from the other, then it’s likely that neither is good enough to make much of a difference in the game.

  If that’s the case with two, then it’s certainly worse with three quarterbacks—and the Cowboys were now preparing to use their fourth.

  But with the team sitting at 4–10 after a loss to the Jets, and preparing to head up to Buffalo to face the Bills two days after Christmas, there really wasn’t much more to lose. Jason Garrett had said over and over how much he respected Matt Cassel and his experience and professionalism, but even he couldn’t overlook Cassel’s inability to get the job done. So it was time to turn the reins over to Kellen Moore as a starter.

  The last time the Cowboys started four quarterbacks in one season came in 2001, when the quartet of Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, Clint Stoerner, and Ryan Leaf produced a grand total of five wins. At this point in the 2015 season, the Cowboys would have gladly accepted a fifth victory and figured Moore had a good chance to get them there against the Bills, who were also out of playoff contention.

  When it comes to routine, Garrett never likes big changes. Here’s a guy who wears a navy blue long-sleeve shirt with either navy shorts or sweatpants, depending on the weather, every single day of the week.

  To him, being eliminated from the playoffs meant very little when it came to preparation. The term “meaningless game” was laughable. That being said, the holiday season provided some exceptions. On Friday, which was Christmas Day, he allowed everyone to come in later, pushing back meetings and practice to allow his players, coaches, and staff the chance to spend their morning with family and friends or maybe just sleep in.

  The team departed on Saturday for Buffalo, which could’ve been much worse weather-wise in late December. Temperatures in the single digits and below can be normal in upstate New York at that time of year, but the team arrived with temps in the thirty to forty range. But, of course, in keeping with the theme of the entire season in stops such as Miami, Green Bay, and somewhat in Washington, D.C., the Cowboys couldn’t escape the rain, which ended up pouring all game long.

  Although Moore was making his first start, he wasn’t too unfamiliar with the Bills, having played against the team during the preseason when he was a member of the Detroit Lions. Buffalo head coach, Rex Ryan, said Moore “torched them,” but also added that he was a “little bitty dude who throws with the wrong hand.”

  Actually, the southpaw, who would become the first left-handed quarterback to start a game for Dallas, was hoping to avoid the nightmarish beginning the last Co
wboys passer had in Ralph Wilson Stadium.

  Although Tony Romo was able to rally his team to a dramatic 25–24 win over the Bills on Monday Night Football in 2007, he endured six turnovers, including five picks. Buffalo had returned both an interception and a kickoff for touchdowns on their way to taking a 24–13 lead before the Cowboys wrapped up their comeback by scoring nine points in the final twenty seconds, including a 53-yard winning field goal, to come out on top.

  The funny part of that game occurred on the sidelines as Bucky Buchanan, one of the team’s longtime equipment staffers, was tired of losing footballs when he traveled to road games, especially AFC teams such as Buffalo that rarely host the Cowboys.

  In the NFL, the offense uses its own footballs, which are marked by the club’s logo. Buchanan noticed that of the twenty-four balls he would bring for each game, he would only come back with a handful, as ball boys from the other team or anyone else on the sideline would snag one for a keepsake.

  So for this 2007 game, Buchanan brought only twelve, the minimum required by the NFL. As it turned out, balls from all of Romo’s turnovers were taken to the Bills’ sideline by the players. The kickoff return for a score was also kept, and there was a field goal that went over the net and into the stands that wasn’t retrieved.

  By the end of the game, as the Cowboys were driving for the final score, they only had one football remaining—the one being used. So every incomplete pass down the field had to be retrieved and thrown back to the huddle, instead of using another ball from the sideline to speed up the process. Buchanan wasn’t sure what the penalty was for not having enough footballs, but fortunately he didn’t have to find out, as Dallas was able to finish the game with that last remaining ball and come out with the win.

  Needless to say, Buchanan has packed twenty-four footballs for every road game since, including this next stop in Buffalo.

  While Moore didn’t turn the ball over as much as Romo did in 2007, he also wasn’t very effective down in the red zone, a problem that had plagued the team all year, regardless of who was under center. The Cowboys managed a couple of field goals and for a while that was enough to keep the score close.