Dave Campbell's Baylor-OSU Football Preview
11/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 15, 2000
Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.
Since the Big 12 Conference was first formed in 1996, the Baylor football team has made two trips to Stillwater to meet the Oklahoma State Cowboys in a season-ending game, and each trip has been climaxed by the termination of then-current Baylor coach's contract.
This time the shoe is on the other foot.
When the Baylor Bears travel to Stillwater this coming Saturday to close their first football season of this new century, they will meet a Cowboy team that has already fired its coach. Bob Simmons, whose teams have never lost to the Bears, announced his "forced resignation" last week as the Cowboys, trapped in the downward spiral of a six-game losing streak, started making preparations for their Nov. 11 game in Lubbock against Texas Tech.
Thus ended the tenure of a coach who had a big season in 1997 (8-4 which was punctuated by a trip to the Alamo Bowl to meet and lose to Purdue) but otherwise nothing but losing seasons since he took over the Oklahoma State football reins in 1995.
OSU athletic director Terry Don Phillips confirmed that part of the reason for Simmons' dismissal was the loss of confidence in his regime by Oklahoma State alumni and the need for alumni support for the $80 million fund-raising drive to renovate 48,000-seat Lewis Field.
"The issue becomes one of confidence that people have in your program," said Phillips. "Once you come to grips with that, that's why we're here today."
JUST WHAT IMPACT all that will be on the Cowboys' semi-final game of the season against Baylor remains to be seen. While Saturday's game (1 p.m. kickoff) marks the windup of a disappointing season for the Bears, the Cowboys do not finish their final season under Simmons until the following Saturday when they play hosts to their powerful arch-rivals, the Oklahoma State Sooners.
But in what could be taken as an ominous note for the Bears, the Cowboys played one of their best games of the season just before Simmons was informed of his impending dismissal. Playing at home, they came within a last-gasp barely-out-of-bounds catch in the A&M end zone of upsetting the highly-favored Aggies, 21-16.
While Simmons has lost his grip on the OSU job, his supremacy over Baylor's green and gold has been uninterrupted during his Stillwater tenure. His Cowboys clubbed Baylor at home in 1996, 24-7, and less than 24 hours later the firing of Bruin coach Chuck Reedy was announced.
OSU won the next season in Waco against a Dave Roberts-coached team, 24-14, and then again in 1998 in Stillwater against Roberts' Bears, 24-10, and following that '98 game Roberts was handed his walking papers.
Last season, Kevin Steele's first football edition at Baylor lost to the visiting Cowboys, 34-14.
THAT WAS AN Oklahoma State team that finished with a 5-6 record, needing only to reverse the result of one game to qualify for a bowl invitation. This year's team, the poorest of Simmons' six Cowboy teams, got off to a fast start -- comfortable victories over Tulsa and Southwest Texas -- but a 28-6 loss at home to a good Southern Mississippi team knocked it off stride, and it has not been able to recover since that Sept. 23 defeat.
This also is an Oklahoma State team that at the start of the season was driven by quarterback Tony Lindsay, a 6-1, 185-pound who brought to the position what coaches admiringly call "the total package" He missed five games in 1999 because of an injury but was disgustingly healthy for last year's Baylor game, throwing for 228 yards and a touchdown and rushing for another 20 steps as the Cowboys jumped ahead by a 27-0 margin at halftime.
Returning for a fifth season this year, Lindsay was poised to make his senior campaign his best ever in OSU orange and black. Instead, injuries once again put him down, this time for the season. When the Cowboys take the field against Baylor Saturday, they will be led by a strong-armed quarterback with the unusual name of Aso Pogi.
Thus the Cowboys and Bears share a common thread. Both of their early-September starting quarterbacks are gone, victims of season-ending injuries. Both now are led by first-year guys, a redshirt freshman in OSU's case, an either a redshirt freshman (Guy Tomcheck or Josh Zachry) or a true freshman (Kerry Dixon) in Baylor's case.
Either way, youth will be in the saddle when the opening kickoff comes Saturday.
POGI IS A 6-3, 220-pound, strong-armed youngster from Lawton, Okla., who led his high school team to the Class 6A semifinals two seasons ago when he completed 113 of 206 passes for 2,072 yards and 27 touchdowns and won all-state honors, and then chose Oklahoma State over Tulsa, SMU and Colorado State. He went into OSU's game in Lubbock against Texas Tech last Saturday having thrown for 1,058 yards and run for 114, thus averaging 167.4 yards per game in total offense. He rushed for 26 yards and a TD and threw for 146 against A&M.
Before Lindsay was injured and OSU's season started falling apart, the Cowboys were operating with a conventional two-back offense with senior Jamaal Fobbs (son of Baylor assistant coach Lee Fobbs) and junior Reggie White at tailback and redshirt freshman Tim Burrough (6-3, 235) at fullback.
But now they attack mainly from a three-wideout, one-back set which starts the dangerous White (5-11, 225) at tailback and Fobbs, sophomore Gabe Lindsay (younger brother of the Cowboys' injured senior QB) and redshirt freshman Rashaun Woods (6-2, 185) at the wide receiver posts.
That can be a dangerous combination. White has rushed for 816 yards and is averaging 5.2 steps per carry. Fobbs, extremely dangerous in an open field, has caught 25 passes for 258 yards, Lindsay 24 for 296 yards and Woods 21 for 220 yards.
The young Lindsay also is a potent weapon as a return man. It was his 57-yard return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter that put A&M's victory over OSU up for grabs.
TRADITIONALLY, THE COWBOYS have gotten good production from their tight ends -- in this case, senior Bryan Blackwood (6-5, 250) and senior Khary Jackson (6-3, 260). Jackson is the busier receiver of the two with 8 catches for 75 yards and a touchdown.
In the offensive interior, the Cowboys have typical Big 12 size. The starting tackles are soph Kyle Eaton (6-8, 305) and senior Josh Lind (6-8, 315), the guards junior Jeff Machado (6-3, 300) and junior Bryan Phillips (6-4, 335), and the center is junior Jon Vandrell (6-0, 285). They've cleared the way for the Cowboys to outrush their opponents this season, 1,256 steps to 1,013.
Defensively, the Cowboys are like the Bears -- they've had their problems. In losing those six straight games (going into the Tech game), they had never held opponents under 21 points (A&M) and most of the time they've been plundered for 28 or more points.
But their defense had had ample success against Baylor, holding the Bears to no more than 17 points in each of their four meetings in Big 12 play. To find a winning effort by the Bears against the Cowboys one must go back to 1994 when a Reedy-coached team beat OSU, 14-10. A more memorable Bruin victory unfolded in 1974 when the winless Bears took on an undefeated, Top Ten-ranked Cowboy team in Waco and upset the visitors, 31-14, thereby setting Grant Teaff's team on a road that eventually led to the Cotton Bowl. As I recall, it was Steve Beaird's long touchdown run after catching a screen pass that got the Bears pointed in the winning direction.
THIS OKLAHOMA STATE team is not to be confused with that 1974 Cowboy team. Of course, this Baylor team is not to be confused with that 1974 Bruin edition, either.
This Cowboy team starts senior Juqua Thomas (6-2, 250) and soph Kevin Williams (6-5, 275) at the defensive ends, and seniors Zac Akin (6-3, 295) and Sean Barry (6-4, 260) at the tackles.
For the past several seasons, OSU has had some of the best linebackers in the Big 12. Their backers this season are not as highly regarded. The starters are soph Terrance Robinson (6-0, 215) and senior Chris Carter (6-2, 240) at the outside positions and junior Dwayne Levels (6-2, 250) at the middle backer spot.
In the secondary, soph Chris Massey and junior Michael Cooper start at the corners, redshirt freshman Elbert Craig at strong safety and junior Robbie Gillem at free safety.
Levels at middlebacker leads the Cowboys defensively with 70 tackles (55 solo tackles) with nine of them being stops behind the line of scrimmage. Craig has 50 solo stops and two QB sacks. But Juqua Thomas is the Cowboy who specializes in pressuring the passer. He has seven sacks for 38 yards in losses.
Junior Scott Elder, averaging 36.8 yards in punting, is the top Cowboy in that department, and senior Seth Condley, 11 of 18 on field goal attempts, is the team's No. 1 kicker.
Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.
