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Baylor's blunder

Steele at loss to explain; UNLV assistant more blunt

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Posted: Tuesday September 14, 1999 12:19 PM

By Tim Griffin, Special to CNN/SI

Baylor coach Kevin Steele thought his luck couldn't get worse. After losing his first game on a missed extra point in overtime, the rookie coach sensed that better days should be ahead.

But Steele and the Bears trumped that opening disappointment with an even bigger disappointment in their next game against UNLV.

With a 24-21 lead in the final seconds and UNLV out of timeouts, all Steele needed to do was have his quarterback take a knee and he would win his first game. Simple enough, right?

Instead, Steele called timeout and tried another play with the hopes of scoring one more touchdown. Tailback Darrell Bush carried on an attempt "to create an attitude" for his struggling offense, according to the Baylor coach.

Bush had the ball slapped out of his hands at the UNLV 1 by Tyler Brickell. Kevin Thomas scooped the ball out of the air and returned the fumble 99 yards for the game-winning score as the clock expired.

"We've lost two football games by a total of four points, both on the last play of the game and both in about as unbelievable a manner as you can get," Steele said.

"This will go down in history as one of the most unbelievable 'why-did-you-do-its.' It falls on my shoulders. I have an explanation, but it doesn't hold water."

One press-box viewer said the crowd at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco sounded like it had been hit by a mute button after the touchdown.

"The flaming arrows are going to start coming from every direction imaginable," Steele said. "They're going to question me, question this football team and everything that has anything to do with this program. You guys are going to write that it's the dumbest thing that ever happened."

Steele said he received numerous telephone calls from other coaches saying they would do the same thing.

But the late play also prompted an admonition from UNLV defensive coordinator Jeff McInerney, who stood at midfield after the game and shook his finger at the Baylor players who were slumped on the bench after the demoralizing loss.

"That's what they get for trying to stick it up our a-- instead of falling on it," McInerney shouted at the Baylor team.

Sooner gunslinger

But the junior-college transfer was most impressed with another statistic buried beneath his mound of personal records.

The Sooners were penalized only one time for 10 yards in their opener against the Sycamores. That penalty contrasts with the John Blake era, when OU averaged more than 10 penalties a game.

"I think the biggest positive is that we only had one penalty in the whole game," Heupel said. "That's unreal."

Aggies DB away from the 'weird'

Even though Weisinger lost a year on the transfer and will end up with only one year with the Aggies, he says he couldn't be happier.

"I enjoy being around the players and just being back in Texas," Weisinger said. "Living in College Station, it's more conservative and laid back and has more of the things I like about Texas."

Those attitudes contrasted with Colorado, where the 221-pound safety stood out for more reasons that merely dipping snuff and wearing cowboy boots.

"I don't miss all the weirdoes," Weisinger said. "Just the real liberal mentality up there. Everybody is really weird. Their lack of moral values that are up there ... I couldn't take it. It used to drive me crazy."

Moschetti makes amends

Moschetti passed for a school-record 465 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Buffs to a 63-35 triumph over San Jose State.

In Colorado's opener, the senior quarterback was sacked six times and committed four turnovers in a 41-14 loss to Colorado State.

"I should have caught some heat," Moschetti said. "I played terrible, and that's the reason we lost. I'm just glad we started moving the ball like we thought we could."

Another interesting piece of trivia about Moschetti: he's the oldest starting quarterback of a team in the state of Colorado. Moschetti was born on March 14, 1975 -- four days earlier than Denver Broncos' starting quarterback Brian Griese.

A&M not biting on Houston invite

"To me, there are more attractive games than that," Slocum told the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

Helton recently issued the challenge at the Houston Touchdown Club.

"Be sure and tell him that when he gets tired of playing Louisiana Tech and Southwestern Louisiana, we'd sure like to play him," Helton said. "I don't want to start a feud with R.C. They played Southern Miss, and I hope we can become the Conference USA team they play."

The Aggies and Cougars last met in 1995, the final season of the Southwest Conference.

"If Coach Helton's got any suggestions about scheduling or anything else, he ought to give me a call sometime," Slocum said. "Most people don't do scheduling through the newspaper or through the Touchdown Club.

"If you look at the reasons why the Southwest Conference broke up, those same reasons are why it's not attractive to us to play the teams that were in the Southwest Conference that did not go to the Big 12."

Worth noting

 

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