College Confidential

Baylor men's basketball suffers tough loss to College of Charleston

It was an unfortunate night for the No. 24/21 Baylor men’s basketball team. After placing third in the Charleston Classic last weekend, Baylor suffered a loss at home to the College of Charleston.

“We’re upset, but we can only be upset with ourselves,” guard Pierre Jackson said. “Prior to the game we didn’t prepare well enough as a team, we didn’t pay enough attention to the scouting report, and they executed well and capitalized on our mistakes.”

The 63-59 loss snapped the 29-game winning streak in non-conference home games Baylor had established. The Bears’ last non-conference loss at home was on Jan. 2, 2009 against South Carolina.

With the score tied 10 times and after nine lead changes, College of Charleston forward Willis Hall scored six consecutive points to break the final tie and allow his team to finish out the upset. Hall finished the night with 12 points and eight free throws.

“Coming into the game, we knew they could shoot the ball,” guard A.J. Walton said. “They’re a team that hasn’t been outrebounded. They stuck to their game plan, they executed well, and capitalized on our mistakes.”

Baylor guard Pierre Jackson recorded 21 points on the night, but his efforts were not enough to give Baylor the win. Tonight was the 14th straight game in which he scored in double figures. He is currently averaging 18.8 points and 6.5 assists per game during the streak.

One of Baylor’s key scorers, guard Brady Heslip, sat out tonight’s game after having his appendix removed on Tuesday. It was the first game Heslip had missed after starting 42 of his first 43 career games.

“You miss his shooting, but you also miss his leadership and poise down the stretch,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew said about the loss of Heslip. “It was a great experience for our young guys. A lot of them have never been in that situation before.”

Baylor ended the night with a 39.3 shooting percentage from the field, compared to the College of Charleston’s 48.8 field goal percentage, making it almost impossible for the Bears to win the battle on the court.

Baylor was outscored by five points in the first half of the game, giving up 31 and only scoring 26, and could not make up the deficit in the second half. The Bears scored only one point more than the Cougars in the second half.

The Bears need to get healthy and reestablish their momentum and energy before they travel to Kentucky on Dec. 1 to take on the Wildcats in a rematch of the Elite Eight game last season when the Wildcats pushed the Bears out of the NCAA tournament. -- Savannah Pullin

Longhorns lose Hills, Cobbs to injury

The Texas Longhorns fell to TCU on Thanksgiving and in the process lost tailback Jeremy Hills and linebacker Demarco Cobbs for the season due to injury. 

Hills sustained a non-displaced fracture of his right fibula on a touchdown run late in the fourth quarter of a 20-13 defeat. The injury will not require surgery, Texas head athletic trainer for football Kenny Boyd said on Saturday. Hills, a senior, rushed for 33 yards on seven carries this year and had 16 receptions for 180 yards. He appeared in 41 games in his UT career. 

Cobbs injured his right knee and left the game with 11:08 remaining in the second quarter. Boyd said the medical staff will evaluate the injury further next week, but the junior will not return to action this season. Cobbs appeared in 11 games this year and had 35 tackles (14 solo).

Cobbs is the second linebacker to be ruled out for the season in less than a week. On Monday, UT announced that Jordan Hicks would not return this season due to a hip injury. Hicks played in just three games and had 23 tackles (12 solo) and three tackles for loss.

Texas also lost defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat to injury earlier this year. Jeffcoat ruptured his right pectoral muscle against Oklahoma on Oct. 6. The junior underwent successful surgery on Oct. 19. Jeffcoat is second on the team in sacks (four) and tackles for loss (11), despite appearing in only six games. 

The Longhorns (8-3, 5-3 Big 12) finish the regular season at Kansas State on Dec. 1. 

By Austin Laymance/Special to the Star-Telegram

Baylor rally in second half against Texas Tech leads team to third consecutive bowl game

It took a while for the Bears to get all the pieces to fall into place, but they pulled together in the second half to claim the 52-45 overtime victory over Texas Tech to become bowl eligible for a record three consecutive years.

The Baylor defense showed weakness early giving up three touchdowns to the Red Raiders offense during the first half – two rushing and one passing – putting the Bears at a disadvantage shortly into the game.

“[Texas Tech] is a team you can never blink an eye on or next thing you know, you’re down 14 points, or they’re making a big play on defense, or they’re having a big play on special teams…” Baylor head coach Art Briles said.

For the first half of the game, the Bears’ usually dominant offense, could not find its rhythm. It looked as if they would enter the locker room at a 14-point deficit, but in the last five seconds of the half, receiver Levi Norwood squeezed in a 39-yard touchdown catch from quarterback Nick Florence to send the team into the locker room down 21-14.

“We knew what we were doing and we were in position, we just had to make the plays,” safety Sam Holl said of the defense’s first half performance. “We went in at the half, and I don’t know if we really felt pressure because we knew we could come out the second half and play well.”

And that’s exactly what they did. The Bears shot out of the locker room with plenty of momentum, energy, and passion to carry them to a third-consecutive bowl game.

In the second half of the game, Baylor defense held Texas Tech to 219 offensive yards – a welcomed improvement from the 333 yards it gave up in the first half.

In addition, linebacker Eddie Lackey caught two interceptions, returning one for a 55-yard touchdown. The touchdown by Lackey gave the Bears their first lead of the night at 35-31, marking the turning point in the game for Baylor. Lackey made another interception late in the fourth quarter, giving him two interceptions in a night for the first time in his career.

“The thing about Eddie (Lackey) ...ever since he came on campus last spring we knew the guy was a light up guy,” Baylor head coach Art Briles said. “He’s going to light up your defense, he’s going to light up the people around him because he’s always pleasant and mature…He’s very coachable, Coach Gush has done a great job with him, and he paid off big time for us today in a huge, huge game.”

Lackey’s two interceptions came after safety Sam Holl’s interception in the first half to give the defense a total of three interceptions for the night. The Baylor defense now has at least one interception in five straight games, and Holl is now tied with cornerback Joe Williams for the most interceptions on the team.

With a combination of a high-paced offense – scoring five times in the second half to collect 31 points – and an effective defense, the Bears kept fighting in the second half to make the game a shootout.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game coming into this game,” receiver Lanear Sampson said. “We knew [Texas] Tech has a high-powered offense, and I think the offense just got kind of excited leading into the game and we just had to calm down and play our game. Once we calmed down and played our game, everything went well from there.”

With two seconds left on the clock, Baylor kicker Aaron Jones stepped up to the ball to kick the would-be game winning field goal. To the surprise of all Baylor fans, Jones missed the field goal and pushed the game into overtime.

“You have to stay positive,” Florence said. “That’s one thing we talk about everyday is think positive, and so yeah, we missed the field goal…we just had to keep rolling, we couldn’t think negatively, so our goal was to score and we did that.”

Overtime was no different than regulation as Briles continued to utilize the running game that has increased in strength and capability over the past three weeks. The Bears, with the first possession in overtime, scored a touchdown on a four-yard run by running back Glasco Martin.

Baylor running backs finished the game with 278 yards on 57 carries. Once again, Lache Seastrunk led the running backs in yards, recording 137, but Martin was used in the red zone to pound in two touchdowns for the Bears.

When Texas Tech got the ball, J. Williams came up with a huge play for the Bears, breaking up the pass from Texas Tech quarterback Seth Doege to receiver Eric Ward to claim the Bears’ sixth win of the season and third year visit to a bowl game.

…” [Williams] has really stepped up here lately for us when we need him to and I feel like he’s done a really good job doing that, and that’s what we expect from him every time and I think he’s able to give that to us,” Holl said.

Baylor fought a tough game and showed resilience in the second half and overtime to win over Texas Tech. The Bears take on Oklahoma State next week before finding out their bowl position, but for now, they reflect on the season and the history that was made at Cowboys Stadium in front of 44,168 people tonight.

“It’s been a journey for all of us,” Florence said. “Coach Briles and his staff have done an outstanding job and we have players and we have a team that will fight. No one said we could do this. Looking a month ago, people were writing us off and this team fought hard. It means a lot…I’m proud of this team and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.” -- Savannah Pullin

After dropping to No. 3, Lady Bears bounce back to blow past Liberty

The third ranked Lady Bears bounced back from a tough loss against Stanford in the Rainbow Wahine Classic last week and took advantage of turnovers tonight to record an easy 92-60 win over Liberty.

Guard Kimetria Hayden led Baylor with 18 points and recorded the game’s first seven points. She also recorded two steals, of Baylor’s five for the night, in the first five minutes. With Hayden’s help, the Lady Bears had grabbed a 20-point lead in less than seven and a half minutes.

Unfortunately for Liberty, their 21 turnovers by halftime led to 27 of Baylor’s points. The Lady Flames had more turnovers than points at halftime, giving Baylor a 53-18 lead.

Following Hayden in scoring was forward Brooklyn Pope with 13 points and center Brittney Griner with 11 points and four rebounds. Griner reached the 999-career point mark while playing only 20 minutes. Guard Jordan Madden had 10 points and led the team with seven steals. Point guard Odyssey Sims sat out her third consecutive game with a strained hamstring.

Liberty improved after the half, giving up only six turnovers, but still allowed Baylor to take a 50-point lead. Guard Devon Brown led the Lady Flames with 20 points.

Baylor takes on Rice in Houston on Tuesday night. This will be the Lady Bears’ last game before the national title rematch game at fifth-ranked Notre Dame on Dec. 5. -- Savannah Pullin

TCU "hungrier, faster, meaner, tougher" than Texas Longhorns

Austin American-Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls, a longtime Longhorns watcher, provided his insight into what transpired in TCU's impressive 20-13 victory Thursday night over Texas before a Royal-Memorial Stadium crowd he numbered more in the 80,000s than the tickets-sold 99,000. 

Sadly, the Longhorns are not what we thought they were. They were only posing as true contenders because TCU was hungrier, faster, meaner, tougher and every other -er that you can come up with. Texas was just luckier that Frogs coach Gary Patterson went for field goals on 4th-and-1 situations, once at the lip of the goal-line, and clearly was more interested in milking the clock in the second half than maximizing every possession.

Read his column here.

TCU's regular-season finale at home against Oklahoma on Dec. 1 sets up nicely now. The Sooners' defense is gassed after narrow wins over Baylor (42-34) and West Virginia (50-49), and on Saturday faces an Oklahoma State team that hung 59 on Texas Tech last week. OU's run defense is in tatters; maybe its mental state, too. 

In this Big 12 transition season of the quirky schedule, the Sooners will be playing for the ninth straight week when they come to Fort Worth. The Horned Frogs were on their 10th straight week when they faced then BCS No. 2 Kansas State on Nov. 10. A Saturday off and a Thursday game was a Thanskgiving feast for the Frogs in Austin, and now they have another weekend off before facing Oklahoma.

-- Vince Langford

Baylor looking to become bowl eligible with win over Texas Tech

For the first time this season, the Bears pulled all sides of the team together to defeat then top-ranked Kansas State last week. The team is hoping to carry that momentum against Texas Tech this weekend to become bowl eligible for a school record three consecutive years.

“I think we’re playing right at the right time…guys are more comfortable out there,” Baylor head coach Art Briles said about the performance of his team. “It was good to see them come together and have a lot of fun playing the game.”

As the Bears head to Dallas to take on Texas Tech this weekend at Cowboys Stadium, it is essential that Baylor maintain that continuity throughout the team if they wish to become bowl eligible.

“…As long as we prepare like we have been doing and don’t change anything, hard work does pay off, and if we keep doing that, we should be fine” running back Lache Seastrunk said.

Texas Tech, a team that has been unpredictable this season, will not be easy to conquer if Baylor shows any sign of weakness. The Red Raiders are currently fifth in the Big 12 standings after being picked in the preseason to finish ninth.

One of the most dangerous weapons Texas Tech has utilized this season is quarterback Seth Doege. He is currently third in the Big 12 in total offense and pass efficiency. This season, Doege has thrown for 3,575 yards and 35 touchdowns with wins against then No. 4 West Virginia and No. 21 TCU.

“They are extremely dangerous,” Baylor head coach Art Briles said. “Seth [Doege] is an extremely talented player. They have had an outstanding year. They are sitting at 7-4 and have been ranked the whole season up until this week. We know that we are going to have to play with as much inspiration and passion as we played with [last] Saturday in order to win this weekend.”

In a game where the Bears can get eaten up by a highly competitive offense, the defense will have to perform up to the standards they set in their game against Kansas State when they held the Wildcats to 362 total offensive yards and recorded three interceptions.

Fortunately for the Bears, cornerback Ahmad Dixon already notices areas of the game they are better prepared for against Texas Tech than most other Big 12 opponents were.

“[Texas Tech’s] ability to line back up in a hurry up offense…that’s something that a lot of teams, defensively, that they don’t see in the week of practice is that tempo, and that’s the upper hand we have on most teams,” Dixon said. “When most teams try to tempo us, it’s something that we’re used to, it’s like second nature to us.”

Briles has clearly proven his offense has what it takes to score the points. It is up to the defense again this week to prove they can get the stops in a game that is almost a must-win as they come down to the end of the season and their chances at bowl eligibility begin to lessen. -- Savannah Pullin

Live blog: TCU 20, Texas 13 (F)

Kenny Vaccaro laments lost opportunity

Texas Longhorns safety Kenny Vaccaro won't get the chance to play against his best friend on Thanksgiving. 

Vaccaro and former TCU quarterback Casey Pachall spent many nights during the summer talking about facing each other on Thanksgiving night, when UT hosts TCU for the first time since 2007. But those dreams ended last month. 

Pachall started the first four games of the season for the Horned Frogs, but withdrew from TCU in October after being arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Now, the childhood friends from Brownwood are left to wonder what could have been. 

"It would have meant a lot," Vaccaro said. "We grew up together, we played football all our lives together and are the best of friends. It's sad that we can't play each other."

Pachall led TCU to 4-0 start this season, including the Horned Frogs' first win in Big 12 play. Redshirt freshman Trevone Boykin has started the last six games for TCU and gone 2-4. Still, Texas coach Mack Brown admires the job TCU coach Gary Patterson has done this year despite all the turmoil. 

"He's been able to turn it around, hang in there and win some really tough ball games," Brown said. "That's a true credit to them." 

While Vaccaro won't have an opportunity to intercept Pachall, the safety will still see some familiar faces on the visiting sideline. 

TCU wide receiver Josh Boyce played against Vaccaro at Copperas Cove High School, and the two know each other well off the field. Boyce is TCU's career leader with 22 touchdown receptions and headlinex a group of receivers that is among the best in the Big 12. 

"I think they're going to be one of the better receiving corps we've played this year," Vaccaro said. "They're fast, they're big and they're strong."

By Austin Laymance/Special to the Star-Telegram

Will Longhorns salute Darrell Royal tonight with wishbone play against TCU?

The question today maybe isn't whether the Texas Longhorns will run a play from the wishbone formation against the TCU Horned Frogs in honor of Darrell Royal. The question is why they wouldn't. 

Darrell Royal's imprint will be felt again tonight, with Longhorns coaches and players wearing DKR initials to salute the former Longhorns coach who died Nov. 7.

And not just because of the "cockroach" game in 1961, when TCU's knack for knocking off a heavy favorite -- in this case top-ranked and unbeaten Texas -- was immortalized with Royal's comment that the Frogs were like cockroaches, not so much for what they eat and tote off but for what they fall into and mess up.

Pat Culpepper, from Cleburne, south of Fort Worth, was one of the stars of that 1961 Texas team and you can read about his feelings, and those of other Texas players, as they reflected on the 50th anniversary of the "cockroach" game last year in this story from the Austin American-Statesman. 

During the public memorial service for Royal, televised by the little-seen but oft-reviled Longhorn Network, former Longhorns were asked to give their lasting memory of Royal. Culpepper chose words that many others remembered: It's how you treat people that can't help you that counts.

It takes awhile for that to sink in. Darrell Royal took awhile to sink in. He was a different cat. Ultimately, he was a man who was not only accepted the ironies of life, but  embraced them.

That he was present at the creation for two of college football's greatest dynasties is irony enough. An Oklahoma All-America under Bud Wilkinson, part of the first teams that built the Sooners' dynasty with returning World War II service veterans, and yet the man who built the dynasty of the Sooners' fiercest rivals, the Texas Longhorns.

He disdained the pass, made famous by his dictum that when you throw three things can happen and two of them are bad. But the Longhorns' single most remembed play of his tenure was a fourth-and-4 pass to 
Randy Peschel to help win the 1969 Shootout with Arkansas.

A man who coached the last all-white college football champion, but who Earl Campbell, in his tribute to the coach in Sports Illustrated, would call his best friend.

As a coach he sent wishbone developer and assistant coach Emory Bellard one spring to help OU refine the wishbone that the Sooners, and a young offensive coordinator, Barry Switzer, had installed during an off-week before the 1970 Texas game. A year later, Oklahoma and its wishbone had eclipsed Texas, and the Sooners' 1971 rout of the Longhorns relaunched the Sooner dynasty, which, in some ways, would force Royal out of coaching.

It's how you treat people that can't help you that counts.

He was a conservative man, a man of the World War II greatest generation, but yet he would be befriend, promote and maybe even ultimately save a singer and songrwriter named Willie Nelson, who, today, seems to be known more for his marijuana use as much as the beauty of his lyrics and songs.

Royal was a man of words, sharp, concise, clear. Perhaps his greatest contribution to coaching was that as a coach you must "dance with the one who brung you." You  believe in something, you stick with it.

So, this, from the 1969 Sports Illustrated college football preview, which told of how the Longhorns had failed in the so-called Year of the Horns, 1967, but had found the wishbone and Royal's roots from Wilkinson, option football, in 1968 and rebuilt the Texas dynasty:

So, reenter the wing T, the attack Texas had when it relied largely on defense and its distinctive attribute of crisp blocking. "We have good runners, so we're going to let 'em run," Royal says. "And we should have better throwing. It's like those high school dances I used to go to in Hollis, Okla. You'd go up to a girl and ask her to dance, but she'd say, 'No thanks, I'm gonna dance with the one who brung me.' Well, that's what we're going back to on offense. We're going with the one who brung us."

-- Vince Langford

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Texas A&M QB Manziel tops Scripps Howard Heisman poll (full story, plus voting) #TAMU, #JohnnyFootball

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, a record-setting redshirt freshman, is the new leader in today’s ninth installment of the Scripps Howard News Service Heisman Trophy Poll.

Manziel, the first freshman in FBS history to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in a single season, received eight of 10 first-place votes from members of the voting panel to surge past Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein. Klein, the leader the past three weeks, finished second in balloting, followed by Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o.

Both Klein and Te’o received one first-place vote. The rest went to Manziel, who is bidding to become the first freshman to win the Heisman in the award’s 77-year history. Manziel threw for 267 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 100 yards and two scores in last week’s 47-28 victory over Sam Houston State.

No. 9 A&M (9-2) closes its regular season Saturday against Missouri (5-6) in College Station. Manziel, also a finalist for the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, has rushed for 1,114 yards and 14 touchdowns this season. He has thrown for 3,047 yards, with 21 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.

The Scripps poll is the longest-running Heisman Trophy poll in the nation. Since its inception in 1987, it has correctly forecast the Heisman winner in its final weekly installment in 21 of 25 years, including last season. Below is a look at this week’s poll and a list of voters:

This week's top five:
 
Player, School, Season Stats, Poll Points (first-place votes in parentheses).
 
1. QB Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 3,047 passing yards, 67.7 completion pct., 21 TDs, 7 ints., 1,114 rushing yards, 17 TDs, 47 (8).
 
2. QB Collin Klein, Kansas State, 2,306 passing yards, 69.7 completion pct., 12 TDs, 3 interceptions, 787 rushing yards, 20 TDs, 32 (1).
 
3. LB Manti Te'o, Notre Dame, 98 tackles, 6 interceptions, 2 fumbles recovered, 1.5 sacks, 27 (1).
 
4. WR/KR Marqise Lee, USC, 107 receptions, 1,605 yards, 14 TDs, 704 return yards, 1 TD, 107 rushing yards, 11.
 
5. RB Kenjon Barner, Oregon, 1,426 rushing yards, 19 TDs, 19 receptions, 1 TD, 10.
 
Others receiving votes: Ohio State QB Braxton Miller 9, Clemson QB Tajh Boyd 6, Wisconsin RB Montee Ball 3, Alabama QB A.J. McCarron 3, Northern Illinois QB Jordan Lynch 2.
 
Last week's top five:
 
Player, School, Season Stats, Poll Points (first-place votes in parentheses).
 
1. QB Collin Klein, Kansas State, 47 (8).
 
2. QB Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M, 36 (2).
 
3. LB Manti Te'o, Notre Dame, 23.
 
4. RB Kenjon Barner, Oregon, 16.
 
5. WR/KR Marqise Lee, 11.
 

   Voters: Kirk Bohls, Austin American-Statesman; Randy Beard, Evansville Courier and Press; Jimmy Burch, Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Bob Condotta, Seattle Times; Dennis Dodd, CBSSports.com; Vahe Gregorian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch; John Helsley, The Oklahoman; Mike Griffith, Knoxville News-Sentinel, and Todd Jones, Columbus Dispatch.

_ Jimmy Burch