12th Man Magazine

Editor
Homer Jacobs

Contributing Writers
Rusty Burson
Jim Molony

Contributing Photographers
Kevin Bartram
Glen Johnson

Inside the Aggies | Busting Out: A&M Men's Basketball Preview | Q&A with Tim Cassidy

Inside the Aggies.

The Comeback.

By Homer Jacobs

For Texas A&M football fans, there are certain games that will forever fast-forward and rewind in the brain's VCR.

They are the games that keep you coming back to College Station decades after you graduated. They are the moments that help you define decades and keep track of time's passing. They are the reasons you name your sons Kyle and your dogs Reveille.

Texas Tech in 1967. Texas in '75. Baylor in '86.

And now Oklahoma State in 1997.

They are the unforgettable games, mostly victories, mostly at Kyle Field.

So no matter what happens with the Aggies this season, the 28-25 overtime thriller against the Cowboys will go down as one of the most exciting in the school's history.

In fact, coach R.C. Slocum could not recall such a fourth-quarter comeback in 25 years in Aggieland. That's because there hasn't been one like it since perhaps the 1955 game at Rice, when the Aggies rallied from a 12-0 deficit late in the fourth quarter to stun the Owls, 20-12. In that game, A&M scored two touchdowns in 46 seconds to steal the most improbable victory.

Against the Cowboys this fall, A&M scored two touchdowns and a two-point conversion in the final 10:45 of regulation, and then disposed of OSU in overtime with a 6-yard run by Tiki Hardeman up the gut of a staggering defense.

An announced attendance of 60,776 was at Kyle Field that night, and that number probably will double in 10 years. Didn't over 100,000 shoehorn themselves into Kyle Field for the 31-30 victory over Baylor in 1986? Just seems that way.

But for any Aggie who saw the game or heard about it sometime later, you have to keep asking yourself, how did the Aggies actually pull this miracle off?

12th Man Magazine played Monday morning quarterback with the Aggie coaching staff and came away with the following analysis of what happened, how it happened and why it happened.

And the explanations were both blatantly obvious and magically subtle:

THE DRIVE PART I

After the Aggies had given up a 27-yard field goal, thanks in part to a celebration penalty that pushed OSU further away from the end zone following a Sirr Parker fumble, the score read 22-7 with 10:45 left.

There was no reason to suggest A&M would be able to kick-start its offense, based on the hit-and-miss, fumble-prone performance through three quarters. The Aggies had gained 162 total yards, and just 59 of them through the air heading into the fourth quarter.

Branndon Stewart completed 7-of-17 passes, with his longest pass going for 16 yards.

But the A&M offense had been close to converting several big pass plays, most notably some deep flag routes to Chris Cole, who was beating single coverage all night long.

Those plays earlier in the game were enough to give the coaching staff hope that a comeback could be generated.

"The thing about the game was, even though it was 22-7 and we were down by 15 points, we didn't think it was an insurmountable lead for Oklahoma State," said receivers coach Steve Kragthorpe, who helped input on play-calling from his press box perch. "There had been things throughout the course of the game that we felt like we could exploit. The same route we scored the touchdown on, that had been overthrown (earlier). We had a post route that we just slightly overthrew. It wasn't like nothing was working tonight. It was just, 'Hey, let's get this thing executed. We know it's there.'"

On the first scoring drive of the fourth quarter for A&M, Stewart faced two third-and-long situations, something the Aggies had not been adept at converting all game long. But suddenly, Stewart began to fire his passes with no hesitation. Suddenly, the receivers were stretching out with no reservation.

"He got real hot," offensive coordinator Steve Marshall said of Stewart. "He was as hot as a firecracker."

But the fuse was beginning to burn, as the Aggies had taken over five minutes to drive into scoring position. After a diving 20-yard catch by Leroy Hodge and a similarly spectacular grab by Matt Bumgardner for 25 yards kept the drive alive, Dante Hall tip-toed his way into the end zone with 5:06 left.

On the drive, Stewart passed for 58 yards, just one yard shy of the number of yards he had thrown for all game long.

Yes, the Aggies were only down by eight at 22-14. But were they still in the game?

THE DRIVE PART II

Despite allowing Oklahoma State to run seven plays and take three more minutes off the clock on the ensuing possession, Slocum and the Aggie coaching staff did what the fans had hoped and used two timeouts - saving one - to stop the clock.

A&M finally forced a punt and took up shop at its own 25-yard line 2:34 remaining. Seventy-five yards in just over two minutes to play to tie or win the game?

Hardly an easy chore for the A&M offense, considering they had not accomplished such a feat in 1996, although the Aggies had plenty of chances in losses to BYU, USL, Texas Tech and Kansas State.

But again, the coaches and players seemed amazingly confident. The plays that had not worked in the first half were beginning to unfold. And Stewart was sizzling by now, as was a crowd jumping all over a reeling Oklahoma State defense.

The tide was beginning to turn into a maroon wave.

And as Slocum preached in the postgame locker room, the long hours A&M had put into its two-minute package paid off in a big way.

"That's part of our practice structure every week," Marshall said. "We put them in different situations, whether we have to go for a field goal or for a touchdown, whether we two timeouts or no timeouts. We practice it every week.

"We drill on it, we talk it. Our guys never lost confidence. They made some big plays, and it was really fun to see a plan come to fruition that way."

On the game-tying drive, there were more key plays and gut-wrenching moments than this team and its fans have seen in a long time.

After an 8-yard pass by Stewart, the Aggies were helped out by a 15-yard illegal participation penalty (too many men of the field) that pushed the ball to the A&M 40.

Then after two false starts by the Aggie offensive line that was no doubt hindered by an unbelievable din rolling off the decks of Kyle, Stewart found Daniel Campbell for a 19-yard pickup to the OSU 40-yard line.

At second-and-1, Stewart then threw a pass for a completion as Hodge stepped out of bounds to stop the clock. However, Stewart inexplicably called A&M's final timeout. A&M coaches and even players on the field couldn't believe it. This was Kansas State and the Lone Audible all over again.

But Stewart was not to blame. Rather, an impromptu hand signal to "huddle up" resembled a timeout signal, so Stewart tried to abide by the coaches' apparent instructions. As no doubt fans cringed in the stands, as did Slocum on the sideline, the Aggies were now down to no timeouts and still 40 yards to cover before a possible game-tying touchdown and two-point conversion.

Yet, Stewart stayed cool and recovered to throw two more darts, the last one a beautiful timing pass to Cole. The sophomore made his break to the flag against man coverage and was wide open. He turned OSU cornerback Kevin Williams completely around and walked into the end zone.

The coaches had been right: The plays were still there, and now, so was the execution.

Yet, more work was to be done. A&M had to convert a two-point conversion to tie the game and send it into overtime.

The coaches had talked on the headset when the score was 22-7 and decided to wait to try a two-point conversion until the second touchdown. And while the Aggies practice two or three two-point plays each week, there was really no decision as to which play to call.

After all, A&M had run the pass in the flat twice before in the game - once to Hall and once to Aaron Oliver - and both times OSU failed to cover the play.

When Stewart rolled to his right and saw an open Parker in the flat, he underthrew the pass in hopes of not sailing it into the night air.

Parker had to reach to his knees, make the catch and turn on a dime before he hit the sideline. It was a play that will go down as one of the biggest in A&M history.

And Stewart was nervous about the play. Really nervous. Parker asked for Divine Intervention six times before he sneaked into the open field.

"You can't simulate that type of significance on one play," Stewart said. "That ball felt like it was 300 pounds."

WORK STILL TO BE DONE

With the score tied, A&M still had to keep OSU out of field goal range with 43 seconds left. And it wasn't what the Wrecking Crew did on the field during that drive that helped force a 62-yard missed field goal.

It was what the Aggies did off the field. They celebrated, sure, but on their sideline, not in front of a flag-happy official looking for an excessive celebration penalty, which had been called on OSU just a quarter earlier in the same corner of Kyle Field.

"Our team came off very composed, and in celebration, we did it on our sideline," Slocum added. "It would have been very critical right there if we got a 15-yard celebration penalty on the kickoff. So then Oklahoma State is kicking that field goal from 30-something yards instead of where they kicked it."

Once the game ended in regulation with the missed field goal, A&M received its next biggest bit of fortune: Winning the coin toss.

First, of course, the Wrecking Crew had to hold OSU to a field goal or less. And when the Cowboys gained just three yards on three plays and settled for a 39-yard field goal, the Aggies and their fans could smell victory.

The OSU defense looked shaky, having been on the field for almost half of its 72 total plays in just the fourth quarter alone.

And the play-calling had been such that OSU appeared unsure whether to stay in man or zone coverage, whether to pursue the run or drop back for the pass.

"What had happened in regulation, we had given them a lot to defend in overtime," Slocum said. "Down on the 25, do you play pass defense or do you play run defense? What do you do? We had been successful throwing the ball, particularly in the fourth quarter, and I think that allowed us to run the ball like we did."

Indeed, it took just three running plays to score the winning touchdown. But the plays were more than just two toss sweeps to Parker and a belly play to Hardeman up the middle.

They were, as the coaches call them, the hand-and-glove plays that is the foundation of the A&M offense. Because the Aggies can run wide, the middle often softens up as defenses begin to over-pursue.

In this case, A&M running backs coach Ken Rucker had been keeping a close eye on the OSU linebacker alignments and pursuit to the sidelines. It was his conclusion that on first-and-goal from the 6-yard line, that it was time to fake the pitch to Parker and instead hand it quickly to Hardeman up the middle.

Just as Rucker and the A&M coaches had thought, the linebackers swarmed toward Parker, who carried out his fake in textbook fashion.

Stewart and Hardeman handled the exchange, and it was clear running into the end zone.

"It's a diminishing returns play if you just hammer it and hammer it," Kragthorpe said of the quick-hitting belly play. "But if the defense starts to flow, it's a complimentary play to come back with."

And when Hardeman reached the end zone, Kyle Field erupted. What could not have happened had just happened. A&M 28, OSU 25.

SO FAR, YET SO CLOSE

Yes, the Aggies were down by 15 and looked headed to their first three-game losing streak since 1988. But plays like Hodge's fingertip catch, Parker's two-point conversion and the team's lack of celebration on the field all contributed mightily to this comeback for the ages.

"It's a game of inches," Kragthorpe added. "You can say that about Tech. We go to overtime if that kick doesn't hit the upright. That's just the way this game is. What's amazing about this game is there are usually five or six plays a game that determine the outcome. And you never know, through the course of those 180 plays that occur in a game, where those five or six are going to happen. That was certainly the case the other night."

Slocum, whose team could win the South Division and play No. 1 Nebraska because of that game, said he will never forget how much teamwork it took - from players and coaches - to win this game.

"The team did work through it and came back and made the plays they needed to make," he said. "Leroy made a couple of spectacular catches, and Bumgardner made a great catch. I think there were some great calls in there by the coaches.

"But I think the real significance of all this is that you have a football team that goes on the road and has two disappointing losses. And then it gets in the game and gets down, 22-7, but refuses to quit. It light of the previous two losses, it would have been easy to throw in the towel, but this team didn't. It's the thing I'm most proud of. I've said all year long that this team has a lot of character and a lot of chemistry, and I think they bore that out (that night)."

After the game, Kragthorpe watched every ESPN and CNN-SI highlight he could find. He received phone calls from old friends and colleagues, including Dan Henning, Kragthorpe's boss at Boston College last year.

"It was fun," Kragthorpe said. "It was a great comeback, no doubt."

No doubt for Aggie fans, one of the greatest.

Join the Foundation
Return to the Main Page

Send questions or comments about the magazine to the editor, Homer Jacobs
Return to 12th Man Magazine Page