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Cotton Bowl 1975
Penn State 34 Baylor 14 |
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Only the Big Sleep lasts forever. The bowl-wise Nittany Lions of Penn State allowed the neophyte Bears to dream on peacefully for almost three quarters before setting off the alarm clock. It rang like Big Ben. And so, the Rude Awakening. Penn State rebounded from a 7-3 halftime Baylor lead and another Bruin advantage (14-10) midway of the third period to tack up a Cotton Bowl-record 41 points and head back East with a 41-20 victory in the 39th annual classic. The Lions met the challenge like lions. Grant Teaff's Southwest Conference champions, in their first Cotton Bowl appearance, played like old hands at this post-season business before the Eastern powers-that-be roared out for the second half, gained the lead, lost it, struck quickly to get it back and wore down the Bruins the rest of the way. The boat rocked in a 3-minute span of the third quarter. The Lions had taken the second-half kickoff and taken to the arm of quarterback Tom Shuman, the game's outstanding offensive player. Throwing strikes of 42 and 20 yards to his tight end Dan Natale, Shuman engineered an 80-yard drive that ended with fullback Tom Donchez (116 yards on 25 carries) diving over from the 1 for the first Lion lead of the game, 10-7, at 10:46 of the third. The scene now shifted to four minutes later. Baylor had punted and Penn State had moved from its 19 to a third-and-15 at the 36. Shuman dropped back, flipped a screen in the right flat to Donchez and the Penn State convoy went 64 yards to the end zone. But back up the field was a flag. Guessing it wasn't dropped casually, Shuman picked it up, threw it in disgust and, after a few words with an official, drew another flag. All this while Donchez was jumping up and down in the end zone. Well, instead of a TD, Penn State was penalized 15 yards for offensive interference (and loss of a down) and another half-the-distance penalty for Shuman's scene – back to the 12. OK, they punted and after three plays they were behind again. Baylor scored on a 36-yard pass play from Neal Jeffrey that was tipped on the 1 by PSU defender Mike Johnson and landed in the arms of Baylor's Ricky Thompson, who kept his eyes glued to the ball. The PAT made it 14-10 for the Bruins with 4:23 left in the third. That stood up less than a minute. Two plays prior, Baylor's free safety Kenny Quesenberry, who had been a defensive demon all day and was voted the top defensive star for the game, went out with a knee injury. Striking quickly, Shuman went deep on the second play after the kickoff and found standout freshman winger Jimmy Cefalo behind Scooter Reed – with no help from the safety – at the 9, and Cefalo sprinted in with a 49-yard TD reception. Penn State had regained the lead at a critical time (17-14) and the Bears had begun to faintly hear a ringing in their ears. The Lions kept the offense wide open and wore down the Bear defense the rest of the way, while Baylor began to make errors, pressing to get the lead back. Penn State scored again early in the fourth quarter, Baylor failed to move after the TD and the Lions clicked off a 68-yard, 9-play drive that featured the running of third-team halfback Neil Hutton. Cefalo also carried twice in the drive, for 21 yards and the final three, as the Lions moved to a 24-14 advantage. On their next series, they moved from their 29 to the Bear 16. Baylor stopped 'em and Chris Bahr booted a 33-yard field goal (27-14) with 6:17 left in the game. On the first play after the kickoff, Johnson, who had tipped that TD pass to Thompson earlier, atoned himself. He intercepted a Jeffrey pass on the BU 33 and carted it back to the 18. Aided by a pass interference penalty in the end zone, the Lions scored with 3:27 to go with Shuman going over from the two on a busted play, the kick making it 34-14.
The onside kickoff bounded 10 yards all right, but charging Joe Jackson of the Lions met it on the run, broke through the still charging Green Wave and was gone for the touchdown. "They took it away from us in the fourth quarter," Teaff said. "I don't believe they are that much better than us, and I don't think we played to the best of our abilities. "However," he emphasized, "they are a great football team." Shuman finished his day's work by hitting 10 of 20 passes for 226 yards and Cefalo caught three of them for 102 yards. Donchez also had four catches for 50. Both teams did a lot of driving with little results in the first half, with both defensive bunches stiffening at opportune times. The Baylor defenders held at their own 14 to force a missed field goal early, caused a fumble at their 18 that set off BU's touchdown drive, held at their 34, and held again at their 9 to force a 25-yard field goal by Bahr. Baylor began the first scoring drive with 4:54 left in the first period when Tommy Turnipseede recovered a Donchez fumble on the Bruin 16. Tailback Steve Beaird popped loose for 20 on the first play, and Green was off. Jeffrey hit Beaird for a 7-yard gain on third and 6 at the Lion 34, and on two successive third-downs-and-3, Penn State jumped offside – and the 20 and again at the 9, Beaird knifed in from the 4 with just 41 seconds left in the first quarter to cap the 84-yard, 11-play trip. That was Baylor's only serious threat of the half, as they failed to move with a Penn State fumble at the Lion 40 in the second quarter. Penn State showed a number of offensive sets, including a wing-T, double-wing and straight-T in short yardage situations in putting up 491 yards total offense. "We moved off the line and off the ball as well as we have all year," coach Joe Paterno conceded. On the other side, the Lions shut down Beaird in the second half, limiting him to 12 yards on 7 carries in the final 30 minutes after he bore out 72 yards on 14 trips in the first half. Jeffrey did not have one of his better passing days, missing targets in the second half and finishing up with 7 of 19 for 135 yards and two interceptions. "Neal wasn't so sharp as he has been," Teaff conceded, "but we have nothing to be ashamed of in losing. "You are still the Southwest Conference champions," he told his team. "You learn something from everything." Though one of them might be that all dreams don't come true, the Bears have got to figure they're still way ahead of the game. Only the Big Sleep lasts forever. They realized most of theirs in a year. Some folks had been waiting 50.
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Penn State's Tom Shuman back to pass under Baylor pressure.
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Steve Beaird carries for Baylor. |
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Baylor Coach Grant Teaff talks strategy with players. |
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Attendance- 68,500
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There
are, as the Baylor Bears learned Wednesday afternoon in the Cotton Bowl,
certain inalienable precepts in the Book of Dreams. One being that
they've all gotta end sooner or later. 
Teaff
sent in the second team and the Bears got another six on a 70-yard
drive, with sub QB Mark Jackson hitting tight end Sam Harper for two
14-yard gains and laying it out for a diving catch by Thompson in the
end zone with only 14 seconds to go. The try for two failed and a Baylor
effort to make it back on the board backfired. 
