Page 10A THE BATTALION
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1979
‘We were terrible 9
Lions not ready for speed
By MARK PATTERSON
Battalion Sports Staff
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA. —
Three thousand miles and a day
later, it’s still hard to believe that
the Texas Aggies won a football
game against Penn State. You just
don’t go visiting at Joe Paterno’s
house and come away winners. But
the Aggie’s beat the odds and
Paterno this Saturday.
Wielding a 22-caliber weapon in
Curtis Dickey, the Aggies mugged
Paterno and the Nittany Lions in a
fashion unfamiliar to folks in that
part of the country. After all.
Southwest Conference schools don’t
beat Paterno’s boys. In his 14-year
head coaching career, Joe had never
lost to a SWC team. But then, his
Nittany Lions had never played the
Aggies.
Was it a matter of the Aggies
being that good or Penn State being
that bad? Paterno feels it was the
latter.
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“It was just one of those days
when everything we did went
wrong,” Paterno said after the loss,
Penn State’s first in its last 12 games
in Beaver Stadium. “There were a
lot of big plays, but they all went to
A&M.
“You don’t get big plays until you
earn the short ones. We were not
ready to do that today, down-by
down.
“We were just terrible. We didn’t
tackle and we didn’t block. If you
don’t do either, you aren’t going to
win many football games. ”
The Lions did enough of both last
week to dominate Rutgers 45-10 in
their season opener. It was an im
pressive enough win to rate PSU as
the sixth-best team in the country
before the Aggie game. Possibly,
with the big opening win, the Lions
were lulled into a false sense of se
curity.
“We were spoiled with the easy
win last week,” Paterno admitted.
“We were too pleased with our
selves. We knew what we wanted to
do but we didn’t have a lot of emo
tion in practice this week.
“We just weren’t ready for a dog
fight. We weren’t ready to get in a
dig-it-out ball game.”
The loss will be long remembered
by Penn State fans long after this
season is over. And if their
memories lapse, all they have to do
is refer to their football record books
to be reminded of “The Aggie Con
quering of Mount Nittany.”
Dickey’s 184-yard performance
was the most yards gained by any
back against the Lions since North
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Carolina State’s Ted Brown rushed
for 251 in 1977.
With his three touchdowns,
Dickey became the third player to
ever rush for three touchdowns
against the Lions. Johnny Castan of
Boston University did it in 1951 and
Bill Gary of Ohio University did it in
1970.
Not since the 1970 season, when
Syracuse beat the Lions 24-7, has
PSU been beaten this badly at
home.
The offensive records were set
against a defense that sports a pair of
All-Americas at the defensive tackle
positions. Going into the A&M
game, the Penn State defense was
rated as the second best unit in the
country. Dickey, Mike Mosley and
company helped pop the PSU de
fense’s bubble.
“The worst thing that could have
happened happened,” All-America
tackle Matt Millen said after the
loss. “Now we have to go back and
start all over, just like the beginning
of the season. We re just not as good
a team as everyone thinks we are.
We re not together.
“Their running game just got to
the outside on us. They showed
their speed getting around the end
and heading upfield. I can run a 9.3
(hundred-yard dash) but I can’t run
a 9.2. I guess it showed today.”
Millen’s partner in pain, Bruce
Clark, echoed Paterno’s feelings
about the mental attitude of PSU.
“We went into the game cautious,
maybe a bit too cautious,” Clark
said. “We knew that, with any play
they ran, they could break open the
game. It was like we were waiting
for them to do it. We’ve never run
into a team that had backs of that
caliber before.”
The party’s over but the memory
still lingers. It was a festive atmo
sphere on the plane home Sunday.
The Aggies on board were laughing,
yelling and singing from Three-Mile
Island to Houston. It was a victory
that meant more than any in recent
years.
What it means in the fixture re
mains to be seen.
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I
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THE BATT
DOES IT
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Monday
through Friday
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What difference can a week
make? The Texas A&M Aggies and
Baylor Bears have the answer.
So do the Rice Owls for that mat
ter, as does Jim Bob Taylor, the
young man with the storybook name
who not long ago was a nervous
emergency backup quarterback and
now has become a not-so-nervous
starter.
It was only a week earlier that
Baylor had mopped up on Texas
A&M in their Southwest Confer
ence opener. The Bears had run the
ball well and the Aggies had fum
bled it well. Baylor had momentum
and the Aggies were down going
into confrontations with two of the
nation’s powerhouses.
This time around, however, it was
Texas A&M pulling off the
monumental victory — stunning
sixth-ranked Penn State with three
touchdowns by sprinter Curtis
Dickey in a 27-14 decision.
Baylor, meanwhile, was embaras-
sed by No. 2 Alabama, 45-0, turning
the ball over eight times in the pro-
“This, of course, is probably the
greatest win in Texas A&M football
history,” said coach Tom Wilson,
whose club had lost its first two out
ings after being ranked in the pre
season top 20.
“Our guys could have decided to
shove it in and wait until next year.
Or they could have waited for
someone other than Penn State to
start the season against. They didn’t
and that’s a tribute to these guys.”
Baylor, losing for the first time
this year, surrendered 431 yards on
the ground and the Bears could not
do a thing offensively since they
gave up six interceptions and two
fumbles.
“We just couldn’t make a first
down,” said Baylor coach Grant
Teaff. “A lot of credit has to go to
their defense. It’s one of the finest
we’ve played against since I’ve been
at Baylor.”
Things took a nasty turn for the
Rice Owls as well. After coming up
with one of its infrequent victories
the week before against Tulane,
Rice was lambasted by 17th-ranked
LSU, 47-3.
But the saga of Jim Bob Taylor has
a happier ending — at least so far.
Taylor, the SMU quarterback who
had to come in to replace the in
jured Mike Ford a week ago, got his
first start Saturday night against
North Texas State.
Taylor performed almost per
fectly, completing five of the six
passes he threw — one for a
touchdown — and directing a
ground game that rolled up 380
yards in SMU’s 20-9 victory.
Charles Wagoner, one of SMU’s
stable of freshman running backs,
scored once and picked up 184
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LEVELS
iveland Bn
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yards, most ever for a Mi dium crow
freshman. ight muc j
“Taylor was close to magnj us on t he
said SMU coach Ron Meyer, c ] u jj
Mustangs are unbeaten it w i3 0 y S a nc
games. “He was poised ani )wns
under control. I was please; \lthough
him. jtdry and
Things went about as eij tigliano
around the rest of Southw y re very
ference. Well, almost as erpi iltiple tali
The fourth-ranked Texas iitt, both
horns, playing their first] yve spent
looked sluggish on offense al ingtofigur
but their rugged defense 1 ler’s quarte
pull out a 17-9 win over Iowa (Brian) Sip
Sixteenth-ranked Arkansas y well,
with ease over Oklahoma chdown p;
27-7, and TCU —after jm; ■ Browns ti
early lead — fell to li ndeed Sip
33-19. Texas Tech and Arizort irterback i
expected to be about even ant ! National
how they wound up — a 1411 yed brillias
lock. e Browns
|tories in
broke for 69 yards in the firsfi! 65 /^ 5 , 111
ter to tie the game at 7-7 atm 16 I s \
that point it was all A&M.)
went on to gain 184 yards a
twice more on runs of 11 i
yards.
“We weren’t ready emotii
said Penn State coach Joe I
“We were horrible,”
This week Baylor (2-1/1
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since it hosts Texas Tech (
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Programs,
AS AGGIE PLAYER OF THE WEEK!
Aggie tailback Curtis Dickey is
this week’s Swensens’ star of the
week for his great game against
Penn State. Dickey rushed for 184
yards on 31 carries and three
touchdowns as the Aggies upset the
Nittany Lions, 27-14. Dickey
passed Texas’ Chris Gilbert to
move into the fourth spot on the
SWC all-time rushing list with
3,255 yards. Dickey is only the
third player to score three
touchdowns rushing in a game
against Penn State.
Curtis Dickey
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