Program History
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2018 BAYLOR FOOTBALL @BUFOOTBALL PROGRAM HISTORY Baylor’s football program celebrates its 120th it, and demurred. With its ‘wild card’ from the was becoming known as Bears and Baylor itself year of existence and its 117th season in 2018. coloring book in the game, Baylor rallied to was becoming part of a new conference, the The school has fielded a varsity team each year win the game, 23-8, amid what was reported to Southwest Conference. since 1899 save the 1906, 1943 and 1944 seasons. be ‘bitterness and confusion’ on the part of the The new league was formed on May 6 of that Baylor first began playing football in 1899 TCU team and its supporters. The city of Waco year with football competition scheduled to be- and started putting together a history that was was a little noisy that evening. This, by the way, gin in 1915. Baylor, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, not all that bad considering the times. Baylor’s is a report from the files of TCU. No reference to Texas A&M, Oklahoma A&M and Southwestern first five teams all finished with better than .500 Mr. Fouts strip act is to be found in the Baylor University were charter members. Rice was ac- records. After 14 years of football, and there was book.” cepted provisionally and did participate in 1915, one season (1906) when Baylor did not field a One more Baylor game from that era de- but then backed out for 1916 and 1917 before team, the university was on the topside of the mands attention. In 1910, Baylor met Texas in joining the league to stay in 1918. scoreboard with an overall mark of 50-44-11 Waco. Baylor was coached by Ralph Glaze, a Mosley did not have a good season in his while being tutored by 10 different head coach- former All-America end at Dartmouth. Texas inaugural year as head coach in Baylor’s final es. It had not won any conference champion- had a new coach, William S. (“Billy”) Wasmund, season as an independent. Indeed, his team was ships but then there was no way it could do so; a former quarterback at Michigan for Fielding only 3-5-2. Perhaps his inheritance was not all it did not compete in a conference. “Hurry Up” Yost. The Baylor and Texas coaches that great. The previous season the team tied as However, several outcomes prior to forma- clashed fiercely before the game about which many games as it won (three). So Mosley’s first tion of the Southwest Conference should be of the officials should be the referee and run season was hardly an accurate signal of things mentioned by anyone exploring a history of the game. Wasmund won the argument and his to come. He stayed around as head coach for Baylor football. choice was Vanderbilt ex Dan Blake, who had six seasons, guiding the Bears through the 1919 In that first year of Baylor football, the Uni- played for a coach at Vanderbilt who also was a campaign, and his overall record was 30-18-4. versity’s gridiron representatives played TCU to Yost product. His winning pace of 62.5 percent would be a 0-0 tie. The game was played in Waco and for The game was tied at 6-6 in the first half but exceeded by only his successor, Frank Bridges an excellent reason. Both schools were located in as Baylor players and their coach saw it, Blake (66 percent) and by George Sauer (1950-55) who Waco. However, TCU in that era was known as was giving Texas all the better of it in his calls. won at a 64 percent rate. “AddRan” College; the school’s name was not On one occasion, Baylor had a chance to score But Mosley did something that would be- officially changed to “Texas Christian Universi- and go ahead after getting a Texas fumble. But come a rarity in Baylor football coaching circles; ty” until 1902, and by then the team’s nickname Blake got in the way of the Baylor player who he won a share of the conference championship was already “Horned Frogs.” When the two appeared to be touchdown bound and slowed in 1915 while leading the newly-named Bears schools met in 1901, Baylor won a 39-0 victory him up just enough for a Texas player to run to a 7-1 record overall and a 3-0 mark in league on Nov. 23 and later that season defeated TCU him down from behind at the UT 18. Later in the play. Unbeaten Oklahoma had much the better (or AddRan), 42-9. game, with Texas in possession at the Baylor 12, overall record (10-0) but the Sooners also were TCU finally defeated Baylor for the first time UT quarterback Arnold Kirkpatrick dropped the 3-0 in league competition and thus Baylor and in 1904, 5-0, but in 1907 came the strangest ball while trying to pass and Baylor end Riley Oklahoma were declared the new league’s verdict of all. The TCU record book shows a Hefley picked up the ball and started to run co-champions. victory for the Frogs, 11-10. But for a number of with it. According to a history of Longhorn foot- Alas, that decision did not stand. Baylor offi- years the Baylor record book listed that outcome ball written by longtime Austin American-States- cials did some checking and discovered one of as a victory for Baylor, 10-9. In his history of the man Lou Mayself, “Referee Blake jumped in their players was a transfer from another college Southwest Conference (“Football, Texas Style”) and stopped him, declaring the play was dead and thus not eligible to have played that season. published by Doubleday & Company in 1964, because the ball had struck Blake. Two of the According to Tips’ history, Baylor offered to Kern Tips, the man widely regarded as the other three officials sided with Baylor but Blake turn back the title but Oklahoma, “knowing this, greatest radio voice SWC football ever knew, stuck to his decision, whereupon Glaze refused made no effort to claim the title in dispute for offered this explanation: to let his team continue and eventually took it itself; and aside from the fact that, for want of a “At issue is whether or not TCU actually off the field.” second to Baylor’s offer to quit-claim the cham- tackled a Baylor ball carrier in his own end zone Or as Tips puts it in his history, “Owing to pionship, the conference did then and still does for a safety late in the game. Reports say that a rank decision by an official, Coach Glaze re- list the Bears as the first conference champions.” the officials disagreed among themselves, as the fused to continue and took his team off the field, However, while the two teams continued to goal line had disappeared in the dusty action, ending the game.” be listed at the top of the 1915 standings, the and were still debating the issue while the teams Texas went home with a victory now offi- roster and record book published by the SWC in and spectators went home to supper with their cially recorded as a 1-0 win although the Baylor later years noted that “Baylor forfeited claim to own convictions about the final score.” record book for years listed it as a 6-6 tie. But a co-championship for using ineligible player.” HISTORY Another interesting Baylor-TCU outcome postscript is worth noting. Baylor had a mighty It was a zany start for the new league. (and remember, at this time both institutions lineman that season, a future Rhodes Scholar The following season brought another zany were located in Waco; TCU did not move to Fort named E.T. Adams, better known as “Bull” development. Texas was 5-1 for league play Worth until 1910 after the school’s main build- Adams. He had scored Baylor’s only touchdown and 7-2 overall. Baylor was 3-1 in conference ing in Waco had burned) came in 1908. TCU had in that game when he grabbed a Texas fumble competition (the lone loss being to Texas A&M, already won the first two games played between and ran 20 yards with it. When Glaze decided to 3-0), but 9-1 for the season. The league decided the two schools that season. They decided to take his team off the field, the raging and defiant no champion would be recognized. play a third one on Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving Adams initially refused to go. As folklore has it, Baylor would not enjoy another really banner Day). TCU led at halftime, 8-6. Baylor, by then he challenged Texas to run its future plays only season until the early 1920s and by then the downright hungry for a victory over the Frogs, between the tackles. If the Longhorns would do Bears were under the direction of Frank Bridg- did an unusual thing. John Fouts, Baylor’s star so, he would take on the visitors by himself. es, of whom it was written (by the longtime left end, put on blue stockings (blue was then a Texas declined and went home with its 1-0 regional sports editor of The Associated Press, TCU color) but kept on his Baylor gray jersey. victory. And Baylor was left with its only defeat Harold V. Ratliff, in his book, “I Shook the Then, according to the Tips’ accounting, “after that season. Hand”): “Cocky little Frank Bridges qualified the second-half kickoff he raced to the sidelines, Glaze would not enjoy another winning as the puck of sportdom.