Armed Forces Bowl
Coach Troy Calhoun, left, and quarterback Haaziq Daniels receive their trophies after the game.
A sign stood at attention near the entry points of Amon G. Carter Stadium on Thursday night with a rule governing fans who might want to leave for a cup of coffee housed in a thermos or maybe, better yet, a sniff of Jameson waiting in the car glove box.
“No re-entry.”
No problem.
For perhaps the first time ever at TCU, Baylor wasn’t the unwelcome visitor on campus. That happened to be a very ill-natured Mother Nature from the Arctic regions who brought the whole clan.
She roared into town earlier in the day with a biting, burning, penetrating cold, and a north wind from hell frozen over.
The coldest Armed Forces Bowl, between Cincinnati and Marshall, was played at 28 degrees with a wind chill 15 in 2004.
That chortling you hear is Santa Claus. That’s kid stuff, that 15 degrees.
Our bowl ancestors designed these postseason bowl games for the south and west because of the favorable climes in winter. Our bowl forefathers didn’t account, or didn’t care, about “every so often.”
That’s why on Thursday night, the coldest-ever recorded bowl game was in Fort Worth, Texas: 11 degrees with a wind chill near 0.
That’s Fahrenheit.
Baylor coach Dave Aranda said before the game that dealing with this kind of stuff is mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
“There have been games in all of our past with our players where you can’t feel your fingers anymore,” Aranda said. “You can’t say the words you want to say because your mouth doesn’t work anymore and your toes are cold."
Not so fast, my friend. That’s called tempting fate.
The MVPs of the 20th edition of the Bowl for the Brave were the approximate 7,000 or 9,000 (organizers wouldn’t say exactly) who showed to watch Air Force, making an Armed Forces Bowl-record sixth appearance, defeat Baylor 30-15. You had to really like football to make it through this one, and, not surprisingly, not many did make it back for the second half. By the fourth quarter, in all likelihood, only family members of players remained.
There are some who blame industry and Bessie and all their co-conspirators for this kind of weather event, but this on Thursday was something resembling 1899.
I wasn’t there, of course, but The Great Arctic Outbreak of 1899 that swept across the south must have been quite the b-i-t-c-h. She brought with her to Fort Worth a record low of minus-8 degrees on Feb. 12. That thing was so bad that bird populations were threatened. In Henderson County, Tennessee, for example, the bluebird population didn’t survive. Completely extinct, they say. The Chipping sparrow and the Pine warbler were on life support.
That was all caused undoubtedly by the carbon footprint of Standard Oil.
Extinct in this surge of Arctic wrath: Baylor’s offense, which never answered the bell for Round 1. Who could blame them?
Actually, in reality, if you were headed north, into that wind, you were in trouble. An Alaskan Malamute would have had trouble going that way.
Baylor had first crack at it in the first quarter and achieved only 29 yards. In the third quarter, the Bears had 13 yards.
Air Force fared slightly better with 39 and 77 while driving north in the second and fourth quarters.
The way Air Force plays was a factor in this game, too. The Falcons’ run-based game was ideal for the conditions. Air Force ran 74 plays to Baylor’s 49. Air Force possessed the ball 40 minutes to the Bears’ not-quite 20. Baylor couldn’t do any of that kind of running.
Ultimately, the game was decided in the third quarter. While Baylor was grounded — heading north — Air Force outscored the Bears 14-0 and outgained them 165-13.
The Bears had accrued 151 total yards with 4:25 remaining. Heading south and down 30-7, they marched 85 yards for a score. Quarterback Blake Shapen hit Jaylen Ellis 57 yards for the big play, and Shapen found Gavin Holmes for 15 yards and a Bears touchdown.
That was the only life the Pine Warblers, err, Bears offense showed all night.
“I was disappointed on a whole offensively,” Aranda said afterward. “In previous games there was more juice and excitement. I was way disappointed in the lack of that. I think it really starts with the run game. That is the identity of our offense. A lot of credit goes to Air Force. We didn’t hold up to our side of the bargain.”
Air Force quarterback Haaziq Daniels was the game’s most outstanding player. He accounted for 86 yards rushing and a touchdown and 103 yards on 4-of-7 passing and a touchdown. He set up his 2-yard rushing plunge with a 68-yard hookup with Amari Terry.
Baylor likely doesn’t want to see or hear of TCU for a while. The Bears were predicted to be the conference champions in the preseason.
It’s as if the heavens were speaking.
We remember what happened to them this season in Waco. That last second field goal drained all the water out of the Brazos.
Now this, a losing record, and Mother Nature’s role in it.
“There’s a lot to improve on,” Aranda said.
Starting with the weather.
How does Santa do this?