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Friday, September 06, 2002

Most of that old Aggies gang is here. R.C. Slocum will coach Texas A&M from the sideline tomorrow, same as he did that winter in 1989, when these two teams last met. Bob Davie will work from the press box tomorrow, not as Slocum's defensive coordinator the way he did back then, but as ESPN's color commentator. And Kevin Smith, the cornerback who tried to defend that bowl-winning Pitt pass, will broadcast this interesting little autumn affair on radio from Alpine to Wichita Falls.

They all go back to that Dec. 30 13 years ago. To that John Hancock Bowl in old El Paso. To that fork in Pitt's road to football fortunes.

"The one thing that really jumps out at me is sitting in our locker room when that game ended," Davie recalled this week, the memory still blue-sky clear. "The coaches were saying that Pitt the next year had a legitimate chance to be a national championship team. There were that many good-looking athletes on their team. They looked like a team ready to explode."

How prophetic it was.

Not about the national contention.

The part about Pitt's detonation.

Varying athletic directors and university presidents spent most of the next decade trying to piece together the rubble from the self-implosion that followed. The once proud Oakland program went kerplooey. Meantime, the Aggies of College Station, Texas, went on to 10 bowl games in 11 seasons, including four Cottons and one Sugar -- all under Slocum, all with admirable consistency and unwavering administration support.

As the two teams prepare to meet again, at noon tomorrow inside Heinz Field, let the previous Texas A&M-Pitt contest be a lesson to y'all.

First of all, despite what Chancellor Wesley Posvar uttered in front of the pregame locker-room cameras that day, there was no way he could name Paul Hackett or anybody "the permanent head coach."

Sure, the players loved Hackett, who brought NFL detail to college and fun to practice. Academicians loved Hackett, who wanted to turn the program into the Stanford of the East. Athletic Director Ed Bozik and Posvar loved Hackett, who beat out Barry Alvarez (interviewed by Bozik's assistant) and Dave Wannstedt (interviewed at an airport) in a "nationwide" search that barely escaped the shadows of the Cathedral of Learning.

Funny, those two coaches turned out rather well, with Wisconsin and the Miami Dolphins. But back then, Pitt had a habit of hastily settling upon the BMOC -- best man on campus. Like Foge Fazio shortly before him, Hackett was handed a job for which he had no prior experience, and just hours before bowl kickoff.

Hackett overcame in that daunting first game. In the face of a higher-ranked foe, the Gottfried fallout, the interview process, the recruiting and the micromanagement of a fragile football team, it was Hackett who ruled the overcast day inside Sun Bowl stadium. His Pitt team raced to a 24-10 lead. "They were loaded up then," quarterback Alex Van Pelt said of an Aggies bunch that had future NFL starters Aaron Wallace and William Thomas at linebacker, Aaron Glenn and Smith at cornerback. "I remember going in thinking, 'Aw shoot, we're going to get smoked.' The added excitement of naming Paul the coach before the game, that got everybody going."

Slocum, in his first season replacing Jackie Sherrill, steadily directed the Aggies as they rallied to a 28-24 lead. Then came Sprint Route Z-Square Route and 33 Double Psycho Silver. All these years later, Van Pelt and Davie still remember the offensive and defensive play calls.

Van Pelt told receiver Henry Tuten to watch for the deep sideline pattern if the Aggies cornerback pressed, which Smith did. Davie told his Wrecking Crew to blitz both outside linebackers, which explains why Wallace blindsided and decked Van Pelt on the short rollout. But Van Pelt's pass trickled through Smith's arms, and Tuten scored a 44-yard, bowl-winning touchdown that gave his quarterback the Pitt single-season passing record for yardage, previously owned by Dan Marino.

The giddy Panthers -- among them eight future NFL starters -- carried Hackett off the field on their shoulders, 31-28 victors. That spring, Texas A&M flew in the entire Pitt staff to exchange ideas, mostly about the 530 yards of offense the one-back attack wreaked upon the Wrecking Crew. "We must've learned more than them," Davie joked.

Nine Panthers starters never made it to the next season, either dismissed by the disciplinarian new coach, turned pro, flunked out or transferred. The team went 3-7-1 after a 2-0 start and 6-5 the next season after a 5-0 start. The micromanaging Hackett even clashed with his own assistants. The program was closer to the Samford of the East. "We underacheived those last couple of years," said Van Pelt, the Buffalo Bills' backup quarterback. "It's disappointing when you look back now, 'Gosh, we had this guy and that guy, how did we go ...'" 12-21-1 through 1992?

Slocum sent three assistants from that bowl confrontation to head coaching jobs -- Davie to Notre Dame, Bob Toledo to UCLA and Mike Sherman to Green Bay -- and sent his son, Shawn, to work as a grad assistant with Hackett the next year. Shawn Slocum coaches the Aggies' defensive backs and special teams nowadays. Hackett, after a post-Pitt stint with Marty Schottenheimer in Kansas City and a flameout as Southern California's head coach, coordinates a New York Jets offense that faces Buffalo Sunday. And Davie works some weeknights in an ESPN studio alongside the academician-clashing, budget-lapsing coach whom Hackett officially replaced Dec. 30, 1989, Mike Gottfried.

"It's unfortunate things didn't work out for Paul at Pitt," said Slocum, who has worked out well in College Station, compiling the second-most victories in Division I-A since 1990 behind only Florida State's Bobby Bowden. "That's how this game works. Sometimes it's things you have control over, sometimes it's not. Paul's a good friend, a good coach. He's an offensive coordinator in the NFL. He's not had any trouble getting a job since he left Pitt. So I think his record speaks for itself."

So does Pitt's.

It took a third coach, a third bowl and a dozen years before the Panthers won another postseason game.

The moral of this history is: The Cathedral shadows should never overtake the program again.

And stay away from BMOCs, permanent coaches and one-game reputations.

Chuck Finder can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1724.