Thursday, September 19, 1996

Lots of teams to talk about before it's too late

By LANCE FLEMING
Staff Writer

Hop on and let's go, we've got a lot to go over:

-- Will somebody wake the Dallas Cowboys and tell them their season's slowly slipping by them?
Sunday's tank job at home has to rank as one of the team's worst home losses in the last 10 years (excluding, of course, the 1989 debacle).

An 18-point lead blown in less than 11/2 quarters left the Cowboys at 1-2 and facing a crucial two-game stretch at Buffalo and at Philadelphia. Dallas is in a situation where even splitting one of those two would at least keep it alive in the race for home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs.

And if you think it's too early to start worrying about that, think again.

If Dallas falls to 1-4, it will be a long climb back, even with Michael Irvin in the fold. That's because Dallas still faces a late-season stretch in which it plays at Miami, at home against Philly, at San Francisco and at home against Green Bay.

Those games will be crucial in what happens to the Cowboys this season. That's why winning Sunday's game was so important; the Cowboys aren't talented enough to give games away and still win the Super Bowl, like they were in 1993 when they basically gave away three of the four games they lost and still won the championship.

Of course, this team is still talented enough to win its next two, hit the bye week at 3-2, get Irvin back and beat up on Arizona and Atlanta at home before its crucial four-game stretch.
But whatever happens over the course of the next month, you can bet it'll be exciting.

-- For you novice Ranger fans, this shrinking lead and choke job is what us experienced Ranger followers have been expecting for at least two months.

Texas rolled along for four months with the game's most consistent offense, best defense and solid pitching staff until it got to crunch time. Now the offense can't score, the defense can't be counted on and the pitching has gone south.

If the Rangers blow this one - and don't think they can't - they might not contend for another 26 years.

-- After some thorough checking, I can report there's no truth to the rumor that Prairie View A&M is trying to get Texas A&M on its 1997 schedule as a last-second replacement for Texas Southern.
Hard to believe, but for the second straight year, the preseason prognosticators completely missed the mark on the Aggies.

Last year the Aggies were preseason Top 5 even though they had zero offense outside of Leeland McElroy, and the Colorado defense proved that he was too small to take the constant pounding a full-time tailback has to take. And this year the Aggies were picked by some to be in the Big 12 title game based on the strength of their defense.

What defense?

The "Wrecking Crew" has turned into the "Wrecked Crew" at the hands of BYU and lowly Southwestern Louisiana. The secondary is horrible, partly because the front seven isn't putting nearly as much pressure on the quarterback as it has in the past.

Combine the porous defense with the offense's inability to hang on to the ball, and unless things change dramatically, it might be a long year down in Aggie Land.

-- My, how things change.

It's been 11 years since Abilene High garnered any attention in the Associated Press Top 10, and that came when it was ranked No. 10 in the state after three weeks.

Since then times have been tough at AHS as the Eagles have won just 26 games since 1985, and 13 of those came in 1986 and 1987.

But Abilene High's 2-0 start was good enough to garner seven votes, just one less than Midland Lee, have the Eagles ranked 17th in the state. While AHS head coach Steve Warren certainly doesn't think his team has gotten that good this fast, he'd rather be here than where the Eagles were last year.