Cooper Ex "Snows" Them at Baylor

By LANCE FLEMING/Sports Writer

If you've tuned in to any Baylor football games on television recently, you've probably seen a guy wearing No. 83 for the Bears playing defensive end with the name "Snow" stitched on the back of his jersey.

"Can't be Justin Snow from Cooper," you might have thought. "Too big, too quick and too strong to be him."

But it is him, and his play this past spring and this fall have earned him a permanent spot in Baylor's defensive line rotation.

"I expected to rotate, but I didn't expect to be playing as much as I am," said Snow, a redshirt freshman for the 4-4 Bears. "I know that in the past our coach has believed in getting rest for the guys on the defensive line. Talking to some of the older guys, Dwight Johnson and I are getting a lot more playing time than they ever did."

And Snow has made the most of it.

In eight games Snow has 35 tackles (18 unassisted), one tackle for a loss and one sack. He had his best game last Saturday in the loss to Texas with five tackles, including one for a loss, and a sack of Texas quarterback James Brown.

The biggest adjustment for Snow has been the quality of athletes he is now facing.

"I played pretty well the first two or three games," he said, "and then we got into the Big 12. It was hard adjusting to the bigger linemen, because they have more size, strength and speed. I had a decent game against Texas, and things are starting to come back to me."

It's taken a little while because Snow is coming off both a redshirt season and knee surgery.

He spent his freshman year at Baylor getting acclimated to the campus, college life and the weight room. He spent a considerable amount of time in the latter, increasing his weight from 228 to 247, and getting bigger, faster and stronger.

But for a guy who was all-state his senior year (1994), sitting out and watching was hard.

"It was frustrating at the beginning of last season," he said. "I've been used to playing all the time, so sitting out was a difficult adjustment. But it was to my advantage to be in the weight room, getting bigger, faster and stronger.

"I've got new maxes (personal highs) on the weights, and I've gained a tremendous amount of strength," he said.

He played well enough in the spring to make the coaches pencil him into their rotation, but then had knee surgery on April 17 to repair what Snow called "basically a dead spot in my knee."

But he only missed offseason workouts at the end of the year and was back in time for two-a-days. Snow had a few problems with his knee swelling because of the pounding it took, but he got over those in time to start the season.

The Bears started 3-0, lost three straight, beat Iowa State and lost to Texas. They could have won against both Oklahoma and Texas, but key mistakes kept them from coming out on top.

Snow said one thing he and the Bears have had to learn is that playing the likes of Nebraska means having to turn up the intensity notch a few levels.

"The athletes in the Big 12 are so much different than in the Southwest Conference," he said. "The size and speed ... it's intimidating in a way until you go against them and find out they're not much different than anybody else when you get into a game.

"It was a little intimidating going to Nebraska and playing in front of 77,000 people," Snow said. "I'd heard about it from guys who had made the trip before, but it's hard to know what it's like until you've been there. As far as being in that situation, it's a little different than Shotwell Stadium. All you see is red and white, and they were all screaming like maniacs."

Snow said he thinks the Bears are getting better, but haven't been able to put it all together yet.

"Right now I think we're learning; we've gotten better each game," he said. "Looking at the Nebraska game and then the Texas game, we've gotten much more physical. We've improved a lot, but we're not where we want to be. But we're taking steps each week to get better, and that's what means the most."