92 Days till Kickoff: Sending Grant Teaff Off with a 1992 Sun Bowl Victory
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With 92 days until kickoff, let’s look back at the 1992 Baylor football season and the career of the legend guiding that team, Grant Teaff. The ’92 season was Teaff’s final season as head coach of the Bears and he ended on a relative high. The Green and Gold went 7-5 that season, 4-3 in the Southwest Conference, and beat No. 22 Arizona in the Sun Bowl to secure the winning season.
Highlights of ’92 included beating SMU, TCU, and Houston in consecutive weeks as well as topping Texas 21-20.
About that Texas game:
“When I got to Baylor, they hadn't beaten Texas in something like 19 years," said Teaff, who was hired in December 1971 out of Angelo State. "By the time our third year rolled around, we had the so-called 'Miracle on the Brazos.' I always kind of stiffened up at that connotation. I never thought it was a miracle. We intended to do that, so it's not a miracle if you intend to do it."
Same thing on Nov. 21, 1992.
Teaff, and all the players, had no intentions of losing that game.
"The thing that stands out to me is that everybody - from J.J. (Joe) to Melvin Bonner, David Mims, Michael McFarland, Curtis Hafford - none of us wanted Coach Teaff to walk off that field with a loss. There was no way that was going to happen," said Trooper Taylor, a fifth-year defensive back on that team.
- Jerry Hill, BaylorBears.com
Thanks to that win over the Longhorns, the Bears were given a berth at the Sun Bowl in El Paso against No. 22 Arizona.
With a 20-15 win against the Wildcats, the Bears were able to send coach Teaff off in a manner befitting a Baylor legend: carried of the field on the shoulders of his victorious players.
Teaff’s final record at Baylor was 128–105–6 and 83–74–4 in the SWC. His teams won the SWC twice (’74 and ’80), the ’79 Peach Bowl, the ’85 Liberty Bowl, the ’86 Bluebonnet Bowl, and the aforementioned ’92 Sun Bowl. The Bears also made 2 Cotton Bowl appearances under Teaff and they finished in the AP top 25 five times.
Teaff remains engaged with Baylor football, even offering his opinion on coach Dave Aranda’s progress with the program through this Spring on SicEm365 Radio with David Smoak.