Cotton recollections
Texas Tech coach Mike Leach and Mississippi coach Houston Nutt were asked during a Tuesday news conference about their recollections of the Cotton Bowl. Leach’s stories stemmed from the Texas-Oklahoma Red River Rivalry played in the same stadium instead of the traditional New Year’s Day game.

Either way, they broke up the room.

“I’m thinking of an exchange that took place — I didn’t see it firsthand — with Barry Switzer, Darrell Royal and President Gerald Ford,” Leach said, describing the three coming out of the Cotton Bowl tunnel. “And a fan starts screaming, ‘Who are those two guys with Switzer?’ ”

Leach, the Sooners’ offensive coordinator in 1999, recounted how the excitement of that year’s UT-OU game in the Cotton Bowl got the better of game officials and OU wide receiver Antwone Savage as he headed for the end zone after a reception.

“He gets so excited to score that touchdown, he drops that ball or spikes it — I’m not kidding you — on the 2-yard line,” Leach said. “He goes on in there, and the refs were as excited as Antwone Savage was. You know, (signaling) touchdown. To this day, that touchdown’s never come close to being scored. We figured we had our hands full coaching, so we weren’t going to mess around with officiating, too. So we ended up with the touchdown and went from there.”

Leach claims during the same game that his OU staff tried to trick Texas with phony paperwork.

“Just for the heck of it, we left a script laying around,” Leach said. “It was a dummy script, and we just like left it on the field. I don’t know if they looked at the script or actually tried to birddog us (with it) at all.”

Prime Time arrival
Former NFL star Deion Sanders was in attendance at the beginning of Tech’s workout Tuesday at Texas Stadium. Tech cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell was a teammate of Sanders’ for three years in Atlanta, and the two chatted for a few moments.

“It was like old times,” Mitchell said. “We never missed a beat.”

Sanders lives in Prosper, a community north of Dallas whose high school won the Class 3A Division I football state championship this year.

Tech who’s who
The Red Raiders could have almost played a varsity-alumni game Tuesday at Texas Stadium — and the varsity might have had its hands full, especially the defense.

Among those watching Tech’s practice were former standouts Donny Anderson, Tyrone Thurman, Carlos Francis, Mickey Peters, Trey Haverty, Sonny Cumbie, Jonathan Hawkins and Kevin Curtis. Former Tech safety John Norman was at Monday’s practice.

Compiled by Don Williams