Switzer Enjoys A Moment Too as Dallas Wins : Pro football: Cowboys roll over Steelers, 26-9, in coach’s NFL debut.

On a day the dark clouds around Barry Switzer finally broke, there were plenty of people with whom the bellicose coach of the Dallas Cowboys could have compared himself.

Knute Rockne. Tom Landry. Jimmy Johnson?

Instead, he chose a pot-bellied fan who stormed the Three Rivers Stadium field in the fourth period Sunday, halting play and eluding policemen for several minutes.

“I turned to Joe (Avezzano, an assistant) and said, ‘You know, that guy’s enjoying the moment,’ ” Switzer said. “And I thought, that’s me. Just standing there, enjoying the moment.”

After his Cowboys defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, 26-9, on Sunday, Switzer allowed himself another subtle observation.

“This is bigger than Texas and Oklahoma,” he gushed.

OK, so he is not your usual coach. The Cowboys reminded everybody Sunday that they are not your usual team.

After an off-season rife with distracting controversies and changes, facing questions about everything from their defense to their heart, the two-time defending Super Bowl champions met a worthy contender on their own turf . . . and whipped them into West Virginia.

“If we had lost this game, everybody was out there waiting to tear our heads off,” said Cowboy owner Jerry Jones, both excitement and relief evident in his rising voice. “I feel funny saying this about a first game . . . but we needed this one.”

Switzer also felt it.

“People were saying that this game was bigger to me than it would have been to Jimmy (former Cowboy coach Johnson),” Switzer said. “Well, they were right. I really wanted to win this.”

Even the players felt it.

“A lot of us had some doubts in our mind,” safety Darren Woodson said.

He paused, smiled, and added, “But I guess today erased all those doubts.”

And set a record of sorts for Switzer, making him the first Cowboy coach--there have only been three--to win his debut. Landry didn’t do it. Johnson didn’t do it.

It helped that the Cowboys gained more than three times as many yards as the Steelers, 442-126.

The Cowboys had the ball for eight drives before running out the clock at the end of the game. They scored on six.

And that maligned defense? It held the Steelers to 30 yards in the first half and finished with nine sacks, the most by the Cowboys in nearly seven years.

Now , pleaded Emmitt Smith, who gained 171 yards and scored on a two-yard touchdown dive, will everyone please stop leaving us for dead?

“You guys right now are looking at us like we’re diseased or something,” Smith said to the assembled media. “If you guys just leave us alone and quit looking for the nit-picking things and trying to tear us apart, we’ll be fine.”

Those people looking for stumbles from Switzer--only most of the football-watching nation--were mostly disappointed.

He said the right thing before the game, challenging the defense to overcome the idea that it was gutted with the off-season losses of Ken Norton Jr., Jimmie Jones and Tony Casillas.

“He talked about how the defense doesn’t ever get any respect . . . he got us going,” said defensive end Charles Haley, who had four sacks, the most by a Cowboy in nearly seven years and equaling his total of last season.

And Switzer said the right thing at halftime, with the Cowboys leading, 16-3, after outgaining the Steelers, 231 yards to 30.

“Said about one sentence,” Woodson said. “Said, ‘Go out there and keep playing good.’ That was it.”

By the time the game ended, the longtime Oklahoma coach had not once used the Wishbone. He even allowed quarterback Troy Aikman to pass, and was rewarded with a 21-of-32 performance for 245 yards and a touchdown, with one interception of a deflection.

OK, so during most of the sideline strategy sessions, Switzer was standing five yards from the huddle.

He did make the first important call, the one that everyone would have used to compare him to Johnson. On a fourth-and-one play from the Steeler 41 at the start of the second quarter, he went for the first down.

Just like Jimmy.

And just like on Jimmy’s two Super Bowl champions, Smith responded with a three-yard run for a first down, keeping alive a drive that ended in one of rookie Chris Boniol’s four field goals.

“The right call,” owner Jones said.

Said Switzer: “Shoot, I’ve made tougher calls just cutting people this week.”

The best calls, as usual, were the ones that gave the ball to Smith, who is aiming for his fourth consecutive rushing title.

Awakening a shaky offense that incurred three offsides penalties in its first two drives, Smith began the third drive with a 46-yard run over all-pro tackle Erik Williams.

The Cowboys finished that drive with a two-yard touchdown pass that broke their doldrums while illustrating the best of the Cowboy resiliency.

Aikman lofted a pass to the right side of the end zone just as he was leveled by Kevin Greene. Daryl Johnston, not nicknamed “Moose” for his footwork, made a leaping catch that ended in a somersault.

That gave the Cowboys a 13-3 lead. The rest of the game was mostly comprised of Neil O’Donnell, the rattled Steeler quarterback, running out of bounds for lost yards.

None of which was new to Switzer, he claimed.

“I knew about all this,” he said. “Heck, I sat on my couch and watched the Cowboys for five years.”