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Baylor overpowering mistake-prone Boise State in Cactus Bowl

By Zach BarnettDec 28, 2016, 12:00 AM EDT
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Baylor has looked nothing like the team that finished on a 6-game losing streak, leading Boise State 21-6 halfway through the Cactus Bowl.

Wide receiver K.D. Cannon has dominated Boise State’s secondary, catching eight passes for 182 yards and two touchdowns — a 30-yarder to open the scoring in the first quarter and a 68-yard connection to stretch the lead to 14-3 with 12:14 to play in the half.

Boise State has shot itself in the foot repeatedly in the first half, as Brett Rypien has tossed two interceptions inside the Baylor 5-yard line. The second pick came inside the end zone and led to an, ahem, controversial 99-yard drive for the Bears’ final score of the half.

Baylor was initially stopped at its own 21 but received new life when Drew Galitz drew a running into the kicker flag, a 5-yard penalty on a 4th-and-4, despite ESPN replays showing clearly no Boise State player actually touched Galitz. The flag stood, though, and JaMychal Hasty ended the 15-play march with a 5-yard scoring dash with 4:19 to play in the half.

Boise State added a second Tyler Rausa field goal with 11 seconds left in the second quarter. The Broncos will receive to open the second half.

Baylor drops fifth straight game as Texas Tech wins high-scoring shootout

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By Bryan FischerNov 25, 2016, 10:09 PM EDT
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There are few things in college football that are a sure thing but betting that Texas Tech and Baylor would get into a shootout on Black Friday was one of them.

The Bears ended up dropping their fifth straight Big 12 game of the season 54-35 to the Red Raiders in a wild game from AT&T Stadium in Arlington that produced points and yards a plenty.

Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes ended his 2016 season by passing for a remarkable 586 yards and six touchdowns, doing most of his damage in a 41 point outburst in the first half. Four of his wideouts finished with over 80 yards through the air, with Keke Coutee leading them all by racking up 221 yards and two scores on just eight catches.

Baylor was no slouch in what amounted to a 7-on-7 game in the Lone Star State, as freshman quarterback Zach Smith threw for 377 yards and three touchdowns in his best game as a starter. His favorite target was Ishmael Zamora, who finished with 155 yards and a touchdown. K.D. Cannon added another 132 yards and two scores through the air as well.

All told, the two teams combined for 89 points, 179 plays, 1,300 yards of total offense, 56 first downs and one long set of game film for the coaches to break down over the weekend.

Yet in the Big 12 this season, especially in games involving Baylor and Texas Tech, nobody is all that surprised at what transpired on Friday.

After pregame scuffle, Oklahoma takes 21-10 lead on Baylor

By Kevin McGuireNov 12, 2016, 1:42 PM EDT
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Baylor and Oklahoma players got into a little bit of a pregame shouting match, but once the game started Oklahoma established some dominance, but Baylor is attempting to chip away. The Sooners lead the Bears 21-10 at halftime.

It is not known exactly what got the chippiness started early, but Baylor and Oklahoma had to be separated during the pregame warmups when tensions heated up early.

Oklahoma scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the game when Baker Mayfield took off for a 15-yard touchdown run. Oklahoma extended the lead to 14-0 in the first quarter when Mayfield connected for a 29-yard score to Dede Westbrook. The Sooners took a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter with a short touchdown run by Samaje Perine.

Baylor would come back in the second quarter before getting to the halftime break. A field goal was eventually followed by a Seth Russell touchdown pass to K.D. Cannon from 24 yards to cut the Baylor lead to 11 points.

Texas rallies for crucial win over No. 8 Baylor

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By Zach BarnettOct 29, 2016, 8:02 PM EDT
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If beating Baylor is a requisite for keeping his job, Charlie Strong may have done just that. Barely.

The Longhorns rallied from eight points down in the fourth quarter, capped by a 39-yard screwball of a Trent Domingue field goal with 46 seconds remaining, to hand No. 8 Baylor its first loss and improve to 4-4 on the season with a 35-34 win. Arriving into Saturday’s game losing four of his last five games, Strong needed to beat Baylor to avoid continuing a streak that has seen every Texas coach since 1951 lose to Baylor in his final season.

Baylor opened up a 7-0 lead but Texas scored 23 of the game’s next 30 points thanks to the Foreman brothers — wide receiver Armanti and running back D’Onta — and some timely defense. The brothers accounted for all 88 yards on the Longhorns’ first touchdown drive to tie the game and, after P.J. Locke snared a tipped interception on the first play of Baylor’s next possession, D'Onta Foreman raced 37 yards to give Texas a 14-7 lead just 3:55 into the game.

After Baylor tied the game on the ensuing possession, Armanti Foreman inadvertently set up Texas’s next score when he fumbled a long completion from Shane Buechele (291 passing yards, two touchdowns) at the 2-yard line. Texas forced a safety by way of a holding call on the next snap, re-claiming the lead at 16-14 at the 8:43 mark of the second quarter, and D’Onta Foreman pushed the advantage to 23-14 with a 9-yard run with 6:35 to play.

The Bears responded by registering four of the game’s next five scores, including a 15-yard strike to K.D. Cannon with just nine seconds left before the break. Baylor took the lead at 28-26 with a 2-yard Terence Williams run at the 8:21 mark of the third quarter, and two Chris Callahan field goals — from 24 and 27 yards, it’s worth noting — nudged the advantage to 34-26 midway through the fourth quarter. Despite rushing for 398 yards on the day, Baylor could not convert a pair of 1st-and-goal situations, and that inability ultimately cost them the game.

Texas marched 79 yards, capped by a 7-yard strike to tight end Andrew Beck, to pull within 34-32 with 7:03 to play, but the Longhorns put the ball in Swoopes’s hands and not Foreman — who entered Saturday as the nation’s second-leading rusher and carried for a career-high 250 yards today. Swoopes was stuffed.

Baylor moved the ball on the ensuing possession from its own 22 to a 1st-and-10 at the UT 29 with 3:47 to play, but lost eight yards on a sack of Seth Russell, a 2-yard loss by running back JaMychal Hasty and an incomplete pass, forcing a punt. Texas traveled 58 yards to set up Domingue’s game-winning field goal and, rather than heave the ball down the field, Baylor attempted to move in position for a game-stealing field goal through a series of Russell designed keepers — despite having only 46 seconds to work with and no timeouts. They didn’t come close.

Texas leading Baylor through one half in Austin

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By Zach BarnettOct 29, 2016, 5:44 PM EDT
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After a long, 2-plus-hour first half in Austin, Texas holds a 23-21 lead over No. 8 Baylor at the half.

Neither team could stop the other at the outset. Baylor won the toss and accepted the ball to open the game, then promptly moved it 75 yards in a half-dozen snaps, 50 of which came on a Seth Russell keeper to the end zone, to grab a 7-0 lead just 66 seconds into the game. Texas responded by marching 88 yards in eight plays — all of them by twin brothers D’Onta and Armanti Foreman. The former carried six times for 35 yards, and the latter caught two passes covering 53 yards, the last 40 resulted in a touchdown.

Texas defensive back P.J. Locke nabbed a tipped interception on the next play from scrimmage, and D'Onta Foreman matched his brother’s score with a 37-yard dash of his own on the ‘Horns’ next snap. Baylor answered with a 5-play, 75-yard drive, staking the game to a 14-14 tie at the 9:26 mark of the first quarter.

But then, a miracle occurred: defense. After six punts, an interception, a fourth down stop and a fumble set Baylor up with the ball at its own 2-yard line, Texas forced a safety by drawing a holding call inside the Baylor end zone, re-taking the lead at 16-14 with 8:43 to go before the halftime gun.

Texas’s next possession moved 66 yards in six plays, helped by a fortunate miss of a clear fumble by Tyrone Swoopes, to take a 23-14 lead on a 9-yard D’Onta Foreman rush with 6:35 remaining.

After the teams traded three-and-outs with negative yardage, Baylor took over at its own 19 with 4:18 remaining and moved down the field in an un-Baylor-like fashion, rushing the ball 11 times with just one throw before Russell hit K.D. Cannon for a 15-yard scoring strike with just nine seconds left before the break.

D’Onta Foreman rushed 17 times for 128 yards and two scores, while Armanti Foreman caught three passes for 104 yards with a touchdown and a lost fumble. Shane Buechele hit 7-of-13 throws for 164 yards with a score and a pick.

Russell hit 9-of-19 passes for 152 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, and the Bears rushed 29 times for 156 yards (5.4 a pop) with a score as a team.

Texas will receive to open the second half.