Just when it looked like OU was about to somehow escape Waco with a victory against Baylor, the Bears caught some breaks and the Sooners made crucial errors in the final minutes of the game. The result was a 45-38 upset victory for Baylor.
Both Oklahoma and Baylor boast high-scoring offenses this season. However, the first quarter belonged to the defenses.
OU freshman kicker Michael Hunnicutt connected on a 47-yard field goal with just more than five minutes remaining in the first quarter to give the Sooners a 3-0 lead. Then, following one of the numerous stalled drives in the quarter, Baylor sophomore Aaron Jones tied the game with a 34-yard field goal.
In the second quarter, Oklahoma seemed to be finding an offensive rhythm. However, the team simply had too many errors to keep anything going. Oklahoma ended the game with nine penalties for 90 yards and two lost fumbles.
“We just didn’t play well enough to win,” junior quarterback Landry Jones said. “We had too many turnovers and too many penalties. That’s about it.”
Midway through the second quarter, the Oklahoma defense had its first major error. Baylor junior quarterback Robert Griffin III found senior receiver Kendall Wright wide open for a 55-yard gain. That set up the first touchdown of the game, and the Bears had their first lead at 10-3.
OU responded with a 72-yard drive that ate up just more than four minutes of clock. After redshirt freshman quarterback Blake Bell bolted three yards into the endzone, it seemed the two teams would enter the locker rooms tied at 10.
Enter defensive breakdown No. 2.
Baylor took the ball with just more than two minutes left in the half, but that was more time than it would need. Griffin found sophomore Tevin Reese all by himself for a 69-yard touchdown reception. Baylor was up 17-10 at halftime.
The third quarter easily has been Oklahoma’s most productive this season, and that trend appeared to be going strong in Waco. OU took the ball 69 yards in just more than a minute to start the half. Senior James Hanna got the team going with a 54-yard reception. Then sophomore fullback Trey Millard capped the drive with a 5-yard run. Just like that, the game was tied.
Junior defensive end David King came up big for the OU defense on Baylor’s ensuing drive, stopping Griffin short on 4th-and-1, and the Sooner offense responded with a 31-yard reception by sophomore Kenny Stills and Bell’s second score of the night to take a 24-17 lead. After that, things started going very wrong for the Sooners.
On the ensuing drive, a Griffin passed bounced off a helmet and soared 20 yards through the air before finding the waiting hands of Kendall Wright, who then sprinted the remainder of the 87 yards to the end zone. Suddenly, the OU offense could not get anything going. OU’s next drive ended after a sack and a dropped pass by Stills.
Meanwhile, the Baylor offense — led by Griffin — suddenly seemed unstoppable. The Bears drove 85 yards in two minutes on the next drive to regain a seven-point lead. Then, Jones was intercepted, and Baylor put together a one-minute scoring drive to go up, 38-24, at the start of the fourth quarter.
That stretch gave Baylor back all the momentum that OU had stolen at the start of the half.
“It kind of went back and forth all night,” Jones said. “Baylor’s a good team, and they outplayed us tonight. We got up on them by seven points, but we didn’t make plays in the series after that to start going again.”
The Sooners stepped up when Baylor looked to be closing the game out, however. The defense made stop after stop, Landry Jones orchestrated long drives for the offense, and Bell rushed for two more scores to come within a point of the Bears with 51 seconds left in the game.
Bell led the offense back onto the field to try to take the lead with a two-point conversion and essentially end the game. However, a false start by freshman lineman Adam Shead forced OU to kick the extra point and hope for overtime.
Fifty-one seconds was entirely too much time for Griffin, though.
The junior shredded the Oklahoma defense both on the ground and through the air on the final drive. The two highlights were a 22-yard scramble and the final 34-yard touchdown pass to a wide open receiver in the corner of the end zone. That was all set up when Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops elected to take a timeout rather than let the Bears run out the clock and head to overtime. That gave the Bears hope, and the Oklahoma defense seemed to fall apart as Baylor drove to the end zone and put the game away.
“They are a good offense and [Griffin] is a good player,” sophomore linebacker Tom Wort said. “But we had too many mental busts on the defensive side of the ball. We didn’t do very good in pass coverage, and he’s a great player, but I think we helped him out a lot.”
Then, with eight seconds left in the game, Oklahoma allowed Baylor to recover a squib kick, officially putting an end to any hopes of a comeback.
Oklahoma made a valiant effort and came back to give itself a chance at a win. However, the Sooners simply made too many errors in the clutch to come out on top.
“At the end of the day, they coached better than we did, and they played better than we did,” coach Bob Stoops said.
This was especially true when the game was on the line. Baylor made the plays when it had to, and Oklahoma did not. Thus, the Bears walked away with the 45-38 win, and the Sooners were handed their second loss of the season.
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AKWinNWA 6 months, 1 week ago
I am just curious if you actually watched the game or if you were too busy writing your biased, factless articles? The Baylor Bears were anything BUT lucky when they embarrassed the Sorry Sooners. The fact is the Baylor Bears whiped the field with the Sooners and had the Sooners not gotten lucky, they would have lost by 21 and not 7. Baylor's Offense ripped apart the Sooners' D and the Bears' Defense not only held its own, it shut down the Sooners completely in the first half. 10 points? Seriously? OUCH is all I can say! Holding the Sooners to 10 for an entire half was not luck - that was solid, backbreaking defense! Regardless of what missing "key players" the Sooners had, Baylor was the better team in every aspect of the game - NOT LUCKY. RGIII is a far better QB than Jones and obviously a better leader, as was proven on the field Saturday night when Griffin III was able to lead his team to victory and Jones was not. Luck does not put up 551 yards against OU. SKILL, TALENT,EXCELLENCE, INTELLIGENT PLAY-CALLING AND THINKING, AND POISE WHOOPED the Sooners, not luck. If the Sooners were half the team they THOUGHT they were, then they would have won for the 21st time in a row. However, as Bob Stoops was quoted as saying, they were outcoached and outplayed. So dear writer, please stop making lame excuses for yet another disappointing Sooner season, and own up to the fact that Baylor is legit; the Bears are for real; RGIII is far more than just a "Heisman hopeful" - he is just good. That's all there is to it. The Bears go way beyond Robert Griffin III and his incredible arm. The Bears have talent, they have skill, they are determined, they don't make excuses, they were poised, and they just flat-out BEAT the Sorry Sooners. So, please start writing fact-based articles; stop making excuses over there in Oklahoma, and face the facts - OU is just NOT ALL THAT AND THE BAYLOR BEARS ARE FOR REAL!!!!
Sincerely, Proud and LOYAL Bear, '96