WACO, Texas— The Baylor Bears had an opportunity to get its season back on track on Saturday at home when the rival Texas Tech Red Raiders came to Waco. Coming off of the biggest comeback in school history, the Bears came in with a lot of momentum and determination, but it was not enough to come out on top again as Tech went back to Lubbock with a 39-14 win.
The Bears struggled from start to finish, and ended the game with only 17 yards rushing. Despite countering that with 324 yards through the air, the offense just could not seem to get anything going in the loss.
Texas Tech started off the game with a long drive that took over five minutes off of the clock that was capped off with a 13-yard touchdown pass from Behren Morton to Coy Eakin to take an early 7-0 lead.
Baylor quickly got across midfield on their opening drive of the game, but stalled and could not convert on fourth down. Both teams then traded punts before the opening frame came to a close.
The Red Raiders started the second quarter in similar fashion as the first, scoring on the initial drive. This time Morton stepped up in the pocket and threw a deep fade to tight end Baylor Cupp to make the score 14-0 just two minutes into the quarter.
The Bears were forced to punt on the ensuing drive, but forced a fumble and got the ball back. However they ultimately had to settle for a field goal by Isaiah Hankins to get them on the board at 14-3.
After forcing a punt, the Bears took a gamble in their own end of the field and went for it on fourth down and could not convert. Then after stopping them defensively, quarterback Blake Shapen was hit and fumbled. Texas Tech recovered and ended up kicking a field goal just before halftime to make the score 17-3 at the break.
The offense struggled even more to start the second half, as they were stopped on fourth down again. However on the next play, freshman Caden Jenkins came up with a deep interception to get the ball back. Unfortunately the Bears stalled on fourth down yet again, and the Red Raiders then proceeded to go on a 13 play, 85 yard drive that was capped off by an 18-yard pass from Morton to Cupp.
The score going into the final quarter was 24-3 in favor of Texas Tech. The fourth quarter saw much more scoring as Baylor finally found the end zone on a 71-yard pass from Shapen to Monaray Baldwin.
The two-point conversion made it a 24-11 score and kept Baylor’s hopes alive. However, the Red Raiders responded with a good drive of their own that resulted in an 18-yard touchdown run by running back Tahj Brooks.
The Bears quickly got back into Texas Tech territory, but stalled and settled for a field goal by Hankins to make it 32-14.
That was it from there as Baylor went three and out on their next two drives, with the Red Raiders adding one more score for good measure to bring the final score to 39-14.
Baylor now falls to 2-4, 1-2 in Big 12 Conference play, and they will now have a bye week before traveling to Cincinnati in two weeks.
