Football Gets 31-12 Road Win at Kansas State

Saturday, October 5

Manhattan, Kan.

2:30 PM CT

Baylor

5-0 , 2-0

Kansas State

3-2 , 0-2

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Baylor

Kansas State

Football Gets 31-12 Road Win at Kansas State

10/5/2019 6:28:00 PM | Football

Box Score Game Book Baylor Postgame Notes

Tyquan Thornton had four catches for 92 yards and a touchdown for the Bears.

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            MANHATTAN, Kan. – Even if the sounds of celebration reverberating from the locker room said otherwise, Matt Rhule wasn't real sure if his Baylor football team "realized what they did" here Saturday night at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
            What the Bears (5-0, 2-0) did was something Robert Griffin III couldn't accomplish in his 2011 Heisman Trophy season – namely, win a road game in Manhattan. In fact, Baylor lost on its first four trips to this stadium, and the first three weren't even remotely close.
            This time, Baylor used another lights-out performance by the defense and a running game that took over in the fourth quarter to help the Bears finish off a dominating 31-12 win over the Wildcats and pick up their first conference road victory in two years.
            "This is a hard place to come, and it's a well-coached football team," Rhule said of Kansas State, which fell to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in league play under first-year head coach Chris Klieman. "This is a bunch of veteran players. To come here and get a win and get back-to-back Big 12 wins against two really good teams (Iowa State and K-State), they did something."
            Yes, it did. And it started with a defense that help the Wildcats to just 118 yards and a field goal in the first half, got two more takeaways and finished with an eye-popping six sacks and 15 tackles for loss – the most in a conference game in more than a decade.
            "It's big, and we still had some (missed assignments) and some mess-ups we need to fix, and it can be even more," said senior nose tackle Bravvion Roy, who had 3.5 stops behind the line among his five tackles. "It's the experience and the level of trust we have in each other. If I mess up, (James) Lynch is going to cover me. If Lynch messes up, I'm going to cover him. We have a brotherhood like no other. We're just closer than I've ever been with a d-line since I've been here."
            Riddled for 21 fourth-quarter points in last week's 23-21 win over Iowa State, the defense bounced back to look as dominant as ever, holding K-State to a pair of field goals on red-zone penetrations before giving up a touchdown in the last seven minutes.
            "Credit to those guys," Rhule said of the defensive line, "because they really got pressure. We were playing a lot of man coverage, so just a really nice job by our defense overall."
            Quarterback Charlie Brewer threw for 230 yards and a touchdown and helped the offense roll up 426 yards before leaving at the 11:05 mark in the fourth quarter after taking a big hit from defensive tackle Trey Dishon.
            Rhule said he didn't have an update on Brewer's status, but he was told by the medical staff to "hold him."
            "We had enough of a lead at that point, and I wouldn't have played him anyway," Rhule said, "They just said, 'Hey, we're going to hold him.' We'll see what it is."
            Initially, when Rhule went on the field to check on him, his junior quarterback said, "Hey, Coach, put Gerry (Bohanon) in for a play and let me catch my breath."
            All Bohanon did was hit a short out pass to receiver RJ Sneed, who got away from two defenders and turned it into a 38-yard gain down on third-and-22 from K-State's 42. On the next play, Bohanon faked the handoff inside and sprinted around the left end from four yards out to extend the Bears lead to 24-6.
            "I wasn't nervous at all. I was kind of calm," said Bohanon, who had played all of two snaps in the previous two games after getting significant playing time in the first two games. "I was just like, 'Get in and do what you do. And don't blow the game.'''
            K-State finally got in the end zone with 6:24 left in the game on a five-yard TD pass from Skylar Thompson to Dalton Schoen on a fourth-and-goal play that made it 24-12.
            But then, John Lovett recovered the onside kick and sprinted 46 yards for the touchdown two plays later to ice this one. Lovett added a 13-yard TD run on Baylor's first series of the second half and finished with 74 yards on just seven totes, while JaMycal Hasty rushed for a season-high 87 yards on eight carries and sprung Lovett with a big block.
            After struggling to run the ball the last two weeks, the Bears rushed for 83 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries in the fourth quarter alone. Take out the minus-22 yards on Brewer's three attempts, and Baylor averaged better than six yards per carry with 180 yards on 28 attempts.
             That was even with a reshuffled line that had redshirt freshman Casey Phillips switching from right tackle to left tackle after sophomore Connor Galvin went down with a "pretty severe" leg injury; Xavier Newman making his first start of the season at right guard; and junior college transfer Blake Bedier moving in at right tackle.
            "Casey spent the whole week practicing as the starting right tackle," Rhule said. "And after one series, he had to go to left tackle. That's hard to do, it's not easy. Everything is flipped. It's like driving on the wrong side of the road. But they battled and found a way to make it happen."
            Just as it had come to the rescue and sealed the deal in the previous two games, the defense did it again and closed the door when James Lynch and James Lockhart combined to sack Skylar Thompson on a fourth-and-11 from Baylor's 34-yard line.
            Lynch had a career-high three sacks and four tackles for loss and also forced his first fumble with a fourth-quarter sack and strip.
            "That was our whole thing coming in," Roy said. "We knew they were going to try to run the ball down our throats. We wanted to get penetration and press the pocket. (Middle linebacker Clay Johnston) did a good job calling stunts so we could rip through the gap and get the (tackles for losses)."
            A defensive battle through most of the first half, Baylor answered K-State's first-quarter 31-yard field goal with a 36-yarder by John Mayers on the second play of the second quarter, capping an eight-play, 57-yard drive.
            Lynch and Lockhart combined to sack Thompson on a third-down play after the Wildcats moved close to midfield. K-State punter Devin Anctil boomed a 55-yard coffin corner kick that went out of bounds at the Bears' 2-yard line.
            Taking another step back with a false-start penalty, Baylor then drove 99 yards in six plays to score the first touchdown of the game and take a lead the Bears would never relinquish.
            Brewer got them out of the hole with an 11-yard pass to Tyquan Thornton, then JaMycal Hasty picked up 33 yards on his longest run of the season. Hasty finished with a season-high 87 yards on just eight totes.
            Thornton took care of the rest, hauling in a 27-yarder with a finger-tip catch and was wide open on a 29-yard TD strike from Brewer. Following up his career day of 11 catches, 141 yards and two touchdowns in last week's 23-21 win over Iowa State, the sophomore receiver finished with four receptions for 92 yards.
            It's just a matter of "locking in," Thornton said of his elevated performances the last two weeks. "I've always been a great player, but I wasn't fully locked in. Just paying attention in meetings and being locked in on the details. All the little things matter throughout the week."
            Taking a 10-3 lead into the halftime break, the Bears got the second half started in a big way with a defensive three-and-out and a six-play, 91-yard scoring drive.
            Hitting four different receivers, Brewer was 4-of-4 for 76 yards on the drive, setting up Lovett's 13-yard TD run and a 17-3 lead.
            Taking a double-digit lead into the fourth quarter for the second-straight week, the Bears were able to close it out without much of a sweat because of the defense and run game.
            "It was amazing, because this week we made it a big thing that we were going to be able to run the ball in the fourth quarter and throughout the game," Bohanon said. "The last couple of weeks haven't been that good, but we're going to get that together. We're going to keep running the ball well."
            Baylor returns home to host Texas Tech (3-2, 1-1) for Homecoming at 3 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 12, in a game that will be broadcast by FS1. Tech upset 21^st-ranked Oklahoma State, 45-35, behind 424 yards and four touchdowns passing by quarterback Jett Duffey.