Final in Austin: Texas Stuns Baylor 35-34

For most of the second half, it looked like the Baylor Bears would pull away for a hard-fought seventh win of the season to stay undefeated. Then the Texas defense stiffened, three Baylor drives inside the redzone ended with turnovers or mere field goals, and the Longhorns were able to come back and steal a win with a late field goal.

This is a game Baylor should have won and didn’t. We had the ball three times inside their 15 with a lead and went fumble, field goal, field goal on those three to eventually lose by 1. Because of that, Seth Russell’s amazing hurdle of Dylan Haines didn’t matter, Terence Williams’ career-high 180 yards didn’t matter, and the fact that we gained over 600 yards on a Charlie Strong defense didn’t matter. This loss stings for so many reasons, not least of which is that it ends any chance we had to make the CFB Playoff in the last year of anything resembling the Briles era.

I don’t know where I place the "blame" for this one. The play-calling was extremely suspect, down to the final, unsuccessful drive. Penalties killed us throughout, including late when we needed TDs and didn’t get them. We couldn’t stop D’Onta Foreman, something we probably expected not to do, but that still sucks when you see happen. And most of all, we never "looked" like we were playing inspired football except for brief spurts when Seth put the team on his back and tried to will them to victory.  It should have been enough, but for a lot of reasons, it wasn't.

Baylor is now 6-1 on the season, and the Big 12 is more or less officially out of the 2016 CFB Playoff race.

Box Score

1st Downs	31	19
3rd down efficiency	10-20	7-17
4th down efficiency	1-3	0-1
Total Yards	624	548
Passing	226	291
Comp-Att	14-28	12-21
Yards per pass	8.1	13.9
Interceptions thrown	1	1
Rushing	398	257
Rushing Attempts	68	51
Yards per rush	5.9	5.0
Penalties	10-39	4-23
Turnovers	2	2
Fumbles lost	1	1
Interceptions thrown	1	1
Possession	32:55	27:05