Baylor Freefall Continues; Bears Lose 4th Game in a Row

After going up 14-7 at halftime on a great Zach Smith TD throw to Chris Platt, Baylor apparently decided they’d done enough and didn’t need to show up the rest of the way. The Wildcats ground the Bears to dust in the second half, sending Baylor to its fourth-straight loss and a 3-4 Big 12 record in 2016.

Baylor did a few good things in this game on both sides of the ball, particularly when Smith had time to find his younger receivers, but an extremely poor third quarter ultimately created a deficit they never had a chance to overcome. The third-quarter INT deep in Baylor territory probably sealed the deal, but the bottom line is that Baylor just couldn’t stop KSU’s rushing game, and once KSU realized that, the game was basically over. Baylor was outcoached, outplayed, and outfought in the second half, giving up TDs on five of six drives, and that was it. Smith and co. made a game effort in the fourth quarter to get back to a one-score deficit, then our special teams blew it again by allowing a 76-yard kick return to basically give away points.

At this point, Baylor is staring down the barrel of a 6-6 finish after starting the season 6-0 and reaching #8 in the country. We’ve now lost four games in a row, the last three by a combined score of 149 to 67. That includes two home games -- one against a bitter rival and the other where we were supposed to celebrate one of the most successful senior classes in our history.

But hey, at least our coaches weren’t tweeting before the game. Instead, they just decided not to show up for the last Bear Walk of (probably) all of their careers. They were in good company, though, considering the crowd itself was probably the worst in McLane Stadium’s short history.

I think we’re all just ready for the 2016 season to be over and to reboot the program to start again. If things go as expected, it should only be a couple of weeks. Until then, we can just be a basketball school.