By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

After bottling up Kansas State's "slow as molasses" offense for a half, the Baylor defense had no answer for freshman running back Alex Barnes and the Wildcats in Saturday's home finale at McLane Stadium.

Barnes, who wasn't even listed on the depth chart and had 210 yards total for the season, rushed for 120 of his 129 yards and all four touchdowns in the second half as K-State handed the Bears (6-4, 3-4) their fourth straight loss, 42-21.

"All in all, it's a team loss," said Baylor coach Jim Grobe. "I didn't think we, obviously, played well enough defensively in the second half to win. And the offense didn't help them. We didn't do what we typically do, which is move the football and score points."

Making his first start, freshman quarterback Zach Smith threw for 147 yards and two touchdowns in the first half and helped the Bears take a 14-7 lead into the locker room.

But, he was picked off three times in the second half - two of them setting up short-field touchdowns and the third one in the Wildcats' end zone. He was 27-of-45 for 258 yards for the game and was sacked four times.

"The first two were completely on me," said Smith, who was forced into action a week ago when starter Seth Russell suffered a season-ending ankle injury. "I just tried to force the ball and maybe fit it in too tight of a window. The third one, I'm not real sure. I think Blake (Lynch) said he lost it in the sun. It might have been high. But yeah, the others were on me, for sure."

This is Baylor's first four-game losing streak since starting 0-4 in Big 12 play in 2012, when the Bears recovered to win five of their last six and beat UCLA in the Holiday Bowl.

"We're down, it's not fun losing," said linebacker Aiavion Edwards, one of 12 seniors honored before the game. "We're fighting hard to get back on the winning streak. Nobody likes losing, but we've got to put this behind us now and move on and look forward to the next game."

Baylor's defense certainly started in a good way, forcing the Wildcats to punt on their first four series and holding them to just 64 yards in the first quarter.

After opening the game with a three-and-out, the Bears drove 80 yards in 15 plays only to come up empty. K-State, one of the least penalized teams in the country, got hit with a roughing-the-punter call and two other 15-yarders that kept it alive.

But, Baylor's own penalty problems crept up at the wrong time with the Bears knocking on the door with a first-and-goal at the 4-yard line. Right tackle Patrick Lawrence was flagged for a personal foul that pushed them back to the 19.

And then on third-and-goal from the 10, Smith hooked up with Ishmael Zamora, but he coughed it up trying to fight his way into the end zone.

That resulted in the first scoreless first quarter in the three-year history of McLane Stadium and first scoreless first quarter in a Baylor home game since Sept. 3, 2006, versus TCU.

K-State (6-4, 4-3) threatened in the second half, moving inside the Bears' 30 thanks mostly to a 24-yard run by starting running back Charles Jones. But, on third-and-8, quarterback Jesse Ertz was dumped for an 11-yard loss by senior linebacker Patrick Levels.

The Bears came up with a big break when long snapper Ross Matiscik recovered a fumble by punt returner Dominique Heath at the Wildcats' 22. One play later, Smith beat a blitz with a hot-route pass to Lynch that the redshirt freshman receiver turned into a 25-yard TD and 7-0 Baylor lead.

That lead lasted less than three minutes. Ertz hit a wide-open Deante Burton for 37 yards and then broke off a 40-yard run on fourth-and-two from the Bears' 45. Fullback Winston Dimel scored from two yards out on the next play to tie it up at 7-7.

Edwards had a shot at Ertz in the backfield, but "I wasn't exactly where I needed to be. Just a mistake on my part, something that shouldn't have even happened."

With the Wildcats poised to potentially take their first lead late in the first half, Levels recovered an Ertz fumble at the K-State 40.

Smith hit Lynch for four yards and KD Cannon for 12 before hooking up with Chris Platt on a 24-yard TD pass on a spectacular diving catch. Chris Callahan's extra point gave the Bears a 14-7 lead going into the break.

K-State seemed to hit a different gear with Barnes in the backfield to start the second half. Completing a 10-play, 84-yard drive, Barnes hurdled freshman cornerback Grayson Arnold on an 11-yard TD run that tied it back up at 14-14.

"I didn't know what happened, it was so quick," said Barnes, who finished with a career-high 129 yards and four TDs on 19 carries, becoming the fifth different back to top 100 yards on Baylor's defense during the four-game losing streak. "I just kind of reacted and fell in the end zone."

When a Baylor series fizzled out near midfield, the Wildcats went 87 yards on 13 plays and took their first lead of the game on a Barnes one-yard plunge. Ertz converted a third-and-18 with a 20-yard pass to Isaiah Zuber and hit Burton for 24 yards on a third-and-10.

"They're perfectly fine with getting three yards, four yards and a cloud of dust," said junior nickel back Travon Blanchard. "You want to get them to second and long, third and long, something predictable, and get off the field. First half, we did that. Second half, we had them in (third-and-18). We have to get off the field."

Things got even bleaker when K-State nickel back Donnie Starks picked off a Smith pass and returned it 15 yards to the Bears' 21. Barnes carried it three times and pushed the lead to 28-14 with a two-yard TD run.

"I don't know if (Barnes) changed the tempo so much. It kind of depends on how you want to define tempo," K-State coach Bill Snyder said. "We're slow as molasses all the time. He just made some things happen. He knocked some balls in the end zone, he got some first downs when he had people hanging on him. So, he just ran aggressively and hard."

The Bears made things interesting again when they drove 65 yards in 13 plays and scored on Smith's 19-yard TD pass to Pooh Stricklin, making it a one-score game at 28-21 with 7:28 still to play.

But any momentum they had was quickly taken away when D.J. Reed returned the ensuing kickoff 76 yards. Three plays later, Dimel took a direct snap and scored his second TD of the day to put the Wildcats back up by two touchdowns, 35-21.

"It was very deflating," Blanchard said. "They were able to get into a tight formation and just run the ball. Defense, once our backs are against the wall, our mentality has to flip. We have to bow our necks and bend but don't break."

K-State added another Barnes touchdown in the final minutes after Smith's third interception of the day for the final margin.

"Zach played OK, I think. He did some really good things, (but) he made some mistakes that hurt us," Grobe said. "We've got to take better care of the football, and we've got to protect him better."

Baylor will try to snap the losing streak in Friday's 5 p.m. game against Texas Tech (4-7, 2-6) at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.