By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
           
NORMAN, Okla. – Matt Rhule stresses toxic differential, which accounts for the combination of explosive plays made and allowed and turnovers gained and lost. On Saturday, that was very clearly the difference in the game.

Under the direction of sophomore quarterback Charlie Brewer, the Baylor offense produced almost 500 yards and finished with more first downs (33-22) and time of possession (37:20-22:40) than the sixth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.
           
The problem was the Kyler Murray-led Sooners (5-0, 2-0) hit the big plays, scoring on touchdown passes of 86, 50, 43 and 30 yards and fourth-quarter TD runs of 34 and 49 yards to pull away for a 66-33 win before a sellout crowd of 86,642 at Memorial Stadium.
           
"It's going to be hard for people to see it, but we had a lot of times where we had him in third-and-10, third-and-12, and he made the plays," Rhule said of Murray, who was an efficient 17-of-21 for a career-high 432 yards and six touchdowns.

There were some times where it's mistakes by us. Man-to-man, and we blitz, and the corner forgets to run with the receiver, and they have (an 86-yard touchdown). But, it's also Kyler backing up and throwing the ball off his back foot. It's the play he made where fumbled and picked it up and made the first down. . . . It's the explosive plays. They got the ball in space to their guys, and we just weren't able to tackle them and get them down."

Baylor (3-2, 1-1) started the day on a bad note when the Bears were flagged for roughing the passer to keep an OU drive alive and then muffed a punt return that the Sooners recovered at the 10-yard line.
           
After missing the opening series for disciplinary reasons, Murray came on and hit Lee Morris on a slant route for a nine-yard TD strike that gave the Sooners a lead they would never relinquish. Murray struck again four minutes later with a 30-yard TD pass to Grant Calcaterra that made it 14-0.
"You can't spot them 14 (points)," Rhule said.

Senior defensive end Greg Roberts, who did come up with the Bears' two sacks on Murray, said it was tough when the OU quarterback was able to have some Houdini-like escapes. "But, I feel like they're a great team, and that's what great teams do. They had a dynamic guy in the backfield, and he did what he does. You can't really get frustrated. You've just got to play it play-by-play."
           
The Bears answered with a methodical 12-play, 75-yard drive, using a good mix of runs and passes, and capped it with Brewer finding Denzel Mims on a slant for the 13-yard TD pass that made it 14-6 after Martin's extra point hit off the right upright.
           
Mims, who had 11 catches for 192 yards and three touchdowns in last year's 49-41 loss to the Sooners, had another big day with 11 catches for 114 yards. It was his seventh career 100-yard receiving day and the third time he's recorded double-digit receptions.
           
"I know Denzel made some great plays, and he left a couple out there," Rhule said. "I don't usually say that about players, but I know how much he wants to be good. I told him, I'll get better, he'll get better, we'll get better up front. And we'll look up one day and have a heck of a football team."
           
OU pulled away with second-quarter TD passes of 43 yards to Morris and a 24-yarder to Marquise Brown to go up 28-6. But, the Bears got a little of the momentum back with a 44-yard drive, capped by Martin's hurry-up 32-yard field goal as the last precious seconds ticked off.
           
It was a miracle that Baylor even got that last play off after Brewer made a mistake by throwing a short pass to Trestan Ebner in the middle of the field. With no timeouts and no way to kill the clock, the Bears had to orchestrate their "fire drill" field goal to get it off and cut the halftime deficit to 28-9.
           
"When he checked the ball down, I gave it to him there," Rhule said. "When he got off the field and we scored, I said to him, 'You want to be a championship-caliber quarterback' – and I expect Charlie to win us a championship at some point – 'I'm not going to not coach you in this moment. Let's keep pushing through this.'''
           
Brewer, who was 38-of-60 for 400 yards and two TDs, said, "That's on me."
           
"I need to know the situation better. We didn't have any timeouts. I probably should have thrown that ball away."
           
While the toxic differential proved to be deadly, Baylor showed some tremendous fight in the second half, with the offense rolling up 313 yards and scoring 24 points in the last two quarters.
           
Brewer lit up the Sooners' defense in the second half, throwing for 270 of his 400 yards. But, he also paid the price, getting sacked six times in the game and taking a big hit late in the game from Caleb Kelly.
           
"That's part of the game," he said. "It's a physical game. I'm just more disappointed. I think we left a lot out there."
           
On Kelly's hit, which was a fourth-down sack that gave the Sooners the ball back in Baylor territory, the officials tacked on a 15-yard penalty on Rhule for coming out on the field to argue that it should have been an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on OU.
           
"I'm sure that hit was legal, but at the time I didn't think it was. So, I started yelling and I got the penalty," Rhule said. "I don't want to embarrass (Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades) or (Baylor President Dr. Linda Livingstone) or Baylor University. But, at the same time, I want those players to know I'm going to fight for them. And I tried to fight for them today. So, I took the penalty. I have the greatest respect for the officials, so I didn't mean it in a disrespectful way. Charlie got up off the field and said, 'Hey, thanks, Coach.'''
           
Brewer appreciated Rhule having his back, saying, "He knows how I feel about him. I'm with him till the end."
           
When the Sooners sealed the deal with the long fourth-quarter TD runs, Rhule said he was "disappointed at the end. I thought some guys may have lost hope a little bit with some of those long runs. That obviously didn't have to happen. That score wasn't as bad as the game was."
           
Ultimately, he said, "I wanted our players to know that we're all in this together, and we're fighting till the end. And 50-33 is the same as 66-33 to me. We lost the game. As I told our guys there at the end, I was proud of them and appreciated them for fighting as hard as they did. Hopefully, we can build on that in some ways and continue to move forward."
           
Tennessee transfer Jalen Hurd also had a big day for the Bears, catching nine passes for 104 yards, scoring on a four-yard TD grab and a two-yard run on the opening drive of the third quarter that made it a 12-point game, 28-16.
           
"We had a lot of (missed assignments," Mims said. "We've got to play harder and we've got to eliminate the drops, myself included, and have more energy. If we do that, we should be rolling."
           
Baylor returns home to host Kansas State (2-3, 0-2) at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 6, at McLane Stadium in an FS1 broadcast. The Wildcats rallied from a 19-0 halftime deficit but came up short in a 19-14 loss to 18^th-ranked Texas at home.