By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
           
Matt Rhule has seen this movie so many times. OK, maybe not the ebb and flow of this one, where Baylor led by 21 at halftime and then couldn't stop Oklahoma in the second half before a stadium-record crowd of 50,223.
           
But, it certainly wasn't a surprise that another game went down to the wire. Four times this year, the No. 10/12 Bears had overcome fourth-quarter deficits to pull out wins.
           
Only this time, the shoe was on the other foot.
           
OU quarterback Jalen Hurts threw a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes and then engineered a nine-play, 59-yard drive to set up Gabe Brkic's game-winning 31-yard field goal with 1:45 left as the No. 8/10 Sooners (9-1, 6-1) escaped McLane Stadium with a 34-31 victory that knotted up the Big 12 race.
           
"We started fast, but we didn't finish," said Rhule, whose team had an 11-game winning streak snapped in falling to 9-1 overall and tied atop the Big 12 standings at 6-1. "As bad as that was, at the end we had a chance to win it. That's my message to our guys: You still had the ball, a chance to win it."
           
Even after seeing that 31-10 halftime lead disappear and fall behind for the first time since 3-0 in the first quarter, it looked like Baylor quarterback Charlie Brewer might have a little more of that fourth-quarter magic left in him.
           
Brewer, who threw for two touchdowns and ran for two others in the first half, kept hope alive with a nine-yard pass to R.J. Sneed for a third-down conversion. And then Denzel Mims turned a short pass into a 21-yard gain to the Sooners' 40.
           
But then, linebacker Nik Bonitto almost picked off a pass over the middle and then made a great read to intercept a Brewer pass intended for Josh Fleeks to seal it for the Sooners.
           
Sam Tecklenburg, who moved from left guard back to center on the second series of the game, said the early snap that seemed to throw off the rhythm on that play was "100 percent on me."
           
"I thought I heard the cadence and I snapped it early. That's on me, I did that a few times today. That's all on me," he said.
           
Brewer, though, said that wasn't an issue.
           
"I'm not here to throw one of my teammates under the bus or anything, it's my fault," said Brewer, who passed for 194 yards and two touchdowns and added 65 yards and two TDs on 17 carries. "I take responsibility for what happened, and I'll move on from it."
           
In the first half, it seemed like Baylor could do no wrong, playing about as flawless a half as the Bears have played all year.
           
Capitalizing on good field position after a short punt, Oklahoma took the early 3-0 lead on a 39-yard field goal by Brkic.
           
Baylor answered with a 10-play, 78-yard drive and took the lead on a two-yard run by Brewer after he hooked up with running back John Lovett for a 24-yard pass play.
           
After the defense forced a three-and-out, the Bears stretched it to 14-3 when Brewer hit Mims in stride for a 30-yard TD pass.
           
When linebacker Terrel Bernard recovered a fumble that Hurts left on the turf, it took the Bears just two plays to score on a four-yard Brewer run, his 16^th career rushing touchdown.
           
Grayland Arnold nearly took one to the house, picking off a Hurts pass and racing 71 yards before the OU quarterback bumped him out at the 9. On the very next play, Brewer hooked up with Mims again for a nine-yard TD pass and stunning 28-3 lead.
           
On a drive kept alive by a defensive holding penalty on cornerback Jameson Houston on fourth-and-five from the 33, OU finally got into the end zone on a five-yard TD pass from Hurts to Austin Stogner with 5:06 left in the half.
           
Baylor got the momentum back by driving 61 yards in 14 plays and making it 31-10 on John Mayers' 28-yard field goal. No one could have imagined that those would be the last points the Bears would score.
           
"You never know 100 percent that you're going to be able to come back from something like that," OU coach Lincoln Riley said, "but I think they all felt like we had a chance."
           
Stogner scored his second TD of the night on a three-yard pass on Oklahoma's opening series of the third quarter that made it 31-17.
           
JaMycal Hasty broke off a big run on Baylor's first play of the half, but Parnell Motley forced a fumble that Pat Fields recovered at the Sooners' 45.
           
It looked like the Bears would get the momentum right back when James Lynch forced and recovered a Hurts fumble in the end zone for a big red-zone stop.
           
"It felt like that," said linebacker Terrel Bernard, who had 15 tackles for his third-straight game with double-digit stops. "Obviously, that was a big play in the game to get us the ball back down there. So, it felt like that."
           
Instead, the Sooners got the ball back at their own 10-yard line and drove 90 yards in 13 plays, scoring on a 19-yard toss from Hurts to Theo Wease.
           
Hurts, who threw for 297 yards and four TDs and also rushed for a game-high 114 yards on 27 carries, tied it up with a two-yard pass to Brayden Willis and then led the Sooners on the game-winning drive.
           
"Obviously, extremely disappointed at the way that game turned out at the end," Rhule said. "I thought it was a great first half. Credit to Oklahoma, they made the plays in the second half to come back. At the end of the game, they made one more play than we made.
           
"We told our guys, it's going to have to bother us, hurt us, but hopefully we'll come back next week rejuvenated, learn from it, with a chance to play these guys again sometime down the road."
           
Oklahoma was playing without leading receiver CeeDee Lamb, but still put up 368 yards in the second half and 525 for the game. 
           
Baylor, needing one more win to secure a spot in the Dec. 7 Big 12 Championship game and a possible rematch with Oklahoma, will host No. 22 Texas (6-4, 4-3) at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday, Nov. 23, at McLane Stadium in a game that will be nationally televised by FS1.