By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            MORGANTOWN, W. Va. – Even on a day when the offense struggled to move the chains and the defense was playing without three starters, Baylor had a chance to finally win one on the road in Milan Puskar Stadium. 
            It was literally a matter of inches. 
            The Bears (1-1, 1-1) came up inches short on a fourth-and-goal play in regulation, then turned it over in the second overtime as West Virginia (2-1, 1-1) overcame four of its own turnovers to escape with a 27-21 victory Saturday afternoon in a mostly empty stadium. 
            After Charlie Brewer was picked off on the first play of the second overtime, the Mountaineers won it on Leddie Brown's second TD run of the day, this one from three yards out. 
            "I feel bad for our group," said first-year Baylor head coach Dave Aranda. "To come up short and to be right there and to see the hurt in their faces hurt me. We talked in the locker room about the opportunity to learn and grow. . . . Our potential is great, and I know our team is full of a bunch of high-character people. We will bounce back from this."
            Baylor spent most of the day bouncing back from one adversity after another, starting with going into the game shorthanded on defense, missing defensive end TJ Franklin, linebacker Ashton Logan and cornerback Kalon "Boogie" Barnes. 
            "The team that we were practicing throughout the week was not the team that was running out there on the field," Aranda said. "The team that played today had certain strengths and weaknesses. You have to play to that and minimize those weaknesses, and I thought we were able to do that to a pretty high level. Credit to the guys that stepped up . . . our want-to is very, very high."
            Similar to the Bears' season-opening 47-14 win over Kansas, West Virginia took the opening kickoff and marched 70 yards on 15 plays to go up 7-0. Quarterback Jarret Doege completed 7-of-8 for 51 yards on the drive and capped it with a one-yard option keeper. 
            After a quick three-and-out by the offense that was hampered by a false-start penalty, the Baylor defense got the ball right back when JACK linebacker William Bradley-King had a strip sack and fumble recovery at the Mountaineers' 19. 
            Going backwards with another costly penalty and a big loss on a first-down play, the Bears had to settle for a 46-yard field goal attempt that John Mayers narrowly missed wide right. That snapped a consecutive-field goal streak of 11 in a row for the sophomore kicker. 
            Linebacker Terrel Bernard got the defense's second takeaway when he leaped up high to deflect a Doege pass and caught it as he was falling down for his third career interception. Doege, who threw for 211 yards, had not been picked off in the first two games this season. 
            "We game-planned and knew the formations and the plays they were going to give us," said Bernard, who also had double-digit tackles for the fifth time in his career with 13 stops, including 10 solos. "We talked about it at halftime, as a defense, that we had (the offense's) backs, and that's what happened."
            Once again, though, the offense came up empty when Mayers hit the right upright with a 48-yard attempt that would have been the second-longest of his career. 
            Doege was picked off again in the ensuing series, when safety J.T. Woods grabbed his first career interception and returned it 28 yards to the West Virginia 30. This time, aided by a pass interference penalty, the Bears cashed in with a tying touchdown. 
            Brewer connected with Tyquan Thornton for 18 yards, then hooked up with R.J. Sneed in the back of the end zone for a seven-yard TD pass. Mayers' extra point knotted the score at 7-7 with 6:44 left in the half. 
            Getting the ball back in the final minute before intermission, Baylor had another chance to get on the board and take its first lead of the game, but freshman Noah Rauschenberg's 51-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Dante Stills. 
            "There was great energy on the sidelines, and I thought the guys were pushing each other and challenging each other to make that next play," Aranda said of the defense's three first-half takeaways. "Just the whole outcome of this thing and just being right there with all the other stuff that was going on defensively, it's a highlight of how tight those guys are and how much they play for each other."
            West Virginia went back on top late in the third quarter with another time-consuming drive, going 72 yards on 11 plays and punching it in from the 1-yard line on a Brown run. After back-to-back 100-yard games, Brown had 93 yards on 27 totes and scored two of the Mountaineers' four touchdowns. 
            Still unable to get the offense on track for most of the second half, Baylor caught a break when West Virginia turned it over again on a muffed punt return. Taking over at the 27, the Bears got to within the cusp of the goal line when the officials ruled that John Lovett was stopped inches short on a fourth-and-goal from the 1. 
            "From where I was, it looked like a score," Aranda said. "From the view that we had off the big screen, it wasn't as clear. So, I anticipated, just because of the ruling already and because of the view not being very clear, that it was going to be what it was. That just gave us another opportunity to go out there and get another stop."
            Using all three of its time outs to get the ball back, Baylor got a quick strike when Brewer hit Josh Fleeks over the middle and he turned it into a 34-yard touchdown that tied it up at 14-14 with 1:19 left in regulation. 
            Baylor's defense nearly came up with a stop on West Virginia's first series in overtime, but the Mountaineers converted on a fourth-and-1 from the 16 with a pass to the tight end and then scored on Doege's six-yard TD pass to Bryce Ford-Wheaton. 
            "That stuff's going to happen," linebacker Jalen Pitre said of West Virginia's third fourth-down conversion. "We just have to be with the mindset of what's next and not dwell on the moment and try to execute the next play to the best of our ability."
            It took the Bears just one play to answer with Brewer's 25-yard TD pass to tight end Ben Sims, but the interception on the next play proved costly as the Bears fell to 7-8 all-time in overtime games and 3-5 on the road. Last year, Baylor was 2-1 in overtimes, beating TCU and Texas Tech and falling to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game. 
            "I love our group and we'll get better from this," Aranda said. "We'll learn from this."
            Brewer was 23-of-38 for 229 yards and three touchdowns with two interceptions, but West Virginia had six quarterback sacks and held the Bears' normally potent rushing attack to just 27 net yards on 33 attempts. 
            After a bye, Baylor will host 17^th-ranked Oklahoma State for Homecoming on Oct. 17 at McLane Stadium. The Cowboys (3-0, 2-0) are now the lone remaining unbeaten team in the Big 12, routing Kansas on the road, 47-7.