By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider 
            On a day when Baylor was celebrating Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III's highlight-reel 2011 season, Gerry Bohanon did some very RG3-like things.
            Helping the Bears (5-1, 3-1) bounce back from their first loss of the season, Bohanon threw for a career-high 336 yards and four touchdowns and added a one-yard TD run as Baylor rolled to a 45-20 rout of the visiting West Virginia Mountaineers (2-4, 0-3) Saturday afternoon at McLane Stadium. 
            "It's a good showcase for Gerry and his calmness, and his ability to connect on, whether it's play-action passes or shot plays," said Baylor head coach Dave Aranda. "He was able to make some yards on the ground and some speed-option keeps and designed quarterback runs. So, I think you saw everything from Gerry today, and he does it without saying a word. I love that."
            Bohanon, making his sixth career start, let his play on the field do his talking for him. On Baylor's second play from scrimmage, he connected with Tyquan Thornton on a short pass over the middle that the speedy receiver turned into a 75-yard touchdown and 7-0 lead just 41 seconds into the game. 
            "You watch so much film, you get lined up in pre-snap, and it's like, 'Oh yeah, it's there,''' Bohanon said. "You get excited right away."
            In what was expected to be a defensive battle with two of the league's best units, West Virginia answered immediately with a six-play, 75-yard drive and scored on Jarret Doege's 12-yard TD strike to Sean Ryan. It was the third-straight week that the Bears have allowed a touchdown on the opponent's opening drive. 
            "I think on our end, it's just really settling down," said linebacker Terrel Bernard, who had nine tackles and one of the defense's six sacks after missing last week's 24-14 loss at Oklahoma State with a knee injury. "Sometimes, we get too emotional, too hyped up. They're going to have new stuff, implement some new plays, new formations. We've just got to respond and do our job. That's the biggest part that we can take from these last couple games."
            After that opening series, though, the Mountaineers managed just two field goals the rest of the way until a late, meaningless touchdown. The Baylor defense allowed just 90 yards on the ground, with backup quarterback Garrett Greene getting 55 of those.
            "Today is (defensive coordinator) Ron Roberts' birthday," Aranda said, "so I'm happy for Ron to enjoy today. But, all that goes back to Sunday and watching tape on both sides, not sugarcoating things or trying to cover up or hide things. Taking ownership of things, I think it starts there. . . . We had two or three sessions just to correct the stuff we struggled with on Saturday (against OSU). To see that better on the other side of it is good."
            On the Bears' second possession, they went for it on 4^th-and-1 from their own 34-yard line and picked up a first down with Abram Smith's four-yard run. Smith finished the day with 87 yards on 11 carries, scoring Baylor's last touchdown on a 31-yard run in the third quarter. 
            Asked if he was surprised by that call, Bohanon said, "I'm so used to it, because (offensive coordinator Jeff) Grimes is so aggressive with play calls. Really, I'm shocked when they send the punt team out there."
            Bohanon hooked up with Thornton again for a 44-yard pass, then finished off the second scoring drive with a 10-yard TD pass to a wide-open Ben Sims. Scoring touchdowns on both of his receptions in the game, Sims tied Justin Akers for the school record for career TDs by a tight end with seven. 
            "Ben is a guy who is huge and very athletic," Bohanon said of Sims. "He can line up wide, and you can do some things with him. He's a really good guy and he's a really good player, too."
            The defense stepped up on West Virginia's next series, when Jalen Pitre picked off an underthrown Doege pass intended for Sam James. It was the defense's eighth interception and 10^th takeaway of the season. 
            After picking up most of the yardage with his arm, Bohanon finished off the five-play, 48-yard drive with a QB sneak from one yard out, pushing the lead to 21-7. 
            Again, this was supposed to be a defensive battle. That made it a combined 28 points in less than 10 minutes, and Baylor had 217 yards total offense by the end of the first quarter. 
            "If the safeties are low, and they're triggering at the snap coming into the box . . . you throw the ball to set up the run," Aranda said. "It was a lot of the same things you saw a week ago. We just didn't have the execution that we had today."
            The Bears stretched the lead to 28-7 when Bohanon found Thornton again for an 11-yard TD pass after a 58-yard pass play to Drew Estrada. OSU threatened late in the half, but had to settle for the first of two field goals by Casey Legg and went into the break down 28-10. 
            "We trusted ourselves and had a pretty good week of practice, and we were going to go out there and dominate," Bohanon said. 
            The second half was just more of the same as Bohanon hit Sims for a 29-yard TD pass over cornerback Daryl Porter, and then Smith shot through the right side of the line for a 31-yard TD run and stunning 42-13 lead. 
            Baylor added 171 yards on the ground and finished with 525 yards total offense. That's the most by the Bears in a Big 12 game since gaining 536 versus Oklahoma State on Oct. 19, 2019. 
            Thornton also had a career day with eight catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns. Estrada, the Dartmouth grad transfer who had a team-best six catches last week, added four receptions for 90 yards in his first start for the Bears. 
            Siaki "Apu" Ika, a transfer from LSU, had his biggest impact of the year with two of the team's six sacks. Bernard, Garmon Randolph, TJ Franklin and Victor Obi got the others, as Doege spent most of the afternoon running for his life. 
            "Really, we were able to stop the run, and that's what started that," Aranda said. "This is the first game this year where it was clearly stated that we're going to stop the run and put you in passing situations, and I think that freed guys up."
            Breaking from conference play, Baylor will host 10^th-ranked BYU (5-1) at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 16, at McLane Stadium. Suffering their first loss of the season, the Cougars turned it over four times in falling to Boise State, 26-17, Saturday in Provo, Utah.