Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Scoring 14 points in the first five minutes and taking a commanding 28-3 halftime lead, the Baylor Bears seemed to get that whole starting fast thing down. Now, if they can just figure out how to finish.
            After letting Kansas (5-3, 2-3) get back in it with 20 unanswered points in the second half, Baylor (4-3, 2-2) rode the back of freshman running back Richard Reese on a clinching seven-play, 69-yard drive that finally put away the Jayhawks for good in a 35-23 victory Saturday afternoon before a Homecoming crowd of 45,882 at McLane Stadium.
            "You saw a glimpse of who we can be," said Baylor head coach Dave Aranda, whose team snapped a two-game losing streak and beat Kansas for the 13^th-straight time. "We're still just scratching, clawing and fighting to be that and still believe we can be that. It's elusive, though, because you guys were all with us in the second half. The ability to finish and just all of it, everything this season is all about defining things."
            On a windy day that sometimes made passing an adventure, Reese made the most of his first start, rushing for a career-high 186 yards and two touchdowns on 31 carries and adding 26 yards on two catches.
            "I just think he did his own Richard Reese things," tight end Ben Sims said. "Since he started playing against Albany (in the season opener), we knew he was special. He shows it in practice every week. What he did today wasn't anything out of the ordinary for him."
            Committed to the run from the opening drive, the Bears finished with 273 yards rushing and averaged a healthy 4.8 yards per attempt. Qualan Jones contributed to that total, breaking off a long run of 25 yards and finishing with 71 yards on just nine carries.
            But, on the decisive drive, it was all Reese. Gaining all but one of the 69 yards, he picked up a big first down with a 14-yard catch, added 58 yards on five rushes and capped it off with a two-yard TD run that pushed Baylor's lead back to double digits, 35-23, with 2:37 left.
            "That was good to see," Aranda said of the clinching drive. "I wish there was probably more of that earlier, and that it didn't take all those points that were scored prior to that for that to happen. That killer instinct (is something we're working on). The best teams have it. I think for us, it's something we have to teach. . . . To be able to close out the game when it's needed was good to see, but we would all like to not be in that situation again."
            The way the first half went, no one would have guessed that it would come down to a fourth-quarter drive under pressure, with the game on the line.
            After a quick three-and-out and a short punt, Baylor struck first when Blake Shapen connected with Monaray Baldwin for a 17-yard TD pass on a tunnel screen, capping off a seven-play, 41-yard drive.
            The defense got the ball right back on Kansas' next play from scrimmage, when linebacker Jackie Marshall forced and recovered a fumble by wide receiver Quentin Skinner. Two plays later, Reese found the end zone for the first time on a 14-yard run that pushed the Bears' lead to 14-0 at the 10:15 mark in the first quarter.
            Converting twice on third-and-eight, the Jayhawks drove 62 yards in 11 plays and were in position to go for it on fourth down before a false-start penalty. Jacob Borcila's 30-yard field goal made it a 14-3 game.
            Fullback/linebacker Dillon Doyle picked up a first down with a four-yard run on fourth-and-one from the Kansas 16, keeping alive a drive that ended when backup quarterback Kyron Drones came in for the last two plays and scored on a four-yard keeper.
            Playing the kind of complementary football that Aranda has preached all year, the defense came up with a stop after Kansas got the first of its three turnovers and started in Baylor territory at the 45.
            Instead of going for it on fourth-and-seven, quarterback Jason Bean did a quick kick that pinned the Bears back at their own 1-yard line. All the Baylor offense did was drive 99 yards in 15 plays, scoring on a 10-yard end-around run by freshman receiver Jordan Nabors for a 28-3 lead with 42 seconds left in the half.
            'A big thing in football is if the offense turns the ball over, go put the fire out," Doyle said. "The fire fighter doesn't care where the fire he, he doesn't care how big the fire is, he has to go save people. It's your job to take care of business. It doesn't matter if they turn the ball over on the 1-yard line."
            Getting the ball back on a forced fumble by Devin Neal and return by Devin Lemear, Baylor missed a scoring chance when Shapen was picked off the play after tight end Ben Sims missed a catch in the end zone that would have been a touchdown.
"That was a really hard moment for me, because in my mind I don't drop balls like that," said Sims, who had three catches for 36 yards. "(Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes) always says, whenever you make a mistake, we're going to come back to you. For him to tell me that, it means a lot."
            Baylor had an impressive opening drive in the second half, but Jerome Robinson got a strip sack and returned a fumble 49 yards to the 9, setting up a two-yard run by the Jayhawks' Devin Neal.
            Kansas made things interesting in the fourth quarter when Bean connected with Skinner for a 24-yard TD pass and then finished off a 93-yard drive with a four-yard run after KU stopped the Bears on a fourth-and-one play.
            "Some things didn't go our way," Doyle said. "We had some turnovers, and we gave up some big plays. And that's going to happen, especially when you play some playmakers like Kansas has."
            With the lead cut to five, Baylor responded with a Reese's special and iced the game with the freshman's two-yard TD run.
            "It's difficult to have patience when you're counting the wins and losses," Aranda said, "but I think it's way important to have patience and to teach. The ability for us to learn a really hard lesson and then win is a successful thing. Because we have learned some hard lessons and taken some losses. This is the first time we can do it and say we've won. I'm proud of the guys."
            The Bears go back on the road to face Texas Tech (5-3, 2-2) at 6:30 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 29, in Lubbock. Tech blew out West Virginia, 48-10, snapping a two-game losing streak under former Baylor assistant coach Joey McGuire.