Box Score

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Locked in a one-score game with Texas State late in the first half of Saturday's game at McLane Stadium, the 17^th-ranked Baylor Bears had to get through some "gritty, ugly stuff . . . to get to the beautiful, clean, polished shiny stuff."
            Behind the explosive running of freshman Richard Reese, Baylor scored 28 unanswered points and blew out the Bobcats, 42-7, Saturday afternoon before a Family Day crowd of 45,597.
            "I'm thankful for the four quarters. I thought there was energy throughout," said Baylor head coach Dave Aranda, whose team improved to 2-1 with a bounce-back win after last week's 26-20 double-overtime loss at BYU.
            "There was a good edge by the offense and some violence from the start of the play to the end. Those are things that haven't maybe been there the previous two games. So, I'm thankful for that. Execution-wise, we were able to execute after mistakes. Those are things that are kind of unseen a lot of times and unappreciated that are just part of it."
            The offense looked a little ugly at times in the first half, particularly after a methodical 13-play, 75-yard opening drive. Blake Shapen converted on a fourth-and-two with a 10-yard pass to tight end Gavin Yates, then Reese went behind right guard for a 14-yard TD and the early 7-0 lead.
            "That was so much fun just to see him," sixth-year senior receiver Gavin Holmes said of Reese, who finished with 156 yards and three touchdowns on 19 carries (8.2-yard average). "We knew he was going to have a big role today, and he definitely stepped up. It was really cool to see."
            Reese, who picked up 25 yards on three carries on the opening drive, played a much bigger role with Taye McWilliams out and Qualan Jones limited. Baylor's offense was also missing tight end Ben Sims and wide receiver Monaray Baldwin.
            After the defense turned away the Bobcats (1-2) with a fourth-down stop from the Baylor 31, the Bears strung together another good drive. Going 69 yards in nine plays, they converted again on a fourth-down run by Reese and then extended the lead to 14-0 early in the second quarter when Craig Williams tight-roped down the near sideline for a 30-yard TD run.
            Texas State put together an impressive drive of its own, marching 71 yards in 14 plays. But, Baylor linebacker Will Williams broke up Layne Hatcher's pass to Javen Banks on a fourth-and-goal play from the 3.
            With the Bears unable to move off their own goal line when the officials overturned the call of a completed pass from Shapen to Seth Jones, the Bobcats got the ball back and put points on the board with Hatcher's 12-yard TD pass to Ashtyn Hawkins.
            "Playing green, playing fast, playing authentically, putting themselves out there and not holding back . . . I felt like the defense did that with the big stops they had," Aranda said. "But, in that particular instance, we were playing yellow. Playing not to lose as opposed to win."
            Baylor's offense responded with one of the most important drives of the young season. Backed up at their own 4-yard line with 1:51 left when Williams muffed the ensuing kickoff, the Bears covered 96 yards in nine plays.
            Facing fourth-and-one at the Bobcats' 35, Shapen faked the handoff to Reese and sprinted 35 yards on a bootleg run around the right end that pushed it back to a two-score game, 21-7, with just 26 seconds left on the clock.
            "Blake is comfortable getting out of the pocket that way," Aranda said of Shapen, who had a sack-free game with 42 yards rushing on three attempts. "We're running a bootleg, but Texas State knows we're running one, too. . . . They know it, we know it, and we still execute. We need to get more things like that. Some of that interior pressure we felt last week, the bootlegs are a good answer to that."
            Holmes, who had two catches for 18 yards on that drive to get Baylor out of a hole, said the Bears were in a two-minute situation and "we wanted to drive down there and get some points."
            "We started off a little shaky, a little slower than we would have liked," he said. "But, that two-minute drill put us into gear for that second half. . . . I think the big message going into the second half for us was to play fast, play hard and play our game. And I think we did that."
             Making up for the first interception of his collegiate career (after 154 passes), Shapen hooked up with Holmes on a 28-yard TD pass that pushed the lead to 28-7 with 4:42 left in the period. Baylor had gotten the ball back near midfield after consecutive batted passes by nose tackle Siaki Ika.
            "I knew there had been holes in the middle of the field the whole game," said Holmes, who finished with a team-high three catches for 46 yards and his first receiving touchdown in two years. "I told Blake to hold it a little longer, and I'm going to sneak through one of those holes. He saw, and I saw green, and I just took it."
            When Texas State failed to capitalize on a Williams fumble on Baylor's end of the field – Chidi Ogbonnaya blocked a 46-yard field goal try by kicker Seth Keller – it turned into the Richard Reese show.
            First, the true freshman running back picked up 17 yards on a pass from Shapen, then he turned on the afterburners for a 52-yard TD run over the right side and a 35-7 lead.
            "(The running back has) one read, and at a certain point you have to make the cut and go," Aranda said. "There is an element that you're running into this (waving his hands back and forth). You wish it would be clear, and it looks like this, and you have to kind of put your shoulders down and go through it. It takes a little moxie to do that, and he does that really well. And he was able to pop a few too, which helps confidence in everything."
            After a three-and-out by the defense, which gave up zero points and just 116 yards total in the second half, Baylor had another quick strike with its second-straight two-play drive. After Josh Fleeks picked up 45 yards with a nifty catch and run, Reese got back into the end zone for the third time on a five-yard TD run early in the fourth quarter.
            The Bears did lose the turnover battle for the first time this year, 3-1, but finished with a 501-268 edge in total offense and held its third-straight opponent below 90 yards rushing (82 yards on 34 attempts). Bouncing back from a tough game at BYU, Shapen completed 15-of-26 passes for 184 yards and one touchdown and added the 35-yard TD run.
            Baylor will open Big 12 play against Iowa State (3-0) at 11 a.m. next Saturday, Sept. 24, in Ames, Iowa, in a game that will be televised by ESPN2 or ESPNU. The Cyclones knocked off Iowa last week and routed Ohio University, 43-10, on Saturday.
            "I would say that we always have that same energy going into each and every week," said senior safety Al Walcott, who had a team-high nine tackles, two tackles for losses and his first-career forced fumble. "I'm not going say it's necessarily going to change (going into conference play), but I know that we're going to be even more dialed-in, most definitely."