Box Score
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
AMES, Iowa – This is the
Blake Shapen that won the quarterback job in the spring and the kind of showing that third-year Baylor head coach
Dave Aranda has grown to expect.
Shaking off a disappointing performance at BYU, the sophomore quarterback completed 19-of-26 passes for 238 yards and three touchdowns in leading the 17
th-ranked Bears to a 31-24 win over Iowa State in Saturday's Big 12 opener at a packed-out Jack Trice Stadium.
"I think that's who Blake is, up until probably two games ago. And then, I think he was that the second half of the last game," said Aranda, whose team improved to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in the Big 12 with its first win in Ames since 2016.
"So much of it is focusing on what you can control, not putting your focus on the outside things. . . I feel like we've been all through that with Blake and a couple of other guys on offense. So, it was good to see them trust themselves, trust the coaches and play as a collective unit."
Scoring on its first three possessions, Baylor opened up a 17-7 lead in the first half and had a seemingly comfortable 31-14 lead in the fourth quarter when Shapen hit a wide-open
Gavin Holmes for a 38-yard TD pass on a flea-flicker play.
The Cyclones (3-1, 0-1) made things interesting, scoring 10 unanswered points on a 37-yard TD run by Jirehl Brock and Jace Gilbert's 28-yard field goal with 55 seconds left. But,
Matt Jones recovered an onside kick to end Iowa State's comeback bid for good.
"We struggled a little bit against BYU with the noise and things like that," Shapen said. "Being able to bounce back the week after that at home and then get a big win like this on the road . . . I don't think people look at that and give it too much credit, but it's always big when you go on the road and win."
Particularly since Iowa State had won 11-consecutive conference games at home, a streak that dated back to the 2019 season.
"This is a tough place to play," Aranda said. "A lot of respect for (Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell) and the staff and the team he has. It's just a difficult place, and they don't beat themselves. They make you beat them."
In a way, the Cyclones did beat themselves in this one. They were flagged for two personal-foul penalties on Baylor's opening drive, including a targeting ejection on safety Beau Freyler, turned it over twice and finished with eight penalties for 78 yards total.
"I think, obviously, those are about 60 yards of penalties in two drives that certainly had a huge effect on the flow of the game," Campbell said. "It was frustrating, but equally there were some things we did that were frustrating today, too. We needed to be better."
Converting twice on fourth down, the Bears marched 77 yards on 12 plays on the opening drive and scored on Shapen's 12-yard TD pass to tight end
Ben Sims to take the early 7-0 lead. After sitting out last week, Sims came back to catch a team-high five passes for 39 yards.
"It's awesome, because he's a veteran guy, he knows what's going on, he's been in these situations more than I have," Shapen said of Sims, a fifth-year senior. "It's good having a veteran guy on the field that's able to keep me calm."
Taking a page from Baylor's script, Iowa State had a 12-play drive of its own and tied the game at 7-7 when Hunter Dekkers hit Brock for the short touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 2. Safety
Devin Lemear appeared to knock the ball loose, but the play was not reviewed.
Showing no signs of slowing down, Shapen connected with
Hal Presley on a 40-yard pass down the right sideline as the sophomore receiver leaped over cornerback Myles Purchase at the Cyclones' 10.
When the drive stalled,
John Mayers split the uprights with a 24-yard field goal to give Baylor the lead for good, 10-7, early in the second quarter. It was Mayers' 27
th career field goal and his first since a 40-yarder versus Oklahoma State in the 2020 season finale.
Shapen connected with Holmes over the middle for a 36-yard gain on the first of a nine-play, 70-yard drive. On third-and-goal from the 1, Shapen hit fullback/linebacker
Dillon Doyle for the Iowa City native's third-career touchdown and first since scoring two in last year's BYU game.
"I think the passing game only works if the O-line does its job and I do my job," Shapen said. "They did a great job protecting me and giving me time to make plays and throws down the field."
After an exchange of three-and-outs, Iowa State answered with an eight-play, 63-yard drive and closed to within three, 17-14, on Dekkers' 24-yard TD pass to Dimitri Stanley. It was the third-straight game that Baylor's defense has allowed a touchdown in the last two minutes of the first half.
"I think it just goes to the youth of the team," Aranda said. "We were up 10 in the second quarter, and you could feel the sidelines, guys talking about, 'Look at what we're doing.' You could just feel it, guys were happy. It's not to say that you can't be happy in football, but we were almost too happy."
Baylor's defense went 14 quarters without an interception before Lemear broke up a Dekkers pass to Xavier Hutchinson for a tip-drill pick by fellow safety
Devin Neal on the second play of the third quarter. The Bears got nothing out of it, with Shapen missing
Qualan Jones on a fourth-down pass from the 30, but it set the tone for the second half.
Backed up to his own 7-yard line after a 61-yard punt by Tyler Perkins, Shapen got Baylor out of the hole with passes of 10 yards to
Josh Cameron, 18 to Holmes and 17 to tight end
Drake Dabney, who hurdled safety Jeremiah Cooper.
Two plays after defensive end Will McDonald was flagged for roughing the passer, freshman
Richard Reese sprinted 19 yards around the right end for his team-high sixth touchdown of the season. Mayers' third of four extra points pushed the lead back to double digits, 24-14, with 6:05 left in the third.
The reigning Big 12 Newcomer of the Week, Reese led Baylor in rushing for the third time, finishing with 78 yards on 21 totes. As a team, Baylor gained 123 yards on the ground against an Iowa State defense that had allowed just 60 yards rushing per game.
"Our backs did a great job of just falling forward and fighting for one to two to three yards every play. And the offensive line did a heck of a job, too," Aranda said. "I'm proud of our running backs for playing a great game, just being able to take what they gave us . . . putting us in manageable situations."
On what seemed like the knockout blow, Shapen hit Holmes for the 38-yard touchdown on a flea-flicker play that had receiver
Seth Jones flipping it back to Shapen after a handoff to Reese. There was no one within 20 yards of Holmes when he hauled in the pass in the end zone.
"You couldn't have drawn it up any better than (offensive coordinator
Jeff Grimes) did on that one," Shapen said. "Just make the throw . . . make sure it gets there and he catches it."
The Cyclones had just 171 yards total offense through three quarters, but they pushed that to 350 with fourth-quarter scoring drives of 75 and 71 yards. Even with Brock's 37-yard TD run, Baylor's defense held Iowa State to just 66 yards rushing on 27 attempts, while Dekkers was 23-of-36 for 284 yards and two touchdowns with the two picks.
Baylor returns home to host No. 8/9 Oklahoma State (3-0) next Saturday, Oct. 1, at McLane Stadium. The Cowboys were off on Saturday after blowing out Arkansas-Pine Bluff, 63-7, the week before.
