By Jerry Hill, BaylorBears.com
LUBBOCK, Texas -- Quite the homecoming for
Sawyer Robertson.
Baylor's redshirt junior quarterback, a Lubbock native who won Gatorade Texas Player of the Year four years ago at Coronado High School, threw for 274 yards and a career-high five touchdowns to lead the Bears to a resounding 59-35 victory Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium to knock the hometown Texas Tech Red Raiders out of first place in the Big 12 standings.
Even though Robertson had a relatively quiet first half, the Bears (3-4, 1-3) took a double-digit lead into the locker room, 24-14, when Robertson connected with
Josh Cameron for the first of the junior receiver's three touchdowns on the day.
Tech (5-2, 3-1) scored on its opening drive of the third quarter to make it a one-score game, 24-21. But the Bears reeled off 28 unanswered points and scored touchdowns on six of their last seven series of the game.
Robertson created some cushion with third-quarter TD passes of 11 yards to Cameron and 35 to
Hal Presley for his only catch of the day. Continuing the second-half scoring outburst, Baylor added touchdown passes of 24 yards to
Monaray Baldwin and a 12-yarder to Cameron that made it 52-21 with 9:41 left in the game.
Cameron had six catches for 75 yards and the three touchdowns and also had a 73-yard punt return to inside the 1-yard line. Redshirt freshman running back
Bryson Washington had his second 100-yard day, rushing for a career-high 116 yards and two touchdowns.
Sandwiched between a pair of late scores by the Red Raiders, Toledo transfer
Dequan Finn saw his first game action since Week 2 against Utah and scored on a 31-yard TD run.
Special teams played a huge role in a first half that saw the Bears go up 24-14 on Tech, their first halftime lead in a Big 12 game since the conference-opening 38-31 overtime loss at Colorado.
Washington scored the first of his two first-half touchdowns to get Baylor on the board first. After a 43-yard run that was initially called a TD, the redshirt freshman running back punched it in from one yard out on the very next play to give BU the 7-0 lead.
Tech wasted no time in answering, tying it up on the first of two first-half touchdown grabs by Florida transfer Caleb Douglas. This one was a 12-yard strike from Behren Morton after the Red Raiders converted a fourth-and-one with a four-yard run by Tahj Brooks.
The first big special teams play was a Cameron's 73-yard punt return. In a replay of Washington's first-quarter run, it was initially ruled a touchdown but reversed on review and placed just inside the 1-yard line, where Washington once again got the scoring honors.
On the ensuing kickoff, East Carolina transfer Rara Dilworth recovered a muffed return by Tech's Drae McCray at the Red Raiders' 19-yard line. But the Bears had to settle for a 31-yard field goal by
Isaiah Hankins that pushed the lead to 17-7 with 10:30 left in the half.
Douglas scored again, this time from tight end Jalin Conyers, who made a move toward the line of scrimmage before backing up and tossing to the Tech receiver for a 20-yard touchdown.
With just under two minutes remaining and holding all three timeouts, Baylor drove 75 yards in nine plays and scored on Robertson's five-yard TD pass to Cameron in the back of the end zone. That play came after a big first-down pickup with a 19-yard pass to tight end
Michael Trigg, who had been called for an offensive pass interference two plays earlier.
The Bears finished with a season-high 529 yards, including a season-high 255 yards rushing, while Tech had 306 yards through the air and 455 yards total.
Back home for its next two games, Baylor will host Oklahoma State (3-4, 0-4) for Homecoming at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday at McLane Stadium. The Cowboys dropped their third in a row, falling on the road at No. 13 BYU, 38-35, Friday night in Provo.
