Kansas unable to put it together against Baylor
Pooka Williams Jr. took the handoff, ran to his right and burst 72 yards up the field on the fifth play of Kansas’ first drive in the second half, setting up the Jayhawk offense inside the Baylor 5-yard line.
It was the kind of big play that Kansas expected from its freshman standout running back after the Jayhawks had amassed 405 rushing yards in their blowout win over Rutgers.
Although Williams’ long run led to a touchdown for Kansas, it took a little too long for the Jayhawks’ offense to get on track, and Baylor, behind a 295-yard, three-touchdown performance from sophomore quarterback Charlie Brewer, earned a 26-7 victory on a cloudy, 73-degree Saturday afternoon at McLane Stadium.
Kansas (2-2 overall, 0-1 Big 12) will have to wait until Oct. 6 at West Virginia — almost 10 years to the date after the Jayhawks beat Iowa State 35-33 in Ames on Oct. 4, 2008 — to end its conference losing streak away from Lawrence.
“Obviously, it’s something that we keep fighting for,” Kansas senior linebacker Joe Dineen Jr. said. “It’s something we’ll go back to the drawing board, take it one game at a time.”
The story of Saturday’s loss for Kansas, which has never beat Baylor (3-1, 1-0) in nine tries in Waco, was its inability to sustain drives on offense and also struggled to contain Brewer in the pocket. The Bears outgained the Jayhawks 256 yards to 48 yards in the first half, including zero rushing yards on 13 carries for Kansas. Baylor was 5 of 7 on third downs over that span of play, while Kansas converted just 1 of 6 opportunities.
“We just did not do enough offensively at all today,” Kansas coach David Beaty said. “I don’t think we played well enough, and I certainly don’t think that we coached them well enough.”
Baylor stacked the box full of defenders near the line of scrimmage, daring Kansas to pass the ball. The Bears’ defense bottled up the Jayhawks to the tune of 122 rushing yards, with 72 of that total coming on Williams’ long third-quarter run. He finished with 103 yards in 14 carries.
Williams’ big run led to Kansas’ lone score, a 10-yard touchdown on a fade pass from Peyton Bender to Jeremiah Booker, who is from nearby College Station, Texas, which cut Baylor’s lead to 23-7 with 8:32 left in the third quarter.
“Peyton threw a perfect pass, and I just had to make the play,” Booker said. “He called it, saw the mismatch.”
Bender got the start at quarterback for Kansas and played under center before taking turns starting late in the second quarter with Miles Kendrick, who sustained a shoulder injury in the second half, and did not return. Beaty said postgame that he is unsure of Kendrick’s status going forward.
Bender finished 10 of 17 for 105 yards, while Carter Stanley saw action in relief after Kendrick was injured.
“We had a hard time getting a push off the ball throughout the entire game,” Bender said. “I feel like they kind of knew what we were trying to do. Obviously, we’ve been a run-heavy team. We were trying to establish the run, couldn’t really get it done.”
It was the complete opposite for Baylor.
Brewer threw three perfectly-thrown passes for touchdowns in the first half. He found Chris Platt wide open in the back corner of the end zone from 22 yards for a 7-0 Bears lead at the 5:35 mark of the first quarter. His next touchdown came on a ball thrown on a crossing route to Tyquan Thornton. His third score was a 34-yard strike to Josh Flees in double coverage, for a 23-0 Baylor lead with 1:37 left in the second quarter.
Brewer was 11 of 14 passing for 151 yards at halftime and had 58 rushing yards in just six carries.
“Obviously, he’s a really good quarterback,” Dineen Jr. said of Brewer. “He can run and can throw. We’re going to see a lot of that in the Big 12. He’s a lot faster than he looks on film. He hurt us today.”
Kansas had a couple of other opportunities for scores. Gabriel Rui missed a 48-yard field-goal attempt in the first quarter that would have cut Baylor’s lead to 7-3. The Jayhawks turned down a field-goal opportunity in the third quarter to make it a two-possession game. With KU facing fourth and 9 at the Baylor 27 in the third quarter, Stephon Robinson Jr. was tackled 2 yards short of the line to gain on a pass play.
“Sitting in the situation that we were in, we felt like we needed to score right there, just based on how things were going overall,” Beaty said. “We felt like we had a good call, and it just didn’t work out.”
And what about the turnovers?
Kansas came into its Big 12 opener leading the nation with an FBS-best plus-12 turnover margin. But, the Jayhawks didn’t come away with any Saturday, although Kyron Johnson came within a touch of the finger to adding to that total.
With less than a minute before halftime, and Kansas trailing 23-0, Osaze Ogbebor jarred the ball loose on a punt return by Baylor. Several players had the chance to pounce on the ball inside Bears territory, including Johnson, who reached out with his left hand. However, the ball got away from Johnson, as well as a few other players, before falling into the body of Baylor’s Jake Copeland. Johnson slapped his hand on the turf in frustration.
Although Kansas’ defense limited Baylor to three points in the second half, which came on a 27-yard field goal by Connor Martin, the Jayhawks were unable to overcome a tough first half on the road.
This story was originally published September 22, 2018 at 7:50 PM.