Advertisement
football Edit

Kansas drilled in Waco, 55-7

WACO, Texas (AP) Robert Griffin threw for a career-best 380 yards with two of his three touchdowns to Josh Gordon, who turned a short pass into a school-record 94-yarder, and Baylor beat Kansas 55-7 Saturday for its most lopsided conference victory ever.
The Bears (4-1, 1-0 Big 12) had never won a Big 12 game by more than 28 points. Their largest conference margin had been a 47-point Southwest Conference victory over Arkansas in 1922.
Advertisement
It was the first Big 12 game for new coach Turner Gill at Kansas (2-3, 0-1).
Griffin passed for 288 yards before halftime, only nine shy of his previous mark set in Baylor's last home game three weeks ago. He finished 26 of 36 and ran eight times for 64 yards with a 1-yard TD before coming out after three quarters.
His 444 total yards were a single-game school record, as were the 678 yards for the team.
Griffin hit Gordon in stride in the end zone for a 39-yard TD on the opening drive. Late in the first half Griffin dumped a pass in the right flat to Gordon, who avoided a desperate diving tackle attempt by a linebacker then sprinted untouched along the sideline in front of the Kansas bench for the 94-yarder.
The Jayhawks have never won in Waco, going 0-5 including losing all four since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996. No other league team has lost more than twice there in that span. The Jayhawks' losses there in 1998 and 2002 were the bookends to Baylor's 29-game conference losing streak.
Griffin threw an 11-yard TD pass midway through the third quarter, though he went a lot farther. Griffin went back to the 30 retrieving a snap over his head, then ran toward the left sideline fleeing defenders before throwing against his body to Terrance Williams wide open in the end zone.
When Kansas got the ball back, Tim Atchison intercepted a pass thrown by Jordan Webb and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown to make it 48-7.
Williams also caught a 50-yard touchdown on a double-pass play from fellow receiver Kendall Wright.
Griffin's 1-yard keeper early in the second quarter put Baylor up 17-0, though he had to do it twice after officials nullified the first one because they were reviewing a 34-yard catch by Williams on the previous play.
Last season, Griffin didn't even make it into Big 12 play because of a torn ACL in his right knee suffered in the third game. In his comeback this season, he already has passed for 1,351 yards and 11 TDs while running for 221 yards and four scores.
Aaron Jones kicked a 50-yard field goal on the final play of the first half for a 27-7 lead, after he had given the Bears a 10-0 lead less than 5 minutes into the game. His 10 field goals are already one more than two Baylor kickers combined for last season.
Baylor's opening drive was five completions by Griffin, including the 39-yarder to Gordon wide open in the end zone. Webb was then sacked and stripped, setting up Jones' first field goal.
Kansas had gone consecutive games without a turnover for the first time since 2007, but had four against Baylor.
Webb finished 16 of 28 for 171 yards with two interceptions and the fumble. He was sacked three times.
Post-Game comments from Gill
Finding positives after this game:
Uh, no. Not at all. We didn't do a very good job as far as coaches and players. Our team didn't play well but you have to give credit to Baylor and their coach. They executed better than we did.
Do you feel it was intensity, execution, or preparation?
Who knows but I think it was a little bit of all of the above. Our guys didn't come out and execute like we need to and didn't play very well in any phase. They beat us in every phase and deserved to win the football game.
Baylor's success on wide receivers making plays:
We didn't contain as far as they outside guys. At corner you have to make sure you can contain them and make them go back inside. Then when they went back inside we didn't have anybody there to make plays. They (Baylor) played well and we have to play better and do better as a staff too.
On turnovers hurting the offense:
They hurt but then we hurt ourselves. I would call them unforced errors. We had some illegal procedures and all of a sudden we would stop ourselves. It was just one of those days where anything that could go wrong went wrong.
Getting ready for Kansas State:
Unfortunately our guys on our staff have been in the business long enough you have these type of situations where you don't play very well. We've had a situation already earlier this year where we didn't play very well and bounced back. The key is trying to play consistently week after week. We are still getting to know our football team. This is probably a game where Jordan didn't play quite as well. But again we have to coach them up and play better.
Advertisement