No.9 Baylor stuns No.5 Oklahoma State to win Big 12 By DJ Hamilton

 

    In what was a busy Saturday for College Football with Conference title games around the country, none could have been more electrifying than the finish to the Baylor Bears and Oklahoma State Cowboys, with the Bears coming up victorious 21-16. So how did we get here? The Cowboys would start the game taking a 3-0 lead off a Tanner Brown 23-yard field goal after Baylor running back Trestan Ebner fumbled on the opening drive of the game. Despite that, the Bears dominated the first half of the game, forcing Cowboys quarterback Spencer Sanders into a Big 12 title game-record four interceptions which led the Bears to take a commanding 21-6 lead at the half. 

The Bears defense was ferocious, forcing the Cowboys to kick field goals on three drives inside the red zone that was the big difference in the game. The Bears were without their starting quarterback Gerry Bohanon, who was out with a right hamstring injury he suffered Nov.20 at Kansas State. Despite that, backup quarterback Blake Shapen came to the rescue by setting a Big 12 title game record by completing 17 consecutive passes to start the game. Shapen was a coach’s dream, throwing for 180 yards, three touchdowns, while completing 23-of-28 passes, and would go on to capture the title game MVP.

However, Cowboys did make it tough on the Bears offense in the second half, holding the Bears scoreless and to just 36 yards on 23 plays. The Cowboys came back from their largest deficit of the season, being down 21-3 at one point to make it a 21-16 game after Brown’s 20-yard field goal with 8:17 left in the fourth

The defining play of the game though was when Oklahoma State running back Dezmon Jackson came up just inches short on the fourth down drive as the Cowboys had four tries within the 2-yard line to score a touchdown with 1:19 left in what would’ve given the Cowboys the lead and put pressure on the Bears to have to come back to score with the clock ticking. Instead, it was the Bears who ultimately won. Their safety Jairon McVea was the one who knocked Jackson out of bounds to make him miss the pylon and what would’ve given the Cowboys the lead.

Baylor posted just 242 total yards of offense on 1.9 yards per carry. Meanwhile, the Cowboys had just 1.8 yards per carry and 5.6 yards per pass attempt.

Ultimately, it was the Bears who came out on top and made history with the win by knocking the Cowboys out of playoff contention and by becoming the first team other than Oklahoma to capture the Big 12 title since 2014 and their third Big 12 title overall as a program. The Big 12 is no longer owned by the Oklahoma schools as there is now a new Big 12 heavyweight in town in the Baylor Bears.

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