DALLAS – Trailing 38-24, almost entirely because of self-inflicted mistakes, whispers and murmurs of Baylor head coach Dave Aranda being thrust back onto the hot seat started to get gradually louder amongst the fanbase.
Albeit against quality competition, which included a defeat to Auburn in Week 1, the Bears looked all but poised to start the season with back-to-back losses, pending an improbable comeback on the road against No. 17 SMU, a College Football Playoff team from a year ago.
With 5:34 remaining in the fourth quarter of Saturday afternoon’s contest between the former Southwest Conference foes, ESPN Analytics gave Baylor a 1.1% chance to walk out of Gerald J. Ford Stadium with a win over the Mustangs.
That improbable comeback, however, suddenly looked practical when Baylor’s star quarterback, Sawyer Robertson, put on his Superman cape and led the Bears down the field on multiple clutch drives.
The Lubbock native lobbed a jump ball to his trusty favorite target, Josh Cameron, for a 48-yard score with 5:33 left and then later lasered a ball over the middle to Alabama transfer Kobe Prentice for the game-tying touchdown with 0:34 seconds remaining to send the game to overtime, knotted at 38 apiece.
“One play at a time,” Robertson said post-game of his mindset in the fourth quarter. “We can’t get all 14 back right now, so I said, ‘One play at a time.’ In my brain, I was thinking we have to make something shake pretty fast. Thankfully, we did, and we were able to get the ball back and go do it again. It was pretty crazy.”
Carrying all the momentum into overtime, the Bears got the ball first and scored with relative ease, as running back Bryson Washington found the endzone from two yards out for his second touchdown of the contest; he finished with 115 yards on 31 carries. The Ponies instantly punched back when quarterback Kevin Jennings perfectly placed a pass into the outstretched arms of Romello Brinson for a 25-yard score.
In double overtime, Baylor’s defense, which had its issues for much of the afternoon, came up clutch when safety DJ Coleman broke up a pass on third down, setting the stage for SMU kicker Collin Rogers, who was already one-for-three on the game, to try and put the Ponies back ahead.
As soon as Rogers attempted the 37-yarder, he knew he had shanked it wide right, and put his hands on his helmet in distress as the Baylor defense waved their arms, signaling no good.
Robertson and the Bears got the ball back and were conservative, calling six straight run plays to set up a 27-yard game-winning, walk-off field goal from redshirt freshman Connor Hawkins.
Hawkins drilled the kick through the uprights to seal Baylor’s incredible 48-45 come-from-behind victory and end the program’s 10-game skid against ranked opponents, while also putting to bed some of the demons that might have remained from last year’s overtime loss in Boulder to Colorado.
“The amount of times we’ve repped these situations throughout the week and seeing it come to light and seeing us execute whenever it comes to crunch time was huge,” linebacker Keaton Thomas said post-game. “It’s definitely a way better feeling compared to what happened before. I’m really proud of everybody involved.”
Cameron added, “We’ve been ready for that since that [Colorado] game. We’ve been thinking about overtime and what we need to do to finish strong, and that’s what we did. We’ve been executing it in practice each week, and we executed it today. It’s great to see everything mesh so well and come out with the win.”
The victory, however, wouldn’t have been made possible without the heroic efforts of Robertson, who threw for 440 yards and four touchdowns and was met with a few “Sawyer for Heisman” chants from some of Baylor fans in attendance as he walked off the field.
Despite not having a consistent run game so far this season, Robertson has started to make noise nationally. He is the third quarterback since 2000 to have 850-plus yards passing, seven-plus touchdown passes and zero interceptions through two games in a season, since Texas Tech’s Nic Shimonek (2017) and Cody Hodges (2005).
“Every week, you can rely on him to take care of business and sling that thing,” Thomas said after the victory of Baylor’s starting quarterback.
The Bears also got huge contributions from the entire wide receiver room, with Cameron hauling in nine passes for 151 yards and two touchdowns. Ashtyn Hawkins had a stellar performance with a career-high 10 receptions for 145 yards, while Prentice and tight end Michael Trigg combined for eight receptions and 101 yards.
“My job is easy when I’m throwing to guys like Josh, Ashtyn, Trigg and those receivers, and the O-line was protecting well,” Robertson said. “Thinking back to my first start against Air Force last year, the game has slowed down so much for me.”
The only thing that kept Baylor’s offense from being perfect in a day where they put up over 600 total yards was a fourth-quarter fumble from Washington and three turnovers on downs. The defense, however, had a rough go of things again.
“I’m very proud of the effort from our team today, and the fight that they had and the dedication that it took to see everything through,” Aranda said post-game. “There’s so much that could have been cleaner, and frankly, needs to be better. The mistakes early on were frustrating.”
Some of those defensive mistakes included a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of scrimmage that should have been an interception, a 75-yard touchdown from a busted coverage on the backend and a 40-yard rushing touchdown where linebacker Travion Barnes filled the wrong gap, as well as a handful of penalties.
“The film is going to be ugly, but it’s [always] better when you have a win,” Aranda said.
To the defense’s credit, however, they didn’t let early mistakes bog them down and shut SMU’s high-powered offense out in the third quarter, forced a stop to give Robertson the ball back to tie the game late in the fourth quarter and got another clutch stop in double overtime.
As the Bears continue to get their transfers up to speed and get players back healthy, including defensive lineman Jackie Marshall and safety Carl Williams IV, there’s optimism that Aranda’s defense can look much better by conference play, and with Thomas leading the charge, it’s not unrealistic to expect improved play from the unit.
“It’s football — crazy things happen all the time, and you have to be ready for everything,” Thomas said. “You can’t be too high, and you can’t be too low. When things like that happen, that’s adversity, and that’s life. Jump over that hurdle. Keep pushing. Keep making plays. Keep hunting. Keep dominating. Keep being physical. You never know who’s going to get the last laugh.”
Baylor (1-1) will return to Waco to face an FCS opponent, Samford (0-2), next Saturday, Sept. 13, at 11 a.m. at McLane Stadium before opening conference play at home against the reigning Big 12 Champions, No. 12 Arizona State (1-1), on Sept. 20.
