As rain poured down on Fort Worth Friday night, Baylor’s playoff chances dried up and shriveled. The Bears laid strewn across the field at Amon G. Carter Stadium, covered in chewed-up grass and shredded dreams.
It was a nightmarish game to behold, the aesthetic antithesis of last year’s 61-58 thriller played in calm conditions on a fast synthetic surface in Waco. Baylor turned the ball over five times. TCU gave it away twice. Both teams somehow managed to break 300 offensive yards, and the Bears did it despite mustering only 62 yards passing. In the end, the Frogs stopped Baylor on a fourth down in double overtime to seal the win, 28-21.
For Baylor though, it’s a season which could end in a lower-case “b” bowl, not a bowl one proclaims in capital letters, such as the Fiesta (2013 season) or Cotton (2014). The Bears — now needing Oklahoma to win Bedlam if they’re going to go to the Sugar Bowl — very literally let the game slip away. Turnovers doomed Baylor, part of the team’s inability to adjust to the weather conditions. The only points Baylor scored in regulation came in the first quarter. It was just a pitiful performance. Devin Chafin was the lone bright spot for the Bears with 123 all-purpose yards and all three Bear touchdowns. He didn’t get much help.
One important point to make is that much as number-two quarterback Jarrett Stidham (replacing the number-one man, Seth Russell) did well in an extended appearance but struggled the following week against a quality opponent, his backup followed the same path.
Chris Johnson looked fantastic a week ago at Oklahoma State, as the Bears remained in the hunt for both the Big 12 and national titles. However, six nights later against TCU, he didn’t produce the same results. This was partly the product of the weather, but the pattern remained the same. Stidham did well against Kansas State, but a week weather in a steady rain against Oklahoma, he regressed instead of improving. Baylor’s backup quarterbacks showed how good they are this past month, but the ability of defenses to study them on film certainly mattered.
In the bigger picture, it was more of the same for Baylor… even though this program is hardly the same it was for many decades. Since Art Briles turned BU into a national player and gave this program an entirely new existence (his first 10-win team in Waco was the 2011 squad), the Bears have made late losses a habit. It’s the fourth year in row that Baylor has lost a game November or later. Last season it was a narrow loss to Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl. In 2013, Baylor was run out of the stadium by Oklahoma State in Stillwater and then upset by UCF in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl.
The Bears will reload. The offense is as close to a plug-and-score attack as there is in the country. Anyone with speed can thrive in it, and Texas recruiting is not short on athletes with speed. That still won’t solve the reasons as to why the Bears short-circuit as the weather gets cold and the nights turn long.
The worst part though is that the Bears still have another game. While most of the Big 12 finishes up this weekend the Bears will travel to Austin to play the mercurial Longhorns next Saturday.
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This is a feel-good win for the Horned Frogs. Their playoff hopes became past tense after two straight losses to the Oklahoma schools, but beating Baylor gives them a big rivalry win and the program’s sixth 10-win season in the last eight years.
Trevone Boykin soldiered through a bum ankle to throw for two touchdowns and run for another. He made the Frogs’ offense look as dangerous as possible in the slop in Fort Worth — very little went right, but the mere threat of Boykin’s arm still offered the possibility that something good would happen. That possibility became reality in overtime, when TCU scored touchowns on each of its possessions. Boykin also distributed the ball to eight different receivers, a huge boost after the loss of Josh Doctson.
Gary Patterson has built one of the most consistent programs in the country that has, arguably, taken the mantle as best program in the state of Texas. The program takes a sizable hit due to graduation, most notably Boykin, Doctson, and Aaron Green, but the Frogs will be back. They have established that standard at this point; moreover, the playing time gained by players in the middle or lower reaches of the depth chart this season should create a very prepared team in 2016.
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In the end, it means that the Big 12 title will come down to the last possible game, Bedlam. The league’s experiment of backloading the schedule was an interesting one that violently shook up the league and the national picture. In the end, the Oklahoma teams will come out ahead, but it was certainly a fun ride for fans from coast to coast.
The Baylor-TCU game was expected to be the Big 12’s game of the season. It left a considerable mark — just not the one most observers could have imagined. It’s a mark Gary Patterson will savor, and which the state of Oklahoma is eternally grateful for on this weekend of Thanksgiving.
