Waco, Texas • Kelly Poppinga openly worried last Tuesday.
Maybe that 38-9 win over Kansas State wasn’t as good as the score said. Maybe the ball just kept bouncing BYU’s way on an odd, frenzied night in Provo — where the Cougars scored 28 points in less than six minutes — and that was why BYU toppled the No. 13 team in the country. A good night, for sure, but replicable? Maybe not.
“I think people think we’ve played a lot better than we really did,” Poppinga said. “It was handily won, but a lot of it was because the ball bounced our way pretty much every single time.”
Well, for BYU’s encore performance, the Cougars didn’t exactly dispel all the worries. Their second-half performance will certainly leave some doubts. But they did enough, again, to stay unbeaten.
BYU went into Waco and beat Baylor 34-28 for its first Big 12 road win.
The No. 22 team in the country jumped out early and nearly let it all slip away. It had to come up with three stops in the fourth quarter to survive — ended with a Crew Wakley interception.
Quarterback Jake Retzlaff opened his afternoon with a 75-yard drive for a touchdown. On BYU’s first defensive play, Blake Mangelson wrestled away an interception at the line of scrimmage.
BYU was up 14-0 seven minutes into the game. And by the end the of the first half, the Cougars neared 300 yards and Retzlaff accounted for 227 of them. It was the best offensive half BYU’s had since Retzlaff took over last November.
But a near-collapse ensued.
Even with a 21-point lead in the first half, Jay Hill’s defense couldn’t hold on. It allowed almost 400 yards and its secondary kept rotating through defensive backs to find answers.
Baylor quarterback Sawyer Robertson had over 300 yards passing and three touchdowns. With just over 10 minutes to play, the Bears picked on freshman Tre Alexander for a touchdown to bring the score within a touchdown, 34-28.
The Bears had three drives with under six minutes to play to take the lead. The first one was stopped at the 12-yard line.
The second drive, with 4:01 left, was set up by a Retzlaff interception. Baylor was gifted the ball at the 46 yard line in BYU’s territory. But the Bears couldn’t get in the end zone after a fourth down stop at the 25-yard line.
The third drive, with 1:32 left, was ended by a Crew Wakley interception.
Retzlaff finished 17-31 for 216 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He added 53 yards rushing and a touchdown.
