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Big 12 Week 10 Recap: OU Looks Really Good

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8 years ago

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November is going to be a lot of fun in the Big 12. Fans will have to hang on tight throughout the rest of the month, as the competition and stakes will continue to rise in the coming weeks. As for week 10, let’s take a look at the winners and losers.

Baylor-Kansas State

Earlier in the week on Thursday night, the No. 2 ranked Baylor Bears traveled to Manhattan for their matchup against the Kansas State Wildcats. With starting quarterback Seth Russell officially out for the season, all eyes were on the Baylor freshman Jarrett Stidham, who made his first start of the season.

Although the Wildcats made sure Stidham’s first start wasn’t a particularly easy one, the freshman was still able to keep the Bears grinding along to eventually reach a 31-24 victory. Baylor remains perfect at 8-0 overall and 5-0 in the conference, and dropped K-State down even further to 3-5 and 0-5. 

Stidham put up big numbers for his Baylor team, throwing for 419 yards and three touchdowns on 33 attempts. Corey Coleman, the FBS leader in touchdown receptions, hauled in two more scores to bring his season total to 20 and racked up 216 yards receiving. Shock Linwood rushed the ball 13 times for 72 yards, and the Bears offense kept humming along.

The victory didn’t come as easily as most do for Baylor, but many could have expected that with the uncertainty at quarterback coming into the game. That questionable spot at quarterback was also part of the reason why Baylor was ranked sixth in the week’s initial college football playoff ranking. However, while he certainly wasn’t perfect, Stidham passed his first test and proved that he has the ability to carry Baylor the rest of the way.

 

Late in the third quarter, Stidham and Coleman connected on a short touchdown pass that put the Bears up 28-10. Soon after, a Chris Callahan field goal made the lead 31-10, and the Wildcats seemed to be down and out. However, Hubener kept his teams hopes alive as he ran for a 34-yard touchdown and then threw a short 10-yard touchdown pass to Deante Burton to suddenly make the lead 31-24.

After the Bears missed a field goal with only 51 seconds remaining, the Wildcats tried to tie the game with a trick play, but it blew up in their face. Hubener threw a lateral pass to receiver Cody Cook, who then threw it down the field looking for the end zone. However, the pass was intercepted by Terrell Burt, which allowed Baylor to simply run down the clock and secure the victory.

The Bears have a difficult stretch of games ahead, as they will play host to the Oklahoma Sooners this upcoming Saturday. After that, they will travel to Stillwater to take on the undefeated Oklahoma State Cowboys before then closing out the season against TCU.

ESPN’s College GameDay has announced that it will be heading to Waco for the matchup against OU and Baylor, setting a big stage for the Big 12 showdown. While Waco prepares their GameDay signs for the weekend, the K-State Wildcats will travel to Texas Tech for their next game.

Iowa State-Oklahoma

The No. 15 Oklahoma Sooners took on the Iowa State Cyclones in Norman on Saturday, and showed that they are feeling prepared to take on the challenge that the Baylor Bears will bring.

Quarterback Baker Mayfield led his team to an easy 52-16 over Iowa State, improving the Sooners to 8-1 overall and 5-1 in the Big 12. The Cyclones fell to 3-6 and 2-4.

Mayfield completed 23 of 31 pass attempts for 342 yards and three touchdowns, while also rushing for 27 yards and another score. Samaje Perine rushed for 95 yards and a touchdown, and Joe Mixon almost matched him with 88 yards rushing and his own touchdown.

For the first time since 2008, the Sooners have scored 50 or more points in four straight games. They’ve also won four straight games, and have made easy work of what will likely be their last opponent that is no match for them. A difficult stretch of games awaits OU from here on out, as they will face each of the top three teams in the Big 12.

Cyclones quarterback Joel Lanning had 51 pass attempts on the day, and finished with 260 yards passing with one touchdown and one interception. Running back Mike Warren, who has been racking up the rushing yards and averaging 154.3 per game with 6.4 yards per carry, was held completely in check by the OU defense. Warren only managed 43 yards on 18 carries, which was an average of 2.4 yards.

Overall, the Sooners played dominantly on defense throughout the game; only allowing Iowa State to get field goal points during the first half, tallying three for nine points. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Cyclones offense was held scoreless until there were only five minutes left in the game, when Lanning connected with D’Vario Montgomery for a 13-yard score.

The Oklahoma offense made sure the defense didn’t do all the work, as Mayfield and company executed big plays with their offense that had them finding the end zone quickly. On six of their touchdown drives, the Sooners managed to score in either five plays or less. Check out this ridiculous flea flicker from Mayfield to Dimitri Flowers for a 75-yard TD:

The Sooners scored three TDs in the first quarter to quickly give themselves a quick 21-3 lead. By halftime, OU led 21-9, and then completely pulled away in the third quarter. The Sooners had three possessions in that quarter, and didn’t have to punt once, finding six points each time. Also, here’s a note to all of the defenses that have yet to face OU’s offense—don’t leave Sterling Shepard open.

The Sooners will travel to Waco for their next game to take on Baylor on the College Gameday stage, while Iowa State will return back home to Ames and wait for the Oklahoma State Cowboys to come to their house.

West Virginia-Texas Tech

Moving on to Morgantown, the West Virginia Mountaineers hosted the Texas Tech Red Raiders with a hope to end their four game losing streak.  

The West Virginia running backs made sure that their team would be going to bed Saturday with a victory, as they amassed 300 rushing yards total and four rushing touchdowns on the day and defeated the Red Raiders 31-26.

Wendell Smallwood and Rushel Shell were the backs that stepped up their game in a big way for WVU, as Smallwood rushed for 163 yards and one score while Shell rushed for another 111 yards and two scores.

The Mountaineers broke that four game skid and improved to 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the Big 12, while Texas Tech lost its third consecutive game and went to 5-5 and 2-5. Both teams are looking to become bowl eligible, but neither has been able to reach that mark yet.

WVU quarterback Skyler Howard threw for 149 yards and two interceptions, but no touchdowns. This became the first game of the season that he’s thrown two picks and no TDs. However, Howard no doubt enjoyed his two running backs taking a lot of the weight off his shoulders. Shell’s performance in particular was a breakout for him, as he was only averaging 33 rushing yards in his last three games. His first 100-yard game was a good one, as it came right after running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider challenged Shell and Smallwood to take over the game against Tech.

Not every aspect of the game was bad news for the Red Raiders, as running back DeAndre Washington rushed for 102 yards and became the first Texas Tech running back to cross over 1,000 yards total in back-to-back seasons since Byron Hanspard achieved the same feat back in 1995-96.

However, Tech’s Jakeem Grant, who was a nightmare for Oklahoma State last week, had an abysmal performance. He was held to a mere five catches, and eight yards total. That’s a big stat that’s going to sting for a while for Grant.

The Red Raiders will have a chance to rebound this upcoming Saturday when the crumbling K-State Wildcats come to their house in Lubbock, and West Virginia will play host to Texas up next.

Texas-Kansas

Lastly, the Texas Longhorns had an easy week as the winless Kansas Jayhawks came to Austin and feebly hoped to get their first victory of the season.

To the surprise of no one, Kansas not only failed to win, but also lost by another big margin. The Longhorns defeated the Jayhawks 59-20, and moved up to 4-5 overall and 3-3 in the Big 12. Kansas continues to catapult backwards to a 0-9 record and stays winless in the conference.

The Jayhawks have now lost 37 straight games on the road, and have given up at least 58 points to their opponent in the last three games. Quarterback Ryan Willis threw for 214 passing yards for one touchdown and two interceptions.

After being shutout at Iowa State last weekend, the Longhorns offense was set out to score points, and in bunches. They did just that, with their 59 point total becoming the highest scoring game in the two seasons with Charlie Strong as head coach.

Texas quarterback Jerrod Heard threw for 201 yards and one impressive 84-yard TD pass to John Burt that took place on Texas’ very first play of the game. Running back D’Onta Foreman had 12 carries for 157 rushing yards and two touchdowns, including one 93-yard run for a TD in the third quarter. That run became the third longest in school history for Texas.  

Tyrone Swoopes eventually replaced Heard at quarterback in the fourth quarter, and put up some numbers of his own. His very first pass attempt was a 40-yard TD connection to Armanti Foreman. He finished the day completing six of his seven pass attempts for 98 yards, while also rushing for 59 yards and four touchdowns. The highlight of the game for Swoopes was this 44-yard TD run:

The Longhorns will move ahead to Morgantown to take on West Virginia, and Kansas will meander along to Fort Worth to go up against TCU. There’s no doubt that Kansas will be 0-10 by Saturday night.

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