ORLIN WAGNER: ASSOCIATED PRESS TWISTS AND TURNS: Baylor players flood the end zone after the Bears came up with the game-clinching stop on a two-point try in overtime after a huge fourth-quarter rally.
Photo: Orlin Wagner

LAWRENCE, Kan. - The last thing anyone expected from this statistical mismatch was fourth-quarter drama. Or a gutsy overtime gamble.

Or one of the biggest comebacks in Baylor football history.

Nevertheless, a scant crowd in Memorial Stadium got all that and more on a raw, windy afternoon Saturday before Jordan Webb's 2-point conversion pass fell incomplete and Baylor escaped with a wild 31-30 overtime victory over Kansas.

"It hurts," said Turner Gill, Kansas' embattled head coach.

"It's unbelievable. It's huge," said Baylor coach Art Briles.

With an offense ranked No. 2 in the country averaging 575.8 yards per game and the Kansas defense ranked last among 120 FBS schools, the Bears came in as three-touchdown favorites even though they hadn't won a conference road game in more than a year.

But the Jayhawks (2-8, 0-7 Big 12) took a shocking 24-3 lead on Tony Pierson's 34-yard run late in the third quarter. One of the season's biggest upsets seemed to be taking shape.

But then Robert Griffin III threw three touchdown passes in a furious fourth-quarter comeback, biting off huge chunks of yardage, and knotted it 24-all on a 67-yard TD pass to Tevin Reece.

A 14-yard TD pass to Reece on Baylor's first possession of overtime was answered immediately when Webb connected with Tim Biere for a 25-yard TD strike on the next play, setting up a decision Gill insists he will never second guess.

"I just felt the momentum," he said. "I thought it would be the time to go for it. You have some instincts, and I just had an instinct at that particular time to go for it."

The 21-point comeback tied the Baylor record set against SMU in 1980 and made the Bears (6-3, 3-3) bowl eligible for the second straight year.

"We got going. We got our mojo," said Griffin, who threw for 312 yards and ran for 103. "We got our rhythm. We couldn't establish that the whole game because we didn't have the ball. We knew we weren't going to get many opportunities the way Kansas runs the ball and was eating up clock."

Biere had two defenders around him when Webb threw him the ball.

Griffin's three fourth-quarter touchdown drives took only 14 plays to cover 267 yards.

"When we scored that first one, it just let us know, 'Hey, as long as we can score touchdowns, we can get back in this game,' " he said.

Capping an 89-yard drive in just five plays, Griffin ran untouched 49 yards for Baylor's first TD with 11:45 to go.
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