“If you don’t have butterflies, than you’re not ready to play”.
Advertisement
“My confidence went way up”, Johnson said.
Johnson is a 6-foot-5-inch, 235-pound redshirt sophomore, a former three-star recruit from Bryan High who had not thrown a pass in college.
The Baylor offense is never short of playmakers and while the Quarterback and Wide Receivers gain the most attention there’s something to be said about the guys who tote the rock and turn it into 6. He’s just a great, great teammate. “You’d like to find that everywhere you look around, but it’s not always there”.
“It’s an opportunity to get more in-sync with those guys”, Johnson said. Outside Baylor’s locker room, offensive coordinator Kendal Briles echoed it.
“Since he moved back to quarterback, he’s gotten really sharp”, Briles said. “We battled back and then we got a couple of stops on defense but couldn’t get anything going on offense”.
A hefty tape job did little to help Stidham’s gimpy ankle, and his postgame celebration was subdued by necessity. The Bears took away Oklahoma State’s dream of its first unbeaten season and probable playoff spot, a devastating blow to a squad that looked like a team of destiny at various times in 2015. He is throwing for an average of 317.3 yards per game in that time frame while tossing nine touchdowns for just one interception. The Sooners are simply the better football team here and should win, making one last case to the playoff voters.
Briles said Monday that it was more an issue of the bone in his lower leg and termed Stidham as “very questionable” to play against TCU. “Everything he did was not surprising to us”.
Texas (4-6, 3-4, next game Thursday vs. Texas Tech) – Interesting time on the Big 12 teleconference today.
Juggling quarterbacks midweek left Briles attention to his ever-changing roster, not the ever-changing carousel that is the College Football Playoff top 25. “We can see the end (of the season) in sight”, he said. “But at least up to this point, we’re still standing pretty solid”. Kansas State recovered three Iowa State fumbles in the final seven minutes and rallied from a 35-14 first-half deficit. OU’s the outright champ with a Bedlam victory and a Baylor loss to TCU or Texas. It’s entirely possible that both will remain ahead of the Bears in the polls.
25 matchups include No. 8 Ohio State St.at No. 12 MI (noon, ABC), No. 19 MS at No. 23 Mississippi State (7:15 p.m., ESPN2), No. 4 Notre Dame at No. 13 Stanford (7:30 p.m., Fox), No. 14 Florida State at No. 10 Florida (7:30 p.m., ESPN) and No. 5 Oklahoma at No. 9 Oklahoma State (8 p.m., ABC).
Two years ago MI State ended Ohio State’s ideal season and kept Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes out of the national title game with a victory in the Big Ten championship.
Baylor, meanwhile, seems too exhausted with juggling injuries to campaign. The Gators have their spot in the SEC title game locked up, but are dragging into their rivalry game off an overtime win against FAU.
“This is as meaningful a road win as we’ve had with the situation we’re in right now”, Briles said. The ability to control its own destiny for a Big 12 title. “If we don’t take care of business tonight, that’s gone”.
Oklahoma State is the only Big 12 team left with a chance to run the table and might be the conference’s best chance at placing a team in the College Football Playoff.
Advertisement
Jordan Burton forced his first fumble of the season and Kevin Peterson subsequently made his first fumble recovery of the season in the second quarter. A signature victory was the one thing eluding the Bears previously.
