The Sooners' easy win turned into a 1 point squeaker. Oklahoma State turned a supposedly even matchup with Texas Tech into a blowout. And Kansas State suffered through what I would assume Todd Akin would term a decidedly legitimate game of football at the hands of Baylor.
Let's get to our predictions and see how everything ended up.
Prediction: Kansas State 45, Baylor 27
Reality: ESPN still says Baylor 52, Kansas State 24 this morning. The more skeptical parts of my brain have been processing this since late last night to determine which of the following is the most reasonable explanation for that score: mass hypnosis, aliens, or that this is, indeed, reality.
Game Notes: during the Bears'...well, strange it does sound, but call it what it was...domination of the Wildcats, I found myself asking more than once "self, is this real life?" And I asked that question not in the 'haha, funny!' way, but in the 'has diet Mountain Dew ever been shown to have hallucinogenic properties?' way. In the understatement of the season, the spreadsheet really crapped the bed on this call; the less said about that the better.
Last night was a night of firsts. For the first time since 2007, an unranked team took down the #1 BCS ranked team. For the first time ever, a team with a losing record took down the #1 team. For the first time this season, the Baylor defense showed up to play.
Nick Florence connected with Tevin Reese on a touchdown pass less than two minutes into the game. Kansas State responded with a touchdown of their own. And then the Bears opened up a 28-7 lead, and in the process refused to let the Wildcats capitalize off a Florence interception. And then people not normally prone to doubting their own sanity began to wonder at what point their spouses were going to wake them up and tell them to get ready for church.
Kansas State racked up 10 points in the last 2 minutes of the half to cut the deficit to 28-17. That seemed more like it. An 11 point lead did not seem likely to hold up against the halftime adjustments of Bill Snyder and a group of Wildcat players sporting new orifices in their posteriors. But then Baylor scored again to make it 35-17, and held KSU to a punt on their ensuing drive.
That punt was downed at the 1 yard line of Baylor, and despite having Martin and Seastrunk waiting in the wings, the Bears elected to throw on 1st and 2nd down. The second pass was picked off at the 1 yard line, and Collin Klein promptly scored to make it 24-35. Now, surely, the floodgates of Kansas State's scoring would open.
Incredibly, they did not open. Baylor kicked a field goal and then punched in two rushing touchdowns to go up 52-24. And in the meantime, the KSU drives went like this: a punt. An interception in the endzone (the second of 3 on the night for Klein). And then came a Wildcat drive to end the 3rd and start the 4th quarters; a drive that lasted more than 8 minutes; a drive punctuated by some of the nastiest hitting I've seen dished out by a defense this season; a drive that took KSU to 1st and goal at the Baylor 6; a drive at the end of which the starkly impossible happened, something to make people not normally prone to self-harming behavior start looking for a knife with which to cut on themselves, because pinching just wasn't getting the job done.
On 1st and goal, Baylor stopped Klein at the 2 yard line.
On 2nd and goal, Baylor stopped Klein at the 1.
On 3rd and goal, Baylor stopped Klein at the 1.
And on 4th and goal, BAYLOR. STOPPED. KLEIN. AT. THE. ONE.
And that was the ball game, because then Baylor, a team renowned for its air raid, quick strike offense; Baylor, which lost by 1 point to Kansas State in Manhattan last year because it took its foot off the gas and tried to run clock; Baylor, a team that passes first and runs second, took over at its own 1 yard line with 7:51 left in the game and picked up 40 yards and 3 first downs on 10 straight rushing plays, and punted the ball back to the Wildcats with 32 seconds left to play.
And then Oregon missed a field goal in overtime and went down before Stanford. And there was a disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices all over America (except for in the Deep South) suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Prediction: Iowa State 28, Kansas 22
Reality: Iowa State 51, Kansas 23.
No game notes for this matchup, as I didn't watch a minute of it. Iowa State gets its 6th win of the season to become the Big 12's seventh bowl-eligible team.
Prediction: Oklahoma 47, West Virginia 28
Reality: Oklahoma 50, West Virginia 49
No real notes here either, as I only checked in briefly throughout the night. The spreadsheet actually did an OK job with OU's score here; by the numbers, WVU overperformed last night, although the tragedy of the Mountaineers' season is that it is probably closer to the truth to say that their offense has underperformed severely in two of their losses, and underperformed somewhat less severely in the other two. The less said about their defense (like Baylor's, at least before last night), the better.
Prediction: Oklahoma State 34, Texas Tech 28
Reality: Oklahoma State 59, Texas Tech 21
Game Notes: interestingly enough, the scoring of this game was similar to the BU-KSU game. OSU jumped out to a 7-0 lead; Tech tied the score up at 7-all, and then OSU scored 4 unanswered touchdowns. Tech scored late in the half to make the score at halftime 35-14, Cowboys. Oklahoma State then proceeded to dominate the 2nd half, racking up 24 more unanswered points before TTU scored a garbage-time TD to make the final 59-21. The story of the game was turnovers and special teams' play: Doege threw 2 interceptions; the Red Raiders turned the ball over a third time on a bad snap; and Oklahoma State blocked two punts, returning one for a touchdown.
Bonus Round: since I didn't have a bonus in the predictions post, we'll do something a bit different this time. Debate topic: Lache Seastrunk (5'10", 205 lbs) has the potential to be the next Barry Sanders (5'8", 200 lbs). Discuss.
Discussion: When Seastrunk gets consistent, he very well may be the next Barry Sanders. He just needs to work out the kinks. Baylor showed how they should have been playing all season long and K-State was unprepared for that!!!
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