Baylor proves to much for Aggies to handle as they crush Texas A&M
Waco - After a tough loss to Missouri and a respectable effort against UT, Baylor was ready to show they are becoming a force to contend with as they took on Texas A&M at home Saturday. Behind a swarming defensive effort and a confident offense that moved the ball with relative ease, the Bears rolled past the Aggies 41-21. This was only Baylor's second time to defeat Texas A&M in the last 23 games between these two teams.
Joe Pawelek paced a solid Baylor defensive effort intercepting two passes on the day, the second coming in the end zone as the Aggies looked to cut into the Baylor lead in the fourth quarter. Texas A&M (4-7, 2-5) turned the ball over five times on the day.
"It was a heck of a job. From the start until a little bit in the fourth quarter when we let them hang two touchdowns on us, I thought we played our butts off. We had a swarming defense just like we have practiced and preached. The turnovers were for big for us today," said Baylor Cornerback Dwain Crawford.
Not only was the defense big for the Bears (4-7, 2-5), so was the offense. Robert Griffin tossed touchdown passes of 31 and 55 yards. Jay Finley had a 12-yard touchdown run and Jacoby Jones outran the Aggie defense for two touchdowns, both of them on pitches from Griffin.
After a couple of Ben Parks field goals, Baylor pushed their lead to 13-0 when Griffin fought through a tackle to make the pitch to Jones who raced 12-yards for his first touchdown of the day and a 13-0 Baylor lead.
"He (Griffin) is very quick and very strong. Whenever he had one-on-one matchups, we tried to make the best of it, but he did his thing on the ground. He is just a great athlete," said Aggie linebacker Matt Featherston.
The Aggies picked up their first points of the day on a Jorvorskie Lane 1-yard TD run which capped a 6-play 65-yard drive resulting in a 13-7 Baylor lead.
Baylor's offense answered right back with an 8-play 78-yard drive of their own to take a 20-7 lead as Griffin threw a 31-yard strike to Kendall Wright for a Bears touchdown with 1:30 left in the first half.
Any hopes of an Aggies comeback quickly vanished asBaylor opened the second half of play by scoring 21 unanswered points in the third quarter to take a commanding 41-7 lead.
Griffin connected with Thomas White for a 55-yard TD at the 13:26 mark of the third quarter before Jay Finley scored on a 13-yard run and Jacoby Jones ran for his second touchdown of the game when he made his way in to the end zone from 18-yards out.
Aggie Head Coach Mike Sherman hoped to come away with a win in order to keep A&M's bowl chances alive but found himself searching for a way to slow down a fired up Bears team that was playing in front of 40,000 plus fans on seniors day. "Give Baylor credit, they took advantage of all of the opportunities that we gave them and they made some of them on their own. We didn't play very smart and we turned the ball over and gave up a couple of big plays on defense," he said.
The Aggies would score 14 points in the fourth quarter on a Jorvorskie 1-yard run and a 5-yard pass from Jerrod Johnson to Jeff Fuller. The touchdowns did little more than add some respectability to the final score in a rather lopsided win for an up and coming Baylor team.
Leaving a team that is maturing and shows so much hope for the future is not easy for the Baylor seniors but having experienced a season that has given more than a glimpse of what is surely an exciting future has been something many of the seniors will remember.
Baylor receiver Thomas Wright explains it like this, "I think I speak for a lot of the seniors when I say that we'd love to all have another four years, especially with the direction of the program right now. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get to our goal, but we can see the promised land and can be proud of that."
Score by Quarters 1 2 3 4 Score
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Texas A&M........... 0 7 0 14 - 21
Baylor.................... 3 17 21 0 - 41
