Backup quarterback Blake Shapen threw for 137 yards and the defense was stellar as No. 11 Baylor defeated Kansas State 20-10 Saturday in Manhattan, Kan.
Baylor (9-2, 6-2 Big 12) can still reach the Big 12 Championship game with a win next weekend against Texas Tech and an Oklahoma loss at Oklahoma State.
Shapen, a redshirt freshman, had thrown just three passes all season long.
Baylor held Kansas State (7-4, 4-4) to 263 total yards. The Bears also allowed K-State to convert just 4-of-13 on third down. The Wildcats saw their four-game winning streak snapped.
K-State super-senior quarterback Skylar Thompson, playing in his final home game for K-State, finished just 15-of-29 for 158 yards. Deuce Vaughn had 165 total yards, including 128 on the ground.
Neither team could mount much offense in the second half.
K-State’s Chris Tennant made a 28-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 17-10 midway through the third quarter. K-State had the ball at the Baylor 11 but missed on three straight incompletions.
Isaiah Hankins answered with his own 28-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter to cap the scoring.
Baylor got on the board first. The Bears went three-and-out on their first drive, but Phillip Brooks muffed a punt and Baylor recovered on the K-State 24. Five plays later, Trestan Ebner ran it in from 6 yards out.
Gerry Bohanon found Drake Dabney in the corner of the end zone to extend the lead to 14-0. The 2-yard pass capped a 15-yard, 74-yard drive. Baylor converted a fourth-and-1 at their own 46 early in the drive.
K-State cut it to 14-7 on a 65-yard touchdown run by Vaughn with 2:51 left in the first half. The run nearly matched the total yards K-State had gained (74) to that point in the half.
K-State kept the ball after Baylor was ruled offsides on a punt on fourth-and-5. Vaughn’s run came on the next play.
Bohanon had to leave the game late in the first half with an apparent hamstring injury. He was replaced by Shapen.
Hankins kicked a 22-yard field goal as time expired to make the halftime score 17-7. Baylor could not convert first-and-goal from the K-State 8-yard line with 30 seconds left and two timeouts.
Vaughn finished the first half with 115 rushing yards.
–Field Level Media
