Connor Hawkins drilled a 53-yard field goal with 31 seconds to play and Sawyer Robertson passed for 345 yards and two touchdowns as Baylor came from behind to beat Kansas State 35-34 on Saturday afternoon in a wild Big 12 Conference clash in Waco, Texas.
Luis Rodriguez’s 56-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Baylor’s Cooper Lanz with two second left, allowing the Bears (4-2, 2-1 Big 12) to escape.
The Wildcats (2-4, 1-2 Big 12) led by six points with under five minutes to play when quarterback Avery Johnson was intercepted by Baylor’s Jacob Redding, who scampered 66 yards for a score that – after the extra-point kick by Hawkins – gave the Bears a 32-31 lead with 4:28 to play.
That set the table for the Bears’ final march and Hawkins’ game-winning kick.
Johnson, who passed for 339 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a third score in the loss, got the Wildcats on the board on the game’s opening possession with a 31-yard TD run to cap a 10-play, 75-yard march.
Hawkins responded with a 30-yard field goal with 4:18 left in the first quarter to cull the Bears’ deficit to 7-3. Robertson connected with Kobe Prentice on a 30-yard scoring pass to cap a four-snap, 70-yard drive and to put Baylor on top midway through the second quarter.
The Wildcats answered with a nine-play possession that covered 57 yards and produced a 49-yard Rodriguez field goal that tied the game 10-10 with 4:23 until halftime.
The Bears regained the lead on a 17-yard touchdown run by Michael Turner with 1:57 remaining in the second quarter. But that gave Kansas State plenty of time to respond, which it did with a 72-yard drive in nine plays that was punctuated with a 9-yard TD pass from Johnson to Garrett Oakley that knotted the game at 17 at the break.
The Wildcats got a 12-yard Johnson-to-Brown scoring pass with 4:35 to play in the third quarter and then a 5-yard TD run by Dylan Edwards with 1:15 remaining to roll out to a 31-17 advantage. Baylor culled the margin to 31-25 on an 11-yard touchdown pass from Robertson to Bryson Washington with 8:50 left on the clock. Robertson added a two-point conversion run after the TD.
