Roaring to Victory: Baylor Bears Blow Out Iowa State Cyclones 38-10

Two teams, long the bottom-feeders of their respective divisions, but recently showing signs of life. Both driven by high-powered, Big 12 offenses with similar statistics in every meaningful category. Both coming off frustrating losses to ranked opponents.

Most reasonable people probably would have predicted a shoot-out, a close match where the team with the last big drive wins.

But, of course, they would have been way off. But hey—this is college football we're talking about, right?

"I hate to say this was a must-win, but we needed it," Baylor head coach, Art Briles, said. "Any Big 12 victory is hard to come by, and this was a good step in the right direction. We’ve felt all along we’re a good football team, and maybe we’re starting to show it a little bit."

Maybe. After all, out-scoring a Big 12 opponent by 28 points only ties Baylor's highest margin of victory since joining the conference.

It started with a TD in the first quarter and Baylor never looked back. It wasn't until halfway through the fourth quarter when ISU avoided complete embarrassment by putting together a TD drive to bring up the final score of 38-10.

I will dispense with the play-by-play. Honestly, the drive summaries speak for themselves:

ISU: Punt, Punt, Punt, FG, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, TD, Int.

To summarize, Iowa State head coach, Gene Chizik, gave one of the most depressing post-game quotes I've ever heard: "I don't really have a word to describe the game honestly. It was bad football all the way around; offense, defense and obviously special teams. We were not clicking and we were not in sync, anywhere."

BU: Punt, TD, TD, TD, Halftime, TD (kickoff return), Punt, FG, Punt, Knee.

"That’s the most complete game we’ve played all year," Briles concluded. "We were very crisp from an offensive standpoint and everybody acted like they knew what they were doing. Our defense did an outstanding job of making plays when they had to. Baker’s kickoff return really ignited the crowd."

Clearly, Briles' Bears came to win. Chizik's Cyclones just came to visit.

Granted, any team can have a bad week, and that seems to be the case here. But superior teams also cause lesser teams to look bad.

Here's how Baylor did it.

The Robert Griffin Show

Robert Griffin completed 85 percent of his passes for 278 yards and two TDs. Whatever criticism of his passing may have been whirling around in Iowa (Matt Gubbels, writing for Iowa State Daily, made up this little gem: "Baylor has shown no ability to throw the ball") is quickly drying up.

There have been two basic approaches to containing Griffin so far this season: blitz or spy. The Cyclones tried both.

When they spied him, Griffin was content to sit back and pick apart the secondary. When they rushed, three sacks notwithstanding, Griffin actually made his most spectacular throws of the night (including a 34-yard bomb on 3rd-and-long).

Although Griffin actually had negative rushing yardage this week, he still managed his sixth straight game with a rushing TD—out of six total games.

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