Baylor Wins Alamobowl Offensive Shootout Over Washington Huskies
SAN ANTONIO ---- Fans packed the Alamodome on Thursday night for a chance to see Heisman
Trophy winner Robert Griffin III lead the Baylor Bears against the Washington Huskies. Griffin didn't
have one of his better games but there was no shortage of points or impressive plays as Baylor
defeated Washington 67-56 behind Terrance Ganaway's 200 yards rushing and five touchdowns.
Scoring was fast and furious as both teams lit the scoreboard up early. At one point the two teams
scored a combined 21 points over the short span of two minutes. The offensive fireworks resulted
in 1397 total yards of offense with Baylor racking up 777 yards to Washingtons 620. "You get in games like
that, and that's just the way it goes, and you just keep fighting. If you get one little stop or one little
break or a turnover, then it can help you win the football game," said Baylor head coach Art Briles.
Baylor struck first when Griffin capped a 85 yard, 13 play drive with an 11 yard touchdown pass to Kendall
Wright. With the touchdown, the offensive slugfest was underway.
Washington answered a few minutes later when quarterback Keith Price found his way into the endzone
on a five yard touchdown run. "He's (Price) a good football player, and the games they got in trouble in this
year, he was injured, and he got healthy and got right, and he played awfully well tonight," said Briles.
Baylor kept the offensive spectacular going with two more first quarter touchdowns. The first was a Jarred Salubi 36 yard run at the 6:03 mark to put Baylor up 14-7. They followed that with a Griffin 24 yard touchdown run to extend their lead to 21-7.
Washington shifted the momentum in the second quarter with 28 unanswered points. Price connected
on two scoring strikes to open the quarter. One to James Johnson, the other to Devin Aguilar. He then
got it done with his legs instead of his arm when he outran the Bears defense on a 15 yard touchdown
run. The Huskies capped their scoring outburst with a Chris Polk 56 yard run with 31 seconds left in
the half and all of a sudden it was 35-21 Washington. "Well, I think the emotions are that you can't go
into a shell. You have to stay aggressive. I think the natural thing to think is in a game like this against
a team like Baylor you've got to try to keep them off the field. The reality is you've got to keep pace.
You've got to score with them," said Washington Head Coach Steve Sarkisan.
Baylor moved the ball into field goal range when they got the ball back and an Aaron Jones 42 yard field
goal cut the Washington half time lead to 35-24.
"I've been saying this all season, that the defense works as a machine, and if one part of it is messed
up, it trickles downhill and hurts all of us. So we had to make sure that the later it got, especially in
the clutch time like 4th down we needed to make a play, we understood that that's what we had to do
and we did it," said Briles.
Briles must have been wondering how many points his Bears were going to have to score when
Washington opened the third quarter with another Price touchdown pass. This time he connected
with Jermaine Kearse on an 80 yard pass play to put the Huskies up 42-24.
"Well, I think football, especially college, is about momentum, and there was a point obviously in
that game where momentum was really on our side where I felt like our defense was feeding off our
offense, our offense was feeding off our defense, and we really got some momentum going there and
got a chance to make them a little bit more one-dimensional where they had to start throwing the ball
more than they would have liked that allowed us to rush the passer a little bit better," said Sarkisan.
Baylor was not stranger to comebacks and that served them well as they got things rolling offensively
minutes later. Salubi capped a Bears drive with a seven yard touchdown run at the 11:06 mark of the
third quarter and Ganaway exploded through a nice hole opened up by his offensive line a couple
minutes later to scorch the Huskie defense with a 89 yard touchdown run to pull Baylor to within
42-39.
Price got busy once again and quickly struck again with a two play 73 yard drive that he finished off
with a 13 yard touchdown pass to Aguilar to extend their lead to 49-39.
Baylor finished off the third quarter with two long scoring drives that were both capped off with Ganaway
one yard touchdown runs allowing then to take a slim 53-49 lead into the final quarter. "Well, I think the
emotions are that you can't go into a shell. You have to stay aggressive. I think the natural thing to
think is in a game like this against a team like Baylor you've got to try to keep them off the field.
The reality is you've got to keep pace. You've got to score with them. You can't let them start pulling
away," said Sarkisan.
Price helped Washington go out in front by leading the Huskies on a 13 play, 76 yard scoring drive to
open the fourth quarter. Price finished the drive off with yet another touchdown when he ran it in from
eight yards out.
Down by three points at 56-53, Baylor looked to make a late push and send a crowd of 67,000, who
were mostly Baylor fans, home with a win. The Bears defense stiffened and their offense did what
they have been doing all season long, putting up points.
Baylor took the lead at the 8:15 mark on another Ganaway run when he powered his way into the end
zone from four yards out for a 56-60 lead. Several minutes later Ganaway put the finishing touches
on the win with a 43 yard run with under three minutes to go in the game to send Baylor to the
67-56 season ending win.
"If you don't mind, I would like to close out our career as a team. It's all about Baylor. Offensive line
played really well, Robert, all the receivers, took a lot of pressure off me. So just going out there and
fighting for a win, that's what we all did, and luckily I was able to put my stitch on the end of the
season," said Baylor receiver Terrance Ganaway.
