With 10 minutes to go Saturday, Baylor football trailed a top-10 team by 21 points. ESPN says the Bears’ chances of winning at that point were less than 2%. What came next was, to quote a friend, “unbelievably believable.”
Baylor scored 24 unanswered points against a nationally recognized TCU defense, capped off by a game-winning field goal as time expired, to win what Texas Monthly called the best active rivalry in the state and complete likely college football’s biggest comeback of the year — all in front of a sellout crowd and a national TV audience.
[LINKS: ESPN recap/highlights || Baylor photo gallery || Baylor Athletics highlight video, postgame interviews & behind-the-scenes video || Dallas Morning News: "Most entertaining game I've ever seen" || USA TODAY: "Baylor shows it's never out of a game" || NFL.com recap || Petty named national player of the week]
The victory gives the Bears their first signature win of 2014 and lends further support to Baylor’s lofty national ranking; head coach Art Briles’ squad is ranked No. 4 in the nation in both the AP and Coaches polls released today, the 16th time in the last 17 weekly polls that BU has ranked in the top 10. (For the uninitiated, cracking the top four is more important than ever this year, as the four best teams in the country will participate in the first College Football Playoff at the end of this season.)
Of course, the Bears will be challenged. Including Baylor, half the Big 12 is now ranked among the top 15 in the country; the Bears are joined by No. 11 OU, No. 12 TCU, No. 14 KSU and No. 15 OSU. Three of Baylor’s final four games of the year will come against teams from that group.
Next up for Baylor? A road trip to West Virginia, scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday on FS1. Then the Bears have a bye before returning to Waco for #BaylorHomecoming 2014.
Sic ’em, Baylor football!
[Worth noting: This was actually the second last-minute comeback Baylor pulled against TCU this week, as our recent graduates also came through on the final day to win the BU-TCU Young Alumni Challenge. Read more on that here. Sic ’em, young alums!]