No. 12 Baylor down to 4th QB after Chris Johnson hurt

Tensions were high early in Saturday’s Big 12 regular-season finale between No. 12 Baylor and unranked Texas.

Tensions came dangerously close to boiling over in the game between Texas and Baylor on Saturday, with the Bears bench rushing onto the field at one point.

It has been a maddeningly frustrating season for the Texas Longhorns.

“This kind of shows us what we can do, what we need to do”, said Swoopes, who passed for 152 yards and rushed for 52. The 12th-ranked Bears, hoping for a win to get them to the Sugar Bowl, will find out their postseason destination on Sunday.

Now Baylor will fall down the bowl pecking order a couple of slots.

The visiting Longhorns upset Baylor, 23-17, on Saturday, leveraging a 20-0 halftime lead and withstanding a second-half Bears rally to secure the program’s fifth win.

Baylor, which started the season 8-0, finished 2-3 after starter Seth Russell suffered a neck injury at the end of October. However, Jefferson would fumble on the Bears next drive, allowing Texas to wind the clock down to nearly nothing.

Fourth-and-11 at Texas’ 47, with 4 seconds left, it came down to one final play.

The success had something to do with Baylor being on its fourth quarterback, but the Longhorns secondary made plays regardless of who was behind center. Safety Kevin Vaccaro even fell on top of Hawthorne and the Baylor players ran over to protect their quarterback. Linebacker Anthony Wheeler recovered for Texas at the Baylor 18. The players heard the outside noise saying ‘this game doesn’t matter.’ But the players didn’t listen.

Swoopes was 12-of-19 passing for 151 yards, including the touchdown strike to Bluiett.

Facing an emergency scenario with three quarters to play, Baylor coach Art Briles sent in receiver Lynx Hawthorne to take over. “But the record doesn’t say it”, Coleman said. Needing a touchdown to win, the Bears marched 45 yards to the Texas 46-yard line before the Longhorns stopped Hawthorne and company as time expired.

Other than the initial contacts and the resulting bench clearings, however, no actual fights occurred.

After being intercepted by Duke Thomas late in the first quarter, Hawthorne made the tackle along the Texas sideline and was coming up off his knees when he got shoved back to the ground by safety P.J. Locke III.

“It started in the pregame”, Strong said. “I would have liked to have had a more successful season, but I’m not going to complain”, Coleman said. Winning a conference championship, I would have never thought we would have done it five or six years ago. If something did happen, I wanted to be fully prepared. We knew we were going to have to be more physical than them.

Rose’s kick upped the Longhorns lead to 20-0 at halftime.

A Nick Rose field goal to end the drive put Texas up 23-17, and Baylor saw its two chances to take the lead end in a fumble and an incompletion on a Hail Mary attempt to end the game.

The Bears rushing attack was on fire Saturday, and some of their running backs may still be running. Texas entered the game already assured of having back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1988-89 under former coach David McWilliams….