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Looks like Baylor isn't the one needing to worry about frosh QB
It didn't take long for Jarrett Stidham to find his new best friend on Thursday night, Corey Coleman.
First possession, first play. Thirty-six yards. Move the chains. Repeat.
Stidham, Baylor's 19-year-old true freshman quarterback who now carries the Bears' playoff torch, knows where his bread will be buttered during this brutal month of November still to come (at home vs. Oklahoma before back-to-back road games at Oklahoma State and fellow undefeated TCU): Stidham fed his junior receiver and Heisman candidate time and time again in the No. 6 Bears’ 31-24 road victory over Kansas State.
Stidham-to-Coleman connected 11 times for 216 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Coleman's second TD catch established a Big 12 record with seven consecutive games with at least two touchdown grabs. His first went for 81 yards, a deep ball from the freshman that fell into Coleman's lap while he was in a full sprint down the sideline to give the Bears (8-0, 5-0 Big 12) a 21-7 lead in the second quarter. His second was more subtle, a 3-yard connection to give Baylor a 28-10 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Jarrett Stidham goes DEEP to Corey Coleman! #6 Baylor leads Kansas State on the road, 21-7. #BUvsKSU https://t.co/rgzbtP9Q8w
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 6, 2015
"I felt like leading up to the game, throughout the day I started to get amped up," Stidham told the media at Snyder Stadium of his first collegiate start, according to the Baylor website. “Really, once that first play hit I was good from there on out. As an offense, we score so fast and so often that we want to get on the field as much as possible. Our defense played their butts off tonight and got some big stops for us."
In all, Coleman accounted for nearly half of Stidham's 23 completions (on 33 attempts), racked up more than half of Stidham's 419 passing yards and snared two his three TD passes.
But this game was all about Stidham, making his first start in place of injured starter Seth Russell. He didn't throw an intercerption and he scored his first of four TDs he accounted for on a 1-yard run that capped a flawless opening possession.
"I know he's a confident guy and it excites me because he's 19 years old and this place is one of the hardest to play in the Big 12 and he did his job," Coleman said of his new quarterback.
If anyone thought Coleman's Heisman chances would diminish after Russell underwent season-ending surgery for a fractured bone in his neck suffered two weeks ago, well, Thursday night proved Stedman's presence may just enhance those chances. And, yes, maybe even the Bears' chances too, as crazy as that sounds with a true freshman at the helm, as they held off the desperate and clawing Wildcats in Manhattan.
"[Stidham played] just how we knew he would. Just like I told him," Baylor coach Art Briles told the Baylor official web site after the game, before warning the rest of the nation, “Let us show the nation what we know. We know so let us let everybody else see what we know. The guy is unbelievable. He is good. He is different."
Yes, the Bears were held to barely half their nation's top-ranked scoring average (61.1) and "only" 522 yards (164.1 less than their 696.1 average, also best in the nation). But the Wildcats' methodical offense, led by a rushing attack that gashed Baylor's defense and held onto the ball for more than 38 minutes of the game, had plenty to do with that.
But in the heat of the moment, the Bears’ 6-foot-3 quarterback stood tallest and didn't flinch. Trailing 31-10 with less than 10 minutes to play, Kansas State capped an 84-yard drive with a touchdown, forced a Baylor punt, then drove down the field again and cut Baylor's lead to 31-24 with 4:07 to play. Stop Stidham, get the ball back with enough time on the clock and score one more time, and Baylor's Big 12 three-peat title plans and playoff hopes would truly be on the line like no time this season.
But it never got there because on first down Stidham stepped into the pocket and threw 40 yards down the middle to KD Cannon. That play got the ball well into K-State territory and stretched a drive which, while it ended with a missed field goal, put the ball at the Wildcats' 24 with only 51 seconds to play.
Kansas State had to play desperate at that point and sure enough, on the drive’s first play Terrell Burt picked off Wildcats receiver Kody Cook for a game-sealing interception on a lateral-pass play.
After the game, Briles cautioned the nation that his explosive offense might actually get better with the new kid. And the way Stidham is talking, he sounds that way, too.
"There are some things that I messed up on that I could have hit and there were little quirks that we could have picked up on," he said. “At some points we just did not execute. We will go back to the drawing board and get after it next week."
Russell, a junior, was having a Heisman chatter-worthy season in his own right as a first-time starter before his injury. Now he may be wondering if he'll ever get his job back.
"I thought he played outstanding," Briles told FOX Sports' Molly McGrath after the game of Stidham's first start. "I thought it was a great game, it's a great win for us."
Briles then picked up that talk about his team getting better.
"We feel like our team is a team of survivors," he said. "We've got a lot of guys who have been through a lot. A lot of coaches who have been through a lot."
All in all, it was as encouraging a start as the Bears could have hoped for as they sort of re-start this season at the toughest time.
-- The Associated Press contributed to this report
