By John Raby
Associated Press
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Clint Trickett threw three touchdown passes and West Virginia surprised sloppy No. 4 Baylor 41-27 Saturday.
The Mountaineers (5-2, 3-1 Big 12) earned their first win over a top five opponent since beating No. 3 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl after the 2007 season.
West Virginia sacked Baylor’s Bryce Petty four times and limited the Bears to one touchdown after halftime.
Baylor was penalized 18 times for a Big 12-record 215 yards. The old mark of 183 yards was set by Texas Tech against Rice in 2007.
Trickett went 23 of 35 for 322 yards, his eighth straight 300-yard game going back to last season.
Baylor (6-1, 3-1) couldn’t overcome a double-digit deficit as it did in a 61-58 win against TCU last week. Now the Bears will fall into a group of one-loss teams clawing for position the rest of the season for the College Football Playoff.
This was hardly the point-a-minute, yard-busting matchup of the past two years, when the winning team each time reached 70 points.
Baylor entered the game as the nation’s most prolific offense but was held to 318 yards, 305 below its average and the lowest total of the season.
Petty finished 16 of 36 for 223 yards and two scores.
West Virginia’s Kevin White, the nation’s leading receiver, had eight catches for 132 yards and two scores. He broke the 1,000-yard mark for the season and extended his streak of 100-yard receiving games to six.
Covering White was frustrating for cornerback Xavien Howard, who was called for four of Baylor’s seven pass interference penalties.
Shock Linwood scored Baylor’s only touchdown of the second half on a 1-yard run with time winding down in the third quarter that tied the score at 27.
But it took Baylor three tries from inside the 2 to get into the end zone. Linwood, the Big 12’s rushing leader, was limited to 69 yards on 21 carries.
White had a 36-yard TD catch in the first quarter and a 12-yarder early in the fourth for a 34-27 lead.
Mario Alford capped the scoring with 7:35 left, lining up in the slot and turning a short pass from Trickett across the middle into a 39-yard TD.
Down two touchdowns, Baylor then drove to the West Virginia 10, but Jay Lee caught a pass from Petty out of bounds in the end zone and the Mountaineers took over on downs.
West Virginia lost both of its starting cornerbacks to injuries in the first half.
Daryl Worley injured his ribs after fumbling a second-quarter punt.
Terrell Chestnut took a hard block from Coleman that sprang Antway Goodley for a 67-yard touchdown reception. Coleman initially was penalized and ejected. After a review, the call was reversed, the touchdown stood and Baylor led 20-14 midway through the second quarter.
Neither Chestnut nor Worley returned. West Virginia also lost leading rusher Rushel Shell, who came up limping in the first quarter and remained out for the rest of the game.
Dreamius Smith, the Mountaineers’ fourth-leading rusher, took charge late in the second quarter. He gained 39 yards on a drive that he capped with a 9-yard scoring run, and Josh Lambert kicked a 54-yard field goal as time expired in the half to put West Virginia ahead 24-20.
