![\"Houston](\"https:\/\/baylorlariat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/112925_BUvsUH_AMeyers-17.jpg\")
<\/a>Houston defensive back Latrell McCutchin Sr. tackles sophomore wide receiver Jadon Porter. Alyssa Meyers | Photographer<\/p>\nThis wasn\u2019t how the season was supposed to go. Back in August, redshirt senior quarterback Sawyer Robertson entered the year as a dark-horse Heisman candidate<\/a>. Analysts circled Baylor as a team that could quietly break into the conference\u2019s upper tier. Even when the losses started piling up, the numbers kept promising something better lurking underneath: Baylor moves the ball, Baylor racks up yardage, Baylor gives you every statistical reason to believe.<\/p>\n And then Baylor takes it all back.<\/p>\n On paper, the Bears should be putting up more than nine points through three quarters \u2014 and those nine points came from redshirt freshman kicker Connor Hawkins\u2019 field goals. The game ended with 421 total yards to Houston\u2019s 417 and Robertson threw for 309 yards.<\/p>\n But the same patterns that have defined this season resurfaced against Houston.<\/p>\n Take the first half. Baylor marched down the field on its final drive before halftime with the kind of rhythm that put Robertson in preseason headlines. In under a minute of game time, he completed four straight passes for first downs. It looked easy \u2014 too easy, the way Baylor always does right before it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Then, instantly, the drop: three straight incompletions. A drive that should\u2019ve been a touchdown shrank into yet another Hawkins field goal.<\/p>\n That\u2019s been the story all season. Baylor creates the opportunity, stares directly at six points, then walks away with three \u2014 or sometimes nothing at all.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in a lot of ways, this game is reflective of the season that we just finished, and so tough to swallow, tough to look at,\u201d Aranda said.<\/p>\n The Cougars\u2019 opening three quarters didn\u2019t help. By the start of the fourth, Baylor trailed 24-9 and looked like the same flat, inconsistent team that\u2019s been outpaced in conference play. But then, because this team cannot resist making things complicated, Baylor woke up. Suddenly, the Bears looked like the group that toppled then-No. 17 SMU<\/a> in Dallas behind a quarterback flirting with national attention.<\/p>\n They converted a fourth down under pressure, scored on back-to-back drives completed a two-point conversion to tie the game at 24-24. The fourth-quarter touchdowns finally broke a six-quarter touchdown drought, stretching back to the first quarter against Arizona<\/a>.<\/p>\n For about eight minutes, Baylor gave fans a glimpse of the team they were promised in August. A team with swagger, a team with answers and a team that didn\u2019t just survive adversity, but punched through it.<\/p>\n And then \u2014 the same ending, the same script, the same familiar sting.<\/p>\n \u201cKind of par for the course this season,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cJust being in the fight and kind of swimming upstream, it felt like.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Head coach Dave Aranda gets interviewed on the sideline during halftime. Alyssa Meyers | Photographer<\/p>\n