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Daniel, Missouri outlast Baylor

Nov 2, 2008 - 1:30 AM WACO, Texas (Ticker) -- With the game on the line, Chase Daniel showed why he is a Heisman Trophy candidate.

The senior quarterback led a go-ahead field goal drive late in the fourth quarter as 14th-ranked Missouri escaped with a 31-28 triumph against Baylor on Saturday.

Daniel completed 30-of-38 passes for 318 yards and three touchdowns, but it was the drive he engineered in the fourth quarter that led the Tigers to victory.

"I always tell my players that as long as you keep an underdog in [the game], the stronger they get," Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. "I think you give [Baylor] an awful lot of credit, especially their defense, their offense and [Robert] Griffin - what a great player. [Also give credit] to their fans - at the end of the game it sounded like their was 100,000 people in that place. With that being said, I am proud of our team."

After Missouri (7-2, 3-2 Big 12 North) took a 14-point lead into halftime, Baylor responded with a pair of third-quarter touchdowns to even the score heading into the final session.

The Big 12 rivals exchanged touchdowns in the fourth, setting the stage for Daniel's game-winning drive.

"I wouldn't say that was a great team effort that we gave out there today, but we got it done on the road against a great team," Daniel said. "You have to give them all of the credit in the world. Coach [Art] Briles had them ready to play and that quarterback is something else. They were able to make big plays at big times, but so were we. We were able to make a couple more, and that helped us win."

Missouri took over at its own 10-yard line with 6:27 remaining and the score tied, 28-28. Daniel led the Tigers 75 yards in 13 plays, capped by Jeff Wolfert's go-ahead field goal from 34 yards out with 2:31 left.

"The last drive I thought said a lot," Pinkel said. "[Baylor] was forced to use all three of their timeouts, which was huge. That last drive that we had at the end was huge for us."

The Bears (3-6, 1-4 South) had their upset bid end when freshman Robert Griffin was intercepted by Brock Christopher with less than two minutes remaining. The interception was Griffin's first in 210 passes, the longest streak to start a career in college football history.

"I thought about that right after it happened," Christopher said. "It was kind of our goal to get an interception against Griffin. [On that last drive] he dropped back and I kind of dropped underneath the receiver and I don't think he saw me because their was nobody in the middle of the field."

Daniel and the Tigers picked up right where they left off after last week's 58-0 romp of Colorado, racing to a 14-0 lead courtesy of a pair of touchdown throws to Chase Coffman and Tommy Saunders.

Griffin halved the deficit with a 4-yard touchdown run, but Jimmy Jackson scored from 1 yard out with less than two minutes left in the first half to push the bulge back to 14.

"Yeah, we have sensed victory a bunch of times this year, we just haven't seized it," Briles said. "It's not over until it's over. You can't get excited, you can't get thinking its a done deal. We had our chances, we just kind of had to fight from behind from the start and our guys did great."

After Ray Sims scored on a 2-yard run, the Bears forced a three-and-out and tied the game on the ensuing possession when Griffin threw his first of two touchdowns, this one to Brad Taylor for a 16-yard strike.

"We have a good offense, and when we're clicking and we aren't stopping ourselves nobody can stop us," Baylor wide receiver Jay Finley said. "We had a couple of bad calls and a couple of things that went south in the first half, but we got it together and started moving the ball, and you saw how we can beat them."

Coffman's second touchdown of the day, this one for 13 yards, came on the opening play of the fourth quarter and gave Missouri a 28-21 lead.

Griffin, who also connected with Finley on a 36-yard touchdown, completed 26-of-35 passes for 283 yards.

"Every game is important, whether it is a ranked team or not," Griffin said. "For us to come out and beat Missouri, a team that was like us a couple years ago, that would have showed people that we are turning things around. Even in the loss, and I don't believe in moral victories, but even in the loss we showed people that we are coming to play every day."