Box Score WACO, Texas –  It took Baylor's offense just 58 seconds to score its first touchdown and the Bears tacked on seven more, plus two Chris Callahan field goals, to roll to a 62-38 victory over West Virginia early Saturday afternoon at sold-out McLane Stadium.
 
The three-touchdown-underdog Mountaineers needed to keep up with Baylor's No. 1-ranked offense, and they did for a good part of the game; however, some key offensive miscues and missed opportunities kept West Virginia from keeping the final margin a little closer.
 
The first happened with the ball on the Baylor 44 midway through the second quarter when Skyler Howard tried a deep pass down the middle of the field to Shelton Gibson that was picked off by Ryan Reid in the end zone.
 
The second occurred right before the end of the half when Josh Lambert's 45-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right with six seconds remaining. The Mountaineers were sitting pretty at the 10 following Wendell Smallwood's 52-yard run – West Virginia's longest of the season – but couldn't get any closer.
 
"In the second quarter, I think the two red-zone opportunities we had both needed to result in points," said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen. "That would have tied it at 27 going into halftime. That was tough, and then after that, you can only hold them for so long."
 
A third error happened late in the third quarter when the Mountaineers chose to go for it on fourth and one from the Baylor 44, trailing by 17 points. As Howard was attempting to change the play at the line of scrimmage, guard Adam Pankey jumped, making it fourth and six instead of fourth and one. On the next play Howard went for it all and was unable to connect with Jovon Durante, setting up Baylor its seventh touchdown. Seth Russell hit Jay Lee in stride on a quick slant for a 52-yard touchdown.
 
Missed chances were a theme for West Virginia this afternoon, as they have been since the Mountaineers began Big 12 play three weeks ago.
 
WVU appeared to have another second-quarter touchdown in the books when Jordan Thompson broke clear down the middle for a 47-yard reception, but he was forced to slow up just enough to catch Howard's underthrown pass at the three where he was downed. The Mountaineers couldn't punch it in from there and had to settle for Lambert's 35-yard field goal.
 
West Virginia (3-3, 0-3) got a 70-yard touchdown reception from Shelton Gibson on its opening possession of the game, and tacked on another score early in the second quarter when Howard located a wide-open Cody Clay in the back of the end zone for a six-yard touchdown.
 
Baylor's three first-half touchdowns happened quickly.
 
The first, on the game's opening possession, covered 80 yards in only four plays, culminating with Russell's 16-yard keeper.
 
The second came on Baylor's next possession when Russell completed a two-yard scoring pass to Corey Coleman on a quick slant. Baylor's third first-half touchdown also was scored by Coleman when he burned backup corner Rasul Douglas on a double move for a 12-yard hookup.
 
After stopping West Virginia on the opening possession of the third quarter, Baylor struck again on a fourth-and-three play. Russell hooked up with Coleman for a 33-yard touchdown. Coleman was once again facing single coverage and he was able to easily get past Rick Rumph III, who had no help over the top.
 
That play made the score 34-17 in favor of the Bears.
 
West Virginia needed to answer and it did when Howard fired a pretty 35-yard touchdown pass to backup quarterback David Sills, seeing his first game action as a Mountaineer. Sills also caught a 29-yard pass to the Baylor six that set up Clay's touchdown reception.
 
But all Sills' score really did was enable Baylor to keep its foot on the gas pedal.
 
The Bears consumed 75 yards in eight plays to cross the goal line a sixth time, this scoring play coming from the 36 when Russell hit Lee streaking down the far sideline behind two West Virginia defenders.
 
The Bears scored an eighth touchdown with 11:53 left in the game when Shock Linwood took it in from the 11 off an option pitch from Russell.
 
Seven minutes later, Daikiel Shorts Jr. caught a five-yard scoring pass from Howard.
 
Touchdown No. 8 for Baylor came with mostly backups in the game, Jarret Stidham completing a nine-yard pass to tight end Trevor Clemmons-Valdez.
 
Gibson completed the afternoon scoring with a 100-yard kickoff return with 1:05 remaining, although the game ended with Baylor having the football on the West Virginia three after Chris Platt's 87-yard kickoff return.
 
Coleman had an impressive performance for the Bears with 10 catches for 199 yards and three touchdowns. All of those came from Russell, who completed 20 of his 33 pass attempts for 375 yards and five touchdowns TDs before exiting the game with nine minutes remaining.
 
Russell also contributed 160 yards and a touchdown on the ground, making him just the second quarterback in Baylor history to throw for more than 300 yards and rush for more than 100 yards in the same game. Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III is the other to do so.
 
"We scored 38, which is pretty similar to what we scored last year," said Holgorsen. "I knew we couldn't outscore these guys, we're not there offensively yet. We're going to continue to improve (offensively) - I think we took a step in the right direction today. With that said, with the experience that Baylor has on offense, we can't outscore them. We had to have them have a bad day. They needed to miss some throws, have some turnovers, which clearly they didn't do that."
 
Howard also had a decent day throwing the ball for the Mountaineers, the junior completing 18 passes for 289 yards and four touchdowns.
 
"He puts pressure on himself and you guys (media) know where I'm going with this - there are a lot of people putting pressure on him as well," said Holgorsen. "He works hard and he's not going to listen to what people say and he's not going to quit fighting. I'm proud of him, his work ethic, his fight, and he's going to continue to do that regardless of what people say."
 
After some early difficulties running the ball, WVU finished the game with 182 yards on 44 carries – 89 of those coming from Smallwood.
 
The two teams combined for 1,144 total yards – on par with the three prior games that saw the two teams accumulate more than two miles worth of total yardage.
 
"A really good win against the only Big 12 team we don't have a winning record against in games since 2011, so it's a big deal for us as a program," said Baylor coach Art Briles in his opening statement afterward. "We felt a lot of desire to clear our name. We didn't feel like we had a good name in West Virginia after last year, so that was our motivating factor.
 
"It had nothing to do with rankings or getting bowl eligible or anything other than the fact that when people talk about us up there, we want them saying good things about our football program. We really didn't have that until today, so that was our motivating factor."
 
Baylor (6-0, 3-0) resumes Big 12 play here in Waco against Iowa State on October 24.
 
West Virginia has 12 days off before completing its murderous October schedule with its fourth straight Big 12 game against a ranked foe, this one taking place at third-ranked TCU on Thursday, October 29.