Oklahoma St. 45, Baylor 14

11/17/2007 9:28 PM

By STEPHEN HAWKINS
AP Sports Writer

WACO, Texas (AP) -Oklahoma State got bowl eligible with a 45-14 victory Saturday night over Baylor, which finished the season without winning in the Big 12 and likely played its last game under coach Guy Morriss.

There has been growing speculation that Morriss, who has a year left on his contract, will be fired after being unable to produce a winning record in his five seasons. Morriss is 18-40 overall at Baylor, 7-33 in conference games.

Athletic director Ian McCaw, who has repeatedly said Morriss' future wouldn't be evaluated until after the season, turned down requests for interviews Saturday night. But the season is over for the Bears (3-9, 0-8 Big 12) and a change seems imminent, maybe as early as Sunday.

Zac Robinson threw for 202 yards and two touchdowns and ran 17 times for 144 yards and two more scores to lead Oklahoma State (6-5, 4-3), which is bowl eligible for the fifth time in six seasons. Dantrell Savage had his eighth straight 100-yard rushing game, with 109 yards and two TDs on 16 carries.

The Cowboys, who close the regular season at Oklahoma next week, have never been to five bowls in six seasons.

Baylor finished its 12th straight losing season, all coming under the four coaches since Grant Teaff left in 1992 after 128 victories and eight bowl appearances in 21 seasons.

The Bears are the only Big 12 team without a bowl appearance since the conference's inception in 1996. This was the fourth time they didn't win a league game. Only two other teams have gone 0-8 in the Big 12 - Kansas in 2002 and Iowa State in 2003.

If Morriss is fired, the likely leading candidate to replace him will be Baylor icon Mike Singletary, who played for Teaff from 1977-80. Singletary had no coaching experience when he interviewed for the job before Morriss was hired.

Singletary has been an NFL assistant coach since then. He spent two seasons in Baltimore and is in his third season as assistant head coach for the San Francisco 49ers. Singletary has interviewed for three NFL head coaching jobs, including the Dallas Cowboys last winter.

Baylor beat two-time defending North Division champion Colorado in Morriss' conference debut four years ago. The coach also delivered the first Big 12 road victory, in 2005 at Iowa State, and then last year the Bears won three Big 12 games in the same season for the first time.

But their conference losses under Morriss have been by an average margin of four touchdowns.

Even without leading receiver Adarius Bowman (knee injury), the Cowboys were plenty OK on offense and scored at least 34 points against Baylor for the ninth straight time. They had 545 total yards (343 rushing, 202 passing) with four TD drives that took 1:37 or less.

Oklahoma State needed only two plays on its opening drive to go ahead for good. Robinson ran for 11 yards and then threw a 30-yard TD pass to Seth Newton, who was wide open.

It was 14-0 early in the second quarter when Robinson turned a bootleg keeper into an 18-yard TD to cap a five-play, 84-yard drive. He added a 24-yard TD pass to Tommy Devereaux and a 4-yard scoring run before halftime.

Blake Szymanski threw TD passes of 6 and 28 yards to Thomas White in the second quarter. The longer score came after Baylor used a trick play, with the entire offense lined up to the right of the football before Szymanski picked it up and pitched to Brandon Whitaker for a 30-yard gain.