Bears energized after solid debut
WACO — Trestan Ebner left little doubt he was more than ready for Baylor’s opener after two games were called off because of COVID-19 concerns.
Dave Aranda was a little more coy about the anticipation of his first game as a head coach, which Ebner made sure was a winner.
The versatile back returned the second-half kickoff 100 yards before going 83 yards for another touchdown on a free kick after a safety, and the Bears pulled away from Kansas in the second half of a 47-14 victory late Saturday night.
Ebner also had a 1-yard TD run and an 18-yard scoring catch as the Bears won their latest opener in 56 years after nonconference games against Louisiana Tech and University of Houston were called off, the latter just a day before the game.
“You could tell all the practices we had, guys were just ready to play,” Ebner said. “We were ready to hit someone else. I knew we would be ready for the moment.”
Baylor gave up a 79-yard touchdown drive on the first possession under Aranda, but the defense clamped down while the Bears scored 40 consecutive points to hand the Jayhawks (0-2) their 50th consecutive loss in a true Big 12 road game.
“To take the field with our team and to see them fight through stuff, to see them create momentum and things that we talked about back in March and April and all over Zoom, to hear that kind of spitting back out at you in the third, fourth quarter was just so cool,” Aranda said. “It energizes me for the next one.”
After Terrel Bernard sacked Jalon Daniels in the end zone for a 33-7 lead, Jones kicked off from the 20. Going the opposite direction, Ebner started closer to the middle of the field before cutting right and beating everybody to the sideline again.
Ebner, the first Baylor player to return two kicks for touchdowns in the same game, finished with 272 all-purpose yards.
“It was pretty cool to see,” Aranda said. “It for sure propelled our team and took us to another stage of all of it and the emotion on our sideline was pretty strong after both of those.”