2016 Week 7

The Chippewas hoped to continue their stellar play as the hosted the Baylor Bears this weekend. However, Baylor had other things in mind early on in this game. The Chippewas dug themselves a major hole in the 1st quarter as they fell behind 28-7. The outcome didn't look good as CMU really had no answer to the high powered Baylor offense, but the team refused to give up and started to chip away at the lead. A Cooper Rush TD pass cut the lead to 28-14. On the ensuing drive, CMU would intercept a Baylor pass and return it 74 yards for the score. All of a sudden it was 28-21 and CMU was right back in the game. The defense fed off the turnover as the forced Baylor to punt on their next drive. Cooper Rush continued to have the hot hand as he drove CMU down the field and capped off the drive with a 16 yard TD pass to TE Joe Porter with under a minute to go. The CMU defense once again forced a Baylor punt and gave the ball back to CMU with under 20 seconds to play. CMU needed only two plays as Rush hit Anthony Rice for a 54 yard TD as time expired. The TD capped off 28 straight 2nd quarter points and gave CMU a 35-28 halftime lead.

The Chippewas would score 17 more unanswered points in the 3rd quarter to increase their lead to 52-28. The score capped off 45 unanswered points for CMU. Baylor was in disbelief, but was not ready to give up. The Bears scored two TD's in less than a minute and converted both two point conversions to trim the CMU lead to 52-44. Fortunately for the CMU faithful the Chippewa offense was able to run out the final two minutes as Baylor had no response on defense.

It was certainly one of the more entertaining games to be played at Kelly/Shorts stadium and Carlson was happy with his teams resolve. "It's pretty clear that wasn't our best game, but anytime you get down 21 points in the 1st quarter and not only erase the deficit, but take the lead at halftime you have to be happy. Baylor has a very good offense and they run a terrific hurry up no huddle. We struggled with it early on, but made some adjustments. On offense early turnovers hurt us, but Cooper corrected his mistakes and played a record setting game. It wasn't pretty, but we'll take the win."

The aforementioned Rush set the single game CMU Passing TD record as he threw 6 TD passes, surpassing Dan LeFevour's record of 5. Rush completed 23 of 28 passes for 344 yards. WR Mile lee had 8 catches for 80 yards and WR Nick Holley had 4 catches for 53 yards and 2 TD's. QB Aaron Smith rushed for 89 yards on 10 carries.

The Chippewas 5-0 (2-0) will be back on the road next weekend as they travel to Morgantown to face #13 West Virginia.