Freshman, Baylor rout Washington State

WACO (AP) — Robert Griffin is a natural under Friday night lights — even in college.

Baylor's freshman quarterback ran for a school-record 217 yards and two touchdowns on only 11 carries and the Bears beat Washington State 45-17 in a game played a day earlier than scheduled because of Hurricane Ike.

That is two starts for Griffin and consecutive 40-point games for the Bears, the first time they have done that since 1994.

"It's a confidence boost," Griffin said. "We came out and beat Washington State, a legitimate team. We didn't just beat them. We beat them pretty good."

Griffin threw for 129 yards, including a 27-yard TD pass to Ernest Smith, a play on which Griffin scrambled from one side of the field to the other before throwing off his back foot. He had TD runs of 1 and 58 yards, along with a 57-yard run that set up another score for Baylor (2-1) and a 58-yard sprint on his last play.

"That quarterback makes everybody look slow," first-year Washington State coach Paul Wulff said.

There was a steady breeze of 10-15 mph with some higher gusts later, but no rain.

Washington State, forced to fly to Texas and play on the same day, dropped to 0-3 for the first time since 1999 and were coming off the worst loss in school history, 66-3 to California.The Cougars returned to Washington overnight ahead of the storm.

Griffin, whose 19.7-yard per carry average was a Big 12 record, was pulled after he scampered for 58 yards midway through the fourth quarter with the Bears up 42-17. New coach Art Briles then put in Blake Szymanski, the starter last year when Griffin was playing regularly on Friday nights.

After leading Copperas Cove High to the Texas Class 4A Division I championship game last season, Griffin enrolled early at Baylor and took part in spring drills.

Griffin replaced ineffective senior Kirby Freeman, a transfer from Miami, in the season opening 41-13 loss to No. 20 Wake Forest. Griffin then had 337 total yards and four TDs in his first start, a 51-6 victory last week over Northwestern State,.