By Michael Haag | Sports Editor
Even the best comeback in program history couldn’t spark momentum for Baylor football. The Bears followed a 28-point rally at UCF on Sept. 30 with a 39-14 loss to Texas Tech on Saturday at home. The setback marked the sixth-straight time Baylor has fallen to an FBS opponent at home, as its last win came when it topped Kansas 35-23 on Oct. 22, 2022.
Junior wide receiver Monaray Baldwin said there was a lack of effort shown in the blowout loss.
“I feel like people were waiting for the next person to make the play, and that’s not how we need to approach it,” Baldwin said. “We need to treat every play like it’s a touchdown play. Everybody needs to try their hardest.”
The Bears (2-4, 1-2 Big 12) scored zero touchdowns on three trips to the red zone on Saturday. Two of them ended in field goals and the other resulted in a turnover on downs. By comparison, Baylor finished with TDs on 3 of 5 scoring drives against the Knights in Orlando, Fla.
#Baylor football’s offense has had 18 red zone trips through four games this season. Of those 18, 13 (72%) have ended in points. However, only seven (39%) of those opportunities ended with a TD.
— Michael Haag (@MichaelHaag_) September 28, 2023
Baldwin said only certain guys are trying their hardest when it comes to executing in games.
“I praise Blake [Shapen] this game because I felt he played really hard,” Baldwin said. “But I feel the rest of the team and the rest of the defense didn’t. I don’t know what it’s going to take but we’re going to have to start playing really hard and giving it our all every play.”
The Bears never held a lead against the Red Raiders. In fact, they haven’t possessed a lead for a single second of their last two home games, the one prior to Texas Tech being a 38-6 loss to then-No. 3 Texas.
#Baylor football has held a lead for 41 minutes and 43 seconds in five games against #FBS opponents this season.
– Led for 2:44 vs. Texas State (42-31 loss)
– Led for 35:23 vs. then-No. 12 #Utah (20-13 loss)
– Led for 3:36 at #UCF (won 36-35)… (1/2)
— Michael Haag (@MichaelHaag_) October 9, 2023
Head coach Dave Aranda said solutions involve coming out of the opening tunnel stronger and playing “complementary football.”
“Throughout the week, we talked about winning the first quarter and taking a play at a time and a drive at a time,” Aranda said. “And I think we have to be able to revisit all of that and really kind of look at what we’re asking everybody to do.
“And then really focus in on the things that we can do well, that this particular team, and in this particular state, that we can accomplish, particularly in the run game, with as much as our offense is based on it. When you have the limited number of rushing yards that we have, it’s hard to have success.”
The Bears have been outscored 111-32 in the first half of their five games against FBS opponents. Four of those five games have come at home. They also recorded just 17 rushing yards on 30 attempts (0.6 yards per carry) against Texas Tech.
Aranda said he saw Baldwin and some of the other leaders on the team try to rally everyone together after the disappointing loss. But, he added that there’s a struggle of trying to make sure the squad as a whole understands the task at hand.
“To have guys not look at the scoreboard, to have guys not say, ‘Oh, here we go again,’ is always a fight. … I didn’t feel like there was any quit,” Aranda said. “But we can always do better in that department, and we’re always looking to.”
Despite not taking control of the lead at any point versus the Red Raiders, Baldwin said he doesn’t think the team quit before the game was over. Shapen hit Baldwin for a 71-yard TD early in the fourth quarter — Baylor’s first and only TD of the game. The Bears trailed 24-11 following a two-point conversion, but that was as close as they got the rest of the way.
“From the people I did see, we didn’t quit,” Baldwin said. “Like I said, Blake played his heart out. He was taking hits and running people over. When I see Blake playing hard like that, it makes me want to go hard. We just have to stay together.”
Baylor is now in its ‘bye week’ before it resumes conference play at Cincinnati on Oct. 21. The Big 12 announced on Monday that kickoff for that contest will be at 11 a.m. at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Sophomore safety Devyn Bobby said the idle week gives the group a chance to test itself and see how it’ll respond moving forward.
“What are we going to do to make sure that we have a successful week and get ready for our next opponent?” Bobby said. “So the message is ‘how are we going to respond as a team?’ Everybody hates losing, but we just have to keep going.”
