By George Schroeder | LTVN Executive Producer
No team in the country has more home games than Baylor this year, and after Houston handed the Bears their sixth loss of the season, no team in the country has lost more home games than Baylor either.
Saturday’s game came down to one final play as the Cougars (4-5, 2-4 Big 12) made a gutsy call to go for a two-point conversion after driving 40 yards into the end zone in overtime. Leading to a 25-24 loss, those two points entrenched the Bears’ place as the losingest team at home in the nation.
The Bears’ record now sits at 3-6 overall, 2-4 in conference play and 1-6 at home. After being gifted eight games on the Brazos by the Big 12 — the most in program history — Baylor now wallows in the lowest home-game win rate in the conference and the entire FBS.
It gets even worse.
The Bears rank only above Stanford (0-5 at home) out of all power conference teams, and out of every single football team in the FBS, Baylor currently ranks 129th out of 133rd in wins at home. If you take wins out of the picture, the Bears rank 133rd out of 133rd. No team in the entire FBS has lost more at home than Baylor, and the one win it does have is over FCS member Long Island.
Despite one of the greatest advantages in college football — assuming you didn’t travel to Orlando, Fla., or Cincinnati — there’s a better chance of watching Baylor win in your living room than in person.
Since head coach Dave Aranda took over for Matt Rhule in 2020, Baylor ranks only above Kansas in the Big 12 in home-game winning percentage, at 13-11 (54.2%). Aranda is now 23-22 all-time at the helm for the Bears and returned to what he called a broken locker room Saturday.
“If anything, what we’re fighting is just the accumulation of losses and the noise and just all of that,” Aranda said. “I thought there was a lot of fight today, a lot of good things to finish for sure. It was not there, and that’s just disappointing.”
The last time the Bears lost six games at home was in 2017 — Rhule’s first season as head coach. Before that, 2000 was the last time Baylor lost six games at home. Since then, the Bears haven’t lost more than four home games in a season.
As the losses have piled up for Baylor in 2023, the window is closing — and closing fast — to make a bowl game. Aranda said that goal is still in mind.
“It was brought up in our meeting just now that we still have an opportunity to do this,” Aranda said. “Let’s stay together and do it.”
It’s a tough path for Baylor the rest of the way, as it travels to TCU and Kansas State before hosting West Virginia, but there is still a way.
To become bowl-eligible for the third-straight season, the Bears have to win their last three games. Despite the odds, redshirt sophomore wide receiver Josh Cameron echoed Aranda’s bowl game aspirations.
“I don’t see nobody saying, ‘I’m done’ or ‘I’m quitting,’” Cameron said. “Everyone is still involved, and everyone still wants to go and make a bowl game.”
As the losses continue to stack, Aranda said the “noise” surrounding each setback is something the team has to fight each week.
“We tried to use all of that for good, for improvement,” Aranda said. “I wish we could say that we’ve turned the corner on it, but apparently not.”
Baylor has one more chance to win in front of its own fans in three weeks against West Virginia. If that win can’t be secured, the Bears will stay at the bottom of the FBS barrel, proving there’s truly no place like home.
