By Foster Nicholas | Sports Editor
Baylor football is set to host seven games at McLane Stadium and take on two teams who made runs to the 2024 College Football Playoff as part of its 12-game regular-season schedule released by the Big 12 Conference Tuesday.
Head coach Dave Aranda’s Bears are fresh off their first winning season since 2021, going 8-5 with a Kinder’s Texas Bowl berth in 2024. In 2025, Baylor will look to replicate the success as just one of two schools in the nation to play 11 power-4 opponents. The only other is TCU, a team the Bears will clash with in Week 9.
The green and gold open the season with non-conference games against Auburn, SMU and Samford. Opening weekend will feature the fifth all-time meeting, and first since 1976, where the Bears and Tigers go head to head. In week two, Baylor will face the Mustangs for the first time since 2016 with a 13-game winning streak on the line. SMU is fresh off a College Football Playoff appearance and ranked as high as No. 8 in the AP Poll, its highest mark since sitting at No. 3 in 1985.
The Bears wrap up non-conference play with a buy game against Samford, a team Baylor is 2-0 against all-time. Big 12 play rolls on with the grueling front half of the schedule, as the green and gold will host Arizona State and Kansas State in Weeks Four and Six, respectively, and travel to Stillwater, Okla., to face Oklahoma State in Week Five before breaking for the first idle week of the year.
In their first year in the Big 12, the Sun Devils went 11-3 and 7-2 in conference play en route to winning the Big 12 Championship and punching a ticket to the CFP. Arizona State climbed as high as No. 7 in the AP Poll and was the No. 3 seed in the playoffs.
Kansas State finished eighth in the Big 12 in 2024, while the Cowboys landed dead last without a conference win. Both teams were selected to finish in the top three in the conference in the 2024 preseason media poll.
After the first bye week of the season, Baylor will embark on a season-long, two-game road trip to Fort Worth for the Bluebonnet Battle against TCU and then to Queen City to play Cincinnati. The Bears knocked off the Horned Frogs in 2024 at home but haven’t beaten the instate rival on the road since 2019. Baylor’s history with the Bearcats is brief, as the lone meeting in the series was a 32-29 win on Oct. 21, 2023.
Hitting the back half of the schedule, Baylor’s only two-game homestand includes a Homecoming clash against UCF and the third-ever meeting against Utah on Nov. 15 after the second bye week of the season. The last time the green and gold played the Golden Knights, the game was dubbed “The Miricle in the Magic Kingdom,” as the Bears rattled off 29 unanswered second-half points to clinch a 36-35 win. It marked the largest comeback in program history.
The regular-season schedule will conclude with a trip to Tucson, Ariz., to face Arizona for the first time since 1992 and just the second time ever, followed by a home battle with Houston on Nov. 29. The Bears hold a 15-14-1 all-time record against the Cougars, splitting the last two matchups.
Baylor’s schedule is noticeably without Texas Tech for the first time since 1955. The green and gold also won’t face BYU or Colorado, two new Big 12 schools the Bears lost to in 2024.
