With Oklahoma losing last week in the Red River Rivalry, Baylor moved up to 12th in the country in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Polls, which is the highest the Bears have been since 1991. For the first time in the 16-year history of the Big 12, Baylor is the highest ranked team in the conference.
The Baylor Bears will look to prove they belong at the front of the pack as they play Iowa State in the final homecoming game at Floyd Casey Stadium.
No. 21 Oklahoma State vs. TCU
Despite the perception of Oklahoma State as an offensive oriented team, the defense has stepped up and has been integral to the Cowboys’ success. OSU is currently 38th in the country and fifth in the Big 12 in total defense, holding teams to 361.2 yards per game.
In a relatively short period of time, Baylor football has become nationally renowned for its explosive offense. Through the first four games, the Bears were averaging 781.5 yards per game, 70.5 points per game and beating teams by an average of 54.3 points per game. All of these marks led the country.
Baylor faced an unexpected challenge in its first road game on Saturday against Kansas State in Manhattan, Kan. The Bears managed to escape “The Little Apple” with a 35-25 victory, but one that looked different from the display of offensive fireworks in previous weeks.
Baylor football has established a tradition of elite offense. In the last two seasons, the Bears have finished second nationally in total offense.
With that history, Baylor came into this season with a world of expectations on the offensive. So far this season, the Bears have shattered previous offensive records with junior quarterback Bryce Petty at the helm.
With Baylor’s flashy offense and improved defense, the third phase of the football team is often overlooked. Baylor’s special teams have been a model of consistency and have helped boost Baylor to some key victories. When the game is on the line, all eyes are on special teams because of the impact they can have on the outcome of a game.
After blowing teams out by an average of over 54 points through the first four games, Baylor football faced a battle in its first road test of the season against Kansas State.
The Bears faced their first true adversity and experienced their first deficit of the year, but managed to fight back for a 35-25 victory, for their first-ever win in Manhattan, Kan.
The No. 15 Baylor Bears survived a scare from the Kansas State Wildcats to win 35-25 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan, Kan. on Saturday.
The win marks the first time the Bears have ever won a game at Kansas State.
Playing its first road game of the year, Baylor started out the game with 12-play, 59-yard scoring drive where the Bears held the ball for the first 4:27 seconds of the game. Junior quarterback Bryce Petty finished off the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run.
After thrashing West Virginia in the first Big 12 conference game, No. 15 Baylor football looks to continue its incredible offensive start in the first road game of the season at Kansas State. The Bears have never won in Manhattan, but Baylor looks to turn that streak around.
Baylor is coming off a dominant win against West Virginia, where the Bears set an all-time Big 12 record with 864 total yards, and dropped 70 points or more for the third straight game, the first time an offense has scored 70 or more points three straight times since 1930.
Baylor was dominant in its Big 12 opener, setting a conference record for total offense with 864 yards. The number was the most by an FBS team in the last decade. The Bears scored the most points against West Virginia since 1904. Baylor became the first team since 1930 to score 70 or more points in three straight games. This was all against a team that beat No. 11 Oklahoma State convincingly the week before.
Despite the convincing win, Baylor moved up only two spots in the AP rankings, from No. 17 to No. 15.
For the past four games Baylor football has dominated it’s opponents at Floyd Casey Stadium ranking them at number four in the Big 12 conference. This weekend the team travels for the first time this season. Saturday at 2:30 p.m. the Bears will take on Kansas State in Manhattan, Kan.
“First time for us traveling and everybody’s jacked up and ready to zero in and come out with a W,” senior cornerback K.J. Morton said.
No. 12 Oklahoma (5-0) vs. Texas (3-2)
Since junior quarterback Blake Bell took over as starter, he has thrown for 797 yards, 70.4 percent accuracy and six touchdowns over three games. The Sooners are 3-0 in that span, including an impressive victory over No. 22 Notre Dame in South Bend. OU is sixth in the country in scoring defense and ninth in total yardage defense.
With many people focusing on how to stop Baylor, or wondering how Baylor will adjust on the road, the coaching duel that will take place in Manhattan, Kan., seems to be overlooked. Both Baylor head coach Art Briles and Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder have rejuvenated programs that were at one point bottom feeders of the Big 12.
Snyder’s first tenure at K-State was from 1989 to 2005, in which he led the Wildcats to three Big 12 titles, six 11-win seasons, and helped turn Kansas State into a contending, winning program on an annual basis.
While high-powered offenses earn national attention, defense wins championships. Last year’s porous Baylor defense has been replaced with a stout defense that finds itself ranking among the elite squads in the NCAA.
Through the first four games of the Baylor season, the defense has allowed 321.3 yards per game– good enough to land Baylor inside the top 20. Baylor’s defense last year consistently ranked outside of the top 100 teams in FBS schools, which forced the offense to carry the load.
After three weeks of breezing to blowout victories against nonconference opponents, the No. 15 Baylor Bears 4-0 (1-0) were sick of hearing how they have not played anyone yet. The Bears answered the critics emphatically by winning their first Big 12 Conference game over the West Virginia Mountaineers 73-42 on Saturday at Floyd Casey Stadium.
The Bears have yet to play a game on the road this season after four consecutive games in the friendly confines of Floyd Casey Stadium. This week that will change, as the Bears hit the road for the first time to take on the Kansas State Wildcats in Manhattan.
The No. 16 Baylor Bears defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers 73-42 on Saturday night at Floyd Casey Stadium.
After breezing through an undefeated nonconference slate, the Bears were amped to open up the Big 12 Conference schedule against WVU.
The Bears responded by drubbing the Mountaineers and setting an all-time school record with 864 yards of total offense.
Baylor’s offense picked up where it left off last year against West Virginia in the Big 12 Conference opener at Floyd Casey Stadium.
On the first drive of the game, the Bears scored in a three-play, 75-yard drive when junior quarterback Bryce Petty launched a 61-yard touchdown strike to junior receiver Antwan Goodley to give the Bears a sudden 7-0 lead.
Kansas (2-1) vs. No. 20 Texas Tech (4-0)
Kansas head coach Charlie Weis has hardly anything to work with in Lawrence. Kansas may be 2-1, but two wins are against Louisiana Tech and FCS opponent South Dakota, both at home.
Texas Tech has been one of the more surprising teams so far this season. A rebuilding process was expected after former Tech quarterback Kliff Kingsbury took over as head coach in Lubbock. The Red Raiders rank third in the nation in passing yards with 408.5 a game.
No. 17 Baylor football opens up Big 12 Conference play against West Virginia in a Saturday night showdown at Floyd Casey Stadium. When these two teams last met, the Mountaineers pulled off a 70-63 shootout win in Morgantown in the first-ever matchup between these two teams. Last year’s game will be in the mind of Baylor as the team prepares for its Big 12 opener.
“You never want to think of football as a revenge type of game,” junior quarterback Bryce Petty said. “We are ready to go out there. Even though we did score 63 points last year, there were still points left out there. As a team, a couple things just didn’t go our way, but I thought we played really well being in that atmosphere. Opening up Big 12 at home against them, it needs to be a win for us for sure.”
Three players, three paths, one mission. That’s how junior running back Lache Seastrunk, senior tight end Jordan Najvar and senior cornerback Demetri Goodson look at it.
Seastrunk, Najvar and Goodson play in different positions, but their common denominator is that they are native Texans who decided to go to West Coast schools and ended up transferring to Baylor so they could be back in Texas.
When you watch a Baylor football game, it’s impossible to ignore the incredible speed of the offense. The offense has posted huge numbers, averaging 69.7 points per game on the season. The engine behind the success is the offensive line.
Baylor has arguably one of the best offensive lines in all of football, boasting almost 1,600 pounds of total manpower. In fact, the only everyday starting offensive lineman under 315 pounds is senior center Stefan Huber, who weighs “only” 295 pounds. To compare, the University of Texas has one lineman over 315 pounds, and total their line weighs about 50 pounds less.
Baylor football enjoyed a day off on Saturday, but their bye week was used to shift attention to its Big 12 Conference opener against West Virginia University.
In the first three games, Baylor’s defense has not been truly tested, but they face their first genuine test against West Virginia, senior safety Ahmad Dixon said.
“Buffalo had a lot of a passing game, but that was the only team that we had been tested by before,” said Dixon.
Baylor head coach Art Briles said on Monday that he knew of senior safety Ahmad Dixon’s legal woes prior to the Sept. 21 ULM game. Dixon fully participated in the ULM game before suffering an injury.
Dixon, 22, was arrested Thursday and charged with a Class A misdemeanor assault, according to Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department.
TCU (1-2) vs. SMU (1-2)
The Horned Frogs have been inconsistent on both sides of the ball, ranking outside the top 50 in passing yards, rushing yards, points for, points against and total defense.
Luckily for TCU, this may be the game to turn things around. SMU is coming off a big loss to No. 10 Texas A&M in College Station. SMU barely sneaked by in a win against FCS opponent Montana State.
Baylor junior wide receiver Antwan Goodley was one of six receivers added to the Biletnikoff award watch list after a stellar start to the season. Goodley joins fellow teammate senior wide receiver Tevin Reese as one of two Baylor representatives on the watch list.
The Fred Biletnikoff Award is given yearly to the “nation’s outstanding college football receiver” by the Tallahassee Quarterback Club Foundation Inc. Former Baylor receiver Terrance Williams was a finalist for the award last year and receiver Kendall Wright was a semifinalist the year before.
As he cuts through a barricade of defenders with his sole purpose being to give the offense a spark, junior Lache Seastrunk is more than just an average running back.
Seastrunk has averaged 139 yards a game this season and holds the nation’s longest consecutive 100–yard game streak at seven games, but his personality is equally as dynamic as his game.
The No. 19 Baylor Bears (3-0) are undefeated on the season and generating buzz nationally with gaudy offensive statistics after a 70-7 blowout victory against the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks on Saturday at Floyd Casey Stadium.
“We’ve had three home games,” Baylor head coach Art Briles said. “We’ve taken advantage of being home, and we’ve got good people. We have a good football team. If you combine those factors, it’s people making plays on both sides of the ball. We’ve got to keep playing at a high rate and win. That’s the bottom line.”
The Baylor Bears defeated the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks 70-7 on Saturday night at Floyd Casey Stadium.
“We’ve had three home games,” Baylor head coach Art Briles said. “We’ve taken advantage of being home and we’ve got good people. We have a good football team. If you combine those factors it’s people making plays on both sides of the ball. We’ve got to keep playing at a high rate and win. That’s the bottom line.”
After defeating ULM narrowly last season in Monroe 47-42, the Bears left no doubt against the Warhawks this season by overwhelming the opponent both offensively and defensively.
The Baylor Bears are leading University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks 49-7 at the half at Floyd Casey Stadium.
After the Baylor defense stifled the ULM offense on fourth down, the Bears offense took over with the ball with 10:38 to play in the first quarter.
21 seconds later, the Bears were in the end zone with a three play, 82-yard drive accentuated by junior receiver Antwan Goodley’s 63-yard touchdown catch from senior quarterback Bryce Petty.
No. 20 Baylor football hosts its final non-conference game of the year against a familiar opponent in the University of Louisiana at Monroe at 3 p.m. at Floyd Casey Stadium Saturday. The Bears look to post a more impressive showing against ULM after squeaking out a 47-42 shootout win last season. Even in the hostile setting of Monroe, the Baylor win was a little too close for comfort.
Baylor comes into the game against ULM on a hot streak. The Bears have not lost a game since Nov. 10, 2012, against Oklahoma. Since that game, the Bears have won six straight games.
Kansas (1-1) vs. Louisiana Tech (1-2)
So far this season, the Kansas Jayhawks have been decidedly poor. After taking care of business against a bad South Dakota team, Kansas was soundly defeated by Rice a week later. While Rice is not a bad team, it is not the type of team that should be beating Big 12 opponents. Kansas has struggled mightily throwing the ball with 140.0 passing yards a game.
