Browsing: Football

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.

Over the offseason, Baylor tweaked the positions of senior safety Ahmad Dixon and senior nickelback Sam Holl in an effort to improve the Bears’ defense throughout the 2013 season.

Dixon, formerly a nickelback, moved to safety in the spring. The move to safety allows Dixon to play in more space and utilize his exceptional speed to track passes in the air and run down opponents.

One thing junior starting quarterback Bryce Petty wants to make sure of is that this Baylor team does not get comfortable after amassing two blowout victories against nonconference opponents this season.

“You can’t get complacent,” Petty said. “You can’t think you’ve arrived. We still have our things to work on and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Petty and the team used the bye week to do just that, work out the kinks, perfect their game and recuperate their bodies. Now, Baylor turns its focus to ULM.

No. 20 Baylor football has a tough task coming up this Saturday when they try to contain University of Louisiana-Monroe dual-threat senior quarterback Kolton Browning, who helped ULM score 42 points against the Bears last season in a 47-42 Baylor win.

This season, the Bears boast the second-best scoring defense in the entire NCAA by allowing 8.0 points per game.

No. 24 TCU (1-1) at Texas Tech (2-0)
After being suspended for much of last season, senior TCU quarterback Casey Pachall broke his arm in last week’s game against Southeastern Louisiana. Backup sophomore quarterback Trevone Boykin was able to come in and lift TCU to the victory, throwing for 133 yards and two touchdowns on only 13 pass attempts.

There is a great awakening in Baylor football and it has everything to do with the Bears’ improvement on defense. Picking up where it left off last season, the defense has made big plays sending a message to the offense that it can get the job done.

A new fear has developed as this hard-nosed, tough and physical defense begins to pose problems for the opposing team. Baylor is always a threat offensively with the ability to score points quickly, and in the past, opponents were able to keep pace. Those days are over. At least that’s what the defense hopes.

After defeating Wofford 69-3 in the season opener, the Bears were expecting a tougher challenge against Buffalo on Saturday afternoon at Floyd Casey Stadium.

For the second time in two weeks, Baylor shattered the school record of most points scored in the modern era with 70 points scored in a 70-13 shellacking of Buffalo.

To open the season, the Buffalo Bulls lost at No. 4 Ohio State 40-20. Considering the previous week’s competitive game Buffalo played against a highly ranked Buckeyes team, Baylor entered the matchup believing Buffalo would pose a threat on the gridiron.

One thing unites everybody during a Saturday afternoon football game: sweat.

By the first quarter, the heat claims a victim. A man lies on the cement beneath the stands. Two police officers and a Baylor student in his line jersey are attending to him while a woman – presumably the man’s wife – looks on at the scene.

Within moments, paramedics arrive, get the man upright and start giving him oxygen.

Buffalo faced No. 3 Ohio State last week and lost 40-20, after Baylor defeated Buffalo 70-13 on Saturday afternoon at Floyd Casey Stadium, Buffalo head coach Jeff Quinn came away with strong remarks regarding the strength of Baylor’s football program.

The Baylor Bears offense posted seven touchdowns and the defense added another touchdown to give Baylor a whopping 56-13 lead over Buffalo at the half. The 56-point half marks the most points ever scored in a single half in the history of Floyd Casey Stadium.

The No. 23 Baylor Bears (1-0) are coming off of a 69-3 thrashing against FCS opponent Wofford last Saturday. The Bears scored the most points in a game since 1924. They also posted the third most yards in program history with a total of 692.

This Saturday will bring more of a test with FBS opponent University of Buffalo coming down to Waco after a 40-20 loss at Ohio State last Saturday.

Baylor football did what they were expected to do and more in a 69-3 thrashing of FCS opponent Wofford on Saturday night in Waco.

While the Bears’ offense is expected to produce loads of points, most eyes were on the defensive side of the ball.

Baylor has historically been a poor defensive program. In the first half of last season, they ranked last in most FBS statistical categories.

Through seven games, Baylor allowed an average of 553.71 yards per game. That would have broken the all-time record for yards allowed per game if they continued at that porous pace.

Chemistry is not just a science, but also an art. A team can have all the talent in the world, but without chemistry, the team can falter. Just look at the 2012-2013 Los Angeles Lakers and how they flopped with an all-star roster. Fortunately for Baylor’s high-powered offense, the chemistry continues to grow.

Baylor’s offensive firepower has the nation watching as head coach Art Briles has turned the Bears into consistent contenders with a notoriously explosive offensive attack. Baylor put up 692 yards of offense against Wofford, the third most in program history.

If there is one thing that Baylor football does not lack, it’s wide receiver depth. There were some preseason question marks about the lack of experience at the position, even though there is a plethora of raw talent at receiver for the Bears.

Senior inside receiver Tevin Reese and incoming true freshman wide receiver Robbie Rhodes have received immense preseason press, but those two student-athletes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the wealth of talent at receiver for Baylor.

“We have incredible wide receiver depth this year,” Reese said. “We have a lot of receivers who can play and it’s all about just getting them the ball.”