Browsing: Baylor Football

December is here, which means one big thing for college football: Bowl season is near. Before the matchup is set in stone, the Baylor Lariat Sports Desk predicts which bowl the Bears will play in and who will stand on the opposing sideline.

While school was out of session for students to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families, Baylor Athletics continued trucking as it feasted. Across four different sports, the Bears combined to go 8-1 during the weeklong vacation. Here’s everything you may have missed in Baylor Athletics over Thanksgiving break.

Since hiring Spavital this offseason (and moving redshirt junior quarterback Sawyer Robertson into the starting lineup), Baylor’s offense has sped light years ahead of where it was a year ago. Jeff Grimes’ wide zone offense finished No. 101 nationally at 23.1 points per game. In less than a full season on the job, Spavital has the Bears up to No. 23 nationally and second in the Big 12 at 35.1 points per game.

Baylor football head coach Dave Aranda is one win away from bouncing back from a 3-9 season in 2023 and securing bowl eligibility in 2024. The Bears (5-4, 3-3 Big 12) are on a three-game winning streak and will look to win their first game on the road against West Virginia in program history at 3 p.m. Saturday at Milan-Puskar Stadium in Morgantown.

In the second episode of Baylor’s Bearly Presidential Podcast, Aurora, Colo., senior, Student Body President and newly minted podcast host Lily Davis sat down with the redshirt junior and Mississippi State transfer. The conversation began with a discussion of a historic 37-34 win against TCU, moved into life as a student and as a Christian and finally found its way to an array of bizarre personal stories.

Ten years from kicker Chris Callahan’s historic last-second game-winning field goal to knock off TCU 61-58, redshirt junior kicker Isaiah Hankins replicated the magic with a 33-yard field goal as time expired to help Baylor football knock off their in-state rival, 37-34, on Saturday night at McLane Stadium.

Looking to claim a three-game winning streak for the first time since 2022, Baylor football will host its first “blackout” since 2016 while celebrating the 2013 and 2014 Big 12 Championship before a rivalry game against TCU at 7 p.m. Saturday at McLane Stadium.

From watching Baylor football win a Big 12 Championship on the sidelines to starting in the Bears’ highest-scoring game against a Big 12 opponent under Aranda, Lengyel’s journey has been far from easy. But with a smile on his face, he rode the lows of struggling to find a place on the team to becoming one of the most exciting offensive linemen in the Big 12.

Although the Bears (3-4, 1-3 Big 12) snapped a nine-game losing streak against Big 12 schools with their 59-35 win over Texas Tech out of the bye week, against the Cowboys (3-4, 0-4 Big 12) the green and gold will have another gnarly losing streak to snap. Since the 2021 Big 12 Championship season, Baylor has only won one game against an in-conference foe at home – a 35-23 homecoming win over Kansas on Oct. 22, 2022.