Browsing: Baylor Football

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.

For the fourth time this season, our starters were pulled before the third quarter was over. The first three times were against Wofford, Buffalo and ULM, and we had halftime leads of 38-0, 56-13 and 49-7 respectively, so sportsmanship there was all well and good. Last Saturday, we had a halftime lead of 56-14 and pulled the starters very early yet again.

The difference? West Virginia is a Big 12 foe.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I come from a long line of Baylor football fanatics so, I am not the most objective writer. One thing we can all agree on is that this Baylor football team is special. At the end of that magical year dubbed “The Year of the Bear,” a good friend of mine said that Baylor fans should “enjoy it now because we will never see this kind of success again.”

Baylor football unleashed all its weapons on Buffalo when the Bears stomped all over them en route to a 70-13 win. From Bryce Petty’s passing to Bryce Hager’s fumble return that I can only compare to a stampeding mammoth, we hit them with everything we had. One weapon that didn’t get as much press was a little gift from Waco: murderous heat.

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 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.”

No. 23 Baylor started the season in superb fashion by decimating FCS opponent Wofford 69-3 on Saturday night at Floyd Casey Stadium.

With all the questions surrounding Baylor football heading into the season with a new quarterback, a revamped offensive line and returning the 113th ranked scoring defense, the Bears resoundingly answered those lingering questions by dominating Wofford in every facet of the game.

After three years of backing up Robert Griffin III and Nick Florence, fourth year junior Bryce Petty played in his first career collegiate start at quarterback.

“Being out there, it was very humbling,” Petty said. “Just a blessing. It wasn’t necessarily a blur, but I was just in the moment.”

Petty looked poised early in the pocket, finishing 7-8 with 113 yards and a touchdown in the first quarter, including a 27-yard bomb to Antwan Goodley in the back of the end zone.

Trouble ensued early in the second quarter when Petty had a stretch of having a ball batted down from his hand for a fumble, dropping a snap and throwing a pass to a defender that was mercifully dropped.