2022 Baylor Football Preview
The 6-5 Baylor Bears represent one of the most physical teams that Texas has seen this season, but meeting the other team’s physicality hasn’t been a problem for the Longhorns. Baylor had a backloaded schedule in terms of difficulty and they’re on a two game slide after being obliterated by Kansas State 31-3 and then losing a heartbreaker to TCU by one point in which they outplayed (an injured-riddled) TCU for most of the game. The Bears have been a strong Big 12 road team, compiling a 3-1 record, and their play style and experience tends to travel well. Preseason prognosticators that looked at 14 returning starters and picked the Bears to win the league are being punished for not understanding that Baylor losing six players to the NFL Draft – 4 of them in the first first 3 rounds – isn’t something that can be replaced.
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OFFENSE
The Bears tend to be deliberate on offense and average 6.1 yards per play on the strength of an efficient running game and a sporadically explosive but inconsistent play action passing game. Unlike last year, they don’t take care of the ball all that well. Over their last 7 games, the Bears have given up 13 turnovers. This is a let it hang out game and Sark and PK should expect Dave Aranda to go for it on 4th down until Texas punishes them for it. Note: Baylor OC Jeff Grimes loves trick plays.
QB
Sophomore Blake Shapen leads the Bears offense and he’s had an inconsistent season, playing pretty well up to the West Virginia game – where he had over 300 yards passing at halftime! – before going out with a concussion. Perhaps the fog has never fully lifted as he was particularly ineffective as the season progressed against Kansas, Oklahoma and Kansas State. Over his last five games he has 3 touchdowns to 6 interceptions and while he hasn’t had a Ewers level bottoming out, he’s been shaky. He played pretty well against TCU, so maybe he’s on the rebound. Shapen is 6’0″ and quite mobile, but not the running threat represented by a Jalen Daniels or Adrian Martinez. Shapen can be very sharp in the play action game, but he tends to fixate on his first read and defenses that deny him quick decisions can turn him over and get to him in the pocket. He will put the ball in peril and he isn’t shy about taking deep shots, even on 3rd and forever.
RB
The Bears have a three-headed running back group comprised of two scatbacks and one power runner. Diminutive Richard Reese (908 yards, 14 tds, 5.2 per carry) and Sqwirl Williams (530 yards, 4 tds, 5.8 per carry) are the speed component while 245 pound Qualan Jones (403 yards, 7 tds, 5.5 per carry) brings the pain. When Baylor’s outside zone running game is humming, they’re a Bear to defend as Reese and Sqwirl are adept at finding small creases or using their quickness to make sharp cuts against the grain when second level defenders overrun to the sideline. The Bears will ride the hot hand – the 175 pound Reese has two games where he had 30+ carries, the 170 pound Sqwirl has a 25 carry game – and they’re not going to worry about work load in a season finale. Note: the 3 Bear runners have combined for a healthy 41 total catches, but they average just over 7 yards per reception.
WR/TE
The Bears have some athletes and plenty of raw speed, but they’re inconsistent. Five different pass catchers have been 21-30 receptions and they don’t have a true #1. Monaray Baldwin is their best deep threat, but the young 165 pounder can struggle to get off of physical corners. Gavin Holmes is the senior statesman of the group, but after dropping 210 yards against West Virginia, he’s had 84 yards receiving total over the last five games. Texas has a real opportunity to hold down this unit if they’re assignment sound and the corner opposite Ryan Watts comes to play. Big TE Ben Sims is a chain mover, but 20 of his 30 catches happened in the first four games of the season. The Bears have young athletes out wide capable of explosive plays, but they are remarkably inconsistent and inexperienced. I’ve watched them go through stretches where they’re utterly dominated by aggressive corner and nickel play. They’re certainly at their best running free on play action shots. Texas has to press their advantages here and not concede confidence building throws to Shapen.
OL
The clearest strength of the Baylor offense is an OL that represents the 2nd most seasoned unit in college football. They have 150+ combined starts in aggregate. They’re headlined by OT Connor Galvin and C Jacob Gall. They work really well together and don’t necessarily need to physically dominate at the point of attack to make their outside zone system hum. When the Bear running game hits it rhythm, it’s a lot of fun to watch and loading up the box can actually make things worse for the run defense. The challenge for Texas won’t be physicality. It’ll be giving up a soft edge (pretty unlikely) or second level defenders overrunning or being paralyzed by backfield candy (more likely) allowing Baylor runners a crease in the alley.
DEFENSE
Dave Aranda can flat out coach defense, but 2021’s elite unit was gutted by the NFL draft and they’re currently in a transitional phase. Baylor is the 45th ranked defense by FEI advanced statistics and while they allow only a reasonable 5.3 yards per play, offenses that are able to solve their disguised coverages and avoid turnovers will move the ball. It’s worth noting that while Baylor started the year rock-ribbed against the run with their massive interior Tite front, they’ve surrendered 179 yards per game rushing over their last three games. Much of the fault is on Baylor’s second and third level defenders not hitting their run fits when runners spill wide. Baylor struggles to get an honest pass rush at times and they rely heavily on deceptive coverages on the back end to confound QBs and force sucker throws.
DL
A big physical front headlined by plus size nose tackle Siaki Ika isn’t designed to compile stats, but to dominate the interior line of scrimmage and force runners to either collide into an interior wall or bounce wide on a rounded angle that allows easy clean up. Ika is a monster inside who will pose a handful for Majors and big defensive end TJ Franklin (6-5, 285) is a negligible pass rusher who is one of the best run stoppers in the league. Gabe Hall (6-6, 300) is the best pass rusher of the group (3.5 sacks) but all three of them exist to dominate the run and own the line of scrimmage from tackle to tackle. Their preferred front lines up Baylor size and power on the specific Longhorn OL who’ve dealt with that least well and it’s important that the Longhorns have some run game wrinkles that allow advantageous blocking angles inside and create some conflict in Baylor’s clean up crew. Studying what Oklahoma and Kansas State did to them will be instructive.
LB
240 pound interior linebacker Dillon Doyle leads them in tackles and is also solid dropping into zone coverages (2 interceptions). He’s joined by Matt Jones, who has been a massive drop off from the cat quick NFL draftee Terrel Bernard. This 6’7″ edge JACK Garmon Randolph leads them in sacks with 4.5 on the season. He’s long and has some quickness, but he’s a one trick finesse pony. Doyle and Jones are plenty physical, but Jones can miss assignments and both can be exploited in space by Bijan or Keilan.
DB
The Bears badly miss Jalen Pitre and JT Woods. They were turnover magnets and sure tacklers that were instrumental in the Bears getting off of the field on 3rd downs. The proof? The Bears are allowing offenses to convert a healthy 45.4% of their 3rd downs this season and that simply doesn’t marry well to Aranda’s larger philosophy. Safety Christian Morgan is an experienced starter (leads them in INTs with 3) and physical SPARQ freak and smallish safety Devin Lemear has traits, but he’s too inexperienced. The corners are unremarkable but have some size and are well schooled. STAR Al Walcott is of the Big Nickel variety (6-2, 220) and he can be exploited if Texas can hunt formations to put him 1 on 1 in the slot. The best aspect of the Bear secondary is their ability to hone in on an offense’s preferred routes and force turnovers with sucker coverages. This was a big component of their 38-35 win over OU in Norman, forcing Dillon Gabriel into 3 first half interceptions, even though OU’s offense was otherwise humming along. They pulled a similar mind screw on Texas Tech, forcing three different QBs to throw a combined a 5 interceptions. Outside of those scheme induced meltdowns, they’ve actually proven fairly susceptible to the passing game, giving up steady gains to Will Howard and Max Duggan in recent weeks.
Overall
The Bears match up well in some spots to Texas, but they’re a five loss team for a reason. The Horns need Quinn Ewers to throw the ball capably within the construct of a run first offense. A lot of Longhorn offensive success will rest on Sark’s ability to scheme up run game solutions on a short week. Making the field bigger is preferable to playing in a phone booth.
Defensively, the Texas DL will match up just fine against Baylor’s experienced offensive line. Texas safeties and linebackers can’t get caught up in trash and must fit the cutback lanes. Jahdae Barron and Ryan Watts have the potential to shut down Baylor’s receivers if D’shawn Jamison or Terrance Brooks can bring it on the other side.
