By Kevin Lonnquist
Publisher
Oklahoma and Texas are bound for the SEC in the coming years. Probably 2023.
Well a mini version of the SEC is sitting in the heart of the Big 12 in Waco, Texas on The Brazos and off I-35.
It’s in the Simpson Building on the Baylor University campus with Baylor second-year head coach Dave Aranda.
He coached in that league for four seasons at LSU, the last a national championship in 2019.
And if what Baylor did to both the Sooners and Longhorns this fall is any indication, then the football leaders in Norman, OK and Austin know they better change the approach to the game than what they have going.
It’s not going to take them very far.
What Baylor did to the Sooners in the second half in a 27-14 victory is a carbon copy of what they did to Texas two weeks ago. The Bears physically manhandled each. Explosive offenses became ordinary. Dynamic quarterbacks went from legendary to mortal. Defenses were worn down and punished by Baylor’s running game.
Thanks to Texas Tech upsetting Iowa State, 41-38, Baylor is now squarely in the Big 12 championship game and title race. It’s now in second place behind co-leaders. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
This is the recipe by which Baylor and Aranda want to play. It’s worked really well at McLane Stadium to the point where the Bears won because they became stronger as the game got older. Oklahoma's 17-game winning is over.
Every Baylor and Oklahoma fan walked out of the building Saturday with likely the same feeling. Well, they should have had the same feeling. The better team won.
Regardless of Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley’s postgame bitterness over the justified Baylor field goal on the final play that could mean something in the Big 12 tiebreakers, he knows what he saw. His team just flat out got beat.
“I think playing us, Baylor football our standard, at some point we see every opponent wear down,’’ Baylor quarterback Gerry Bohanon said. “Just we practice so hard and guys practice so hard and being together, when we returned, looking at the other guys on the other side it’s like, “keep going,” we play for each other and motivate each other.”
Look at the numbers to reveal what Bohanon is saying. Baylor leads the conference in rushing at 231 yards per game. Oklahoma is third in the Big 12 in rushing defense at 108. The Bears finished with 296 including 137 in the fourth quarter.
The turning point of this game was on Baylor first offensive snap in the fourth quarter when Abram Smith went for 75 yards from the Baylor 18 to the Oklahoma 8-yard-line. A few plays later, Bohanon scored on a 5-yard run. That was pretty much it.
“I think we just out-physicaled them,’’ Baylor said.
Even on the possession where Baylor scored to make it 24-7, the Bears didn’t really have to. The Sooners had the body language of a team that wanted none of it. Their tackling was casual. Their intensity had dropped considerably. They knew they couldn’t stop the Bears.
Baylor averaged better than seven yards per carry on nine attempts. One team was getting stronger. The other team was no mas.
Take it to the other side where Baylor’s rushing defense, which was actually really good last week against TCU, did the same to the Sooners. Oklahoma rushed for just 78 yards and not even three yards a pop. It started on the first series when the first two Sooner rushing plays lost 10 yards.
“Once we started stopping the running game, pushing them back behind the sticks a little bit and then putting our sub packages in, we got after it a little bit later on,’’ Linebacker Terrel Bernard said.
That conspired against Williams who looked like a freshman. Even when he had time to throw, he was confused, unsure of himself, made bad reads and threw two mindboggling interceptions on balls he shouldn’t have thrown. Riley pulled him for Spencer Rattler in the third quarter. Rattler didn’t fare much better.
At that point, Riley was desperate. Baylor wound up sacking Williams and Rattler five times. The conference’s blue blood was seething red in frustration.
There is nothing fluky about this. It’s real. The Bears have handled this season far better than most could have envisioned.
What’s next is trying to bottle this formula and take it on the road. That’s where this team doesn’t look the same. Next week in Manhattan, KS they get a really hot Kansas State team that’s won four straight and is 7-3.
Football continues to be a week-to-week odyssey. In Fort Worth last week, it was a head scratcher. In Waco Saturday, it was none of that.
“The standard is the standard,’’ Aranda said. “And I think all of what has happened before leads up to where we are now. So, I’m excited for this next week. We’ll attack it.”
With a Big 12 SEC style.
Publisher
Oklahoma and Texas are bound for the SEC in the coming years. Probably 2023.
Well a mini version of the SEC is sitting in the heart of the Big 12 in Waco, Texas on The Brazos and off I-35.
It’s in the Simpson Building on the Baylor University campus with Baylor second-year head coach Dave Aranda.
He coached in that league for four seasons at LSU, the last a national championship in 2019.
And if what Baylor did to both the Sooners and Longhorns this fall is any indication, then the football leaders in Norman, OK and Austin know they better change the approach to the game than what they have going.
It’s not going to take them very far.
What Baylor did to the Sooners in the second half in a 27-14 victory is a carbon copy of what they did to Texas two weeks ago. The Bears physically manhandled each. Explosive offenses became ordinary. Dynamic quarterbacks went from legendary to mortal. Defenses were worn down and punished by Baylor’s running game.
Thanks to Texas Tech upsetting Iowa State, 41-38, Baylor is now squarely in the Big 12 championship game and title race. It’s now in second place behind co-leaders. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
This is the recipe by which Baylor and Aranda want to play. It’s worked really well at McLane Stadium to the point where the Bears won because they became stronger as the game got older. Oklahoma's 17-game winning is over.
Every Baylor and Oklahoma fan walked out of the building Saturday with likely the same feeling. Well, they should have had the same feeling. The better team won.
Regardless of Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley’s postgame bitterness over the justified Baylor field goal on the final play that could mean something in the Big 12 tiebreakers, he knows what he saw. His team just flat out got beat.
“I think playing us, Baylor football our standard, at some point we see every opponent wear down,’’ Baylor quarterback Gerry Bohanon said. “Just we practice so hard and guys practice so hard and being together, when we returned, looking at the other guys on the other side it’s like, “keep going,” we play for each other and motivate each other.”
Look at the numbers to reveal what Bohanon is saying. Baylor leads the conference in rushing at 231 yards per game. Oklahoma is third in the Big 12 in rushing defense at 108. The Bears finished with 296 including 137 in the fourth quarter.
The turning point of this game was on Baylor first offensive snap in the fourth quarter when Abram Smith went for 75 yards from the Baylor 18 to the Oklahoma 8-yard-line. A few plays later, Bohanon scored on a 5-yard run. That was pretty much it.
“I think we just out-physicaled them,’’ Baylor said.
Even on the possession where Baylor scored to make it 24-7, the Bears didn’t really have to. The Sooners had the body language of a team that wanted none of it. Their tackling was casual. Their intensity had dropped considerably. They knew they couldn’t stop the Bears.
Baylor averaged better than seven yards per carry on nine attempts. One team was getting stronger. The other team was no mas.
Take it to the other side where Baylor’s rushing defense, which was actually really good last week against TCU, did the same to the Sooners. Oklahoma rushed for just 78 yards and not even three yards a pop. It started on the first series when the first two Sooner rushing plays lost 10 yards.
“Once we started stopping the running game, pushing them back behind the sticks a little bit and then putting our sub packages in, we got after it a little bit later on,’’ Linebacker Terrel Bernard said.
That conspired against Williams who looked like a freshman. Even when he had time to throw, he was confused, unsure of himself, made bad reads and threw two mindboggling interceptions on balls he shouldn’t have thrown. Riley pulled him for Spencer Rattler in the third quarter. Rattler didn’t fare much better.
At that point, Riley was desperate. Baylor wound up sacking Williams and Rattler five times. The conference’s blue blood was seething red in frustration.
There is nothing fluky about this. It’s real. The Bears have handled this season far better than most could have envisioned.
What’s next is trying to bottle this formula and take it on the road. That’s where this team doesn’t look the same. Next week in Manhattan, KS they get a really hot Kansas State team that’s won four straight and is 7-3.
Football continues to be a week-to-week odyssey. In Fort Worth last week, it was a head scratcher. In Waco Saturday, it was none of that.
“The standard is the standard,’’ Aranda said. “And I think all of what has happened before leads up to where we are now. So, I’m excited for this next week. We’ll attack it.”
With a Big 12 SEC style.
