Baylor 31, Kansas State 24: What We Learned

[caption id="attachment_19746" align="alignright" width="300"]Photo by Pat Carrigan Photo by Pat Carrigan[/caption] Well, Baylor’s going to need to do better than that.  We entered this game assuming that even though Baylor was going to start a freshman quarterback, and even though it was a game in the strange weeknight Manhattan black hole, and even though Baylor hasn’t played a remotely difficult schedule…the Bears would still romp. They’d have an issue here or there, a little youth would show, but surely the Bears would win by a few scores. Maybe not six scores, but hey, they’d still dominate. And here we are. Now, take nothing away from Kansas State, a program that’s made a habit of vanquishing their opponents’ ambitious seasons, but Baylor’s cold, relentless offensive juggernaut only did just enough to escape. The run game was strangely absent despite how good Shock Linwood has looked this season, and despite an offensive line that is hands down the best in the conference. That, combined with the fact that the defense couldn’t get a grinding Kansas State offense off the field, created some issues. Jarrett Stidham was pretty great for a freshman. Lots of speculation surrounded the kid from Stephenville. Would he come out and be as great as everyone says? Would he look like a freshman and bomb? He was emphatically impressive for a guy just a few months removed from his senior prom. He completed 23 of 33 attempts for 419 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Dang tidy, plenty strong. What was missing was the ground game that Seth Russell brought that added a dimension to the offense. Now, that’s perfectly understandable, and it’s trickier to get comfortable and have a feel for operating option football of any kind as a quarterback right from the start. But that will need to improve if Baylor’s offense is going to come close to operating at the Russell levels. The defensive issues continue to impress.  And obviously not in a good way. Early on, Kansas State was running the ball with ease. So Baylor started planning more for the run. Which Kansas State then went around by dinking and dunking balls into pockets behind Baylor’s front. Late in the game, they faked run plays both at quarterback and running back, only to find even bigger pockets 10 yards out that turned into huge, gashing gains. In short, as always, Baylor’s defense failed to live up to its offensive counterpart, and that seems like more of a problem again because this offense may not be able to score the prolific amount of points it was with Russell. It will still score a ton, but maybe not enough anymore to cover the defense’s backside. The late heroics were nice, but championship teams need to avoid getting in those positions in the first place. Baylor's allowed a mulligan here and there, but this remains a worrying trend.