2011 Baylor Bears Football Preview

When you’ve experienced as little success as the Baylor Bears have encountered over the years, winning seasons are to be relished whenever and wherever they emerge. Teams without a winning tradition or a subculture defined by high expectations cannot be knocked when they do things that almost all of their predecessors failed to do. For this reason, the most recent year of Baylor football represents an unqualified success, even though the 13-game odyssey from opening kickoff to bowl game could have been so much more fruitful.

On the football field, there’s no way to speak around it or deny it: 2010 was a year to remember for the folks in Waco, Texas. For the first time since 1993, the Bears found themselves ranked in the AP Top 25 during the regular season. The Bears also won at least seven games for the first time since 1995. Baylor broke a bowl drought that lasted just over a decade and a half. The kinds of achievements that are second-nature for dozens of programs were freshly tasted on the campus of this Baptist school, giving the locals cause for considerable enjoyment. What made the season even sweeter was that Baylor went into Austin and took advantage of the spectacular free-fall endured by the Texas Longhorns. Texas has been the heavyweight for all the schools that moved from the old Southwest Conference to the Big 12 South Division. Baylor, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech all relish the chance to take down Texas, and Baylor had experienced far more futility against the Longhorns than its conference brethren from A&M and Tech. When Baylor busted Bevo last fall, the joy felt in Waco was impossible to measure. The lasting memory created by that 30-22 conquest of Texas will enjoy a long shelf life for the BU football family. Those kinds of opportunities don’t arise very often, and the Bears seized it.

Now, with that having been said, Baylor could have done better than it did last year. A 42-30 loss at home to Texas A&M prevented the Bears from an upper-division finish in the Big 12 South and added leverage within the league. Getting crushed at home by eventual champion Oklahoma dealt a blow to a team that had been so much more competitive through the first two months of the season. Then, in the Texas Bowl against a 6-6 Illinois squad, Baylor – playing not very far from its own campus in nearby Houston – shockingly failed to show up. The pancake-flat Bears were rolled by the Fighting Illini, ending their season at 7-6. This team showed so much more ability than its results indicated, but again, when a Baylor team produces a winning season complete with a road victory against Texas, it’s not something to complain about. The larger point is that while coach Art Briles has done a marvelous job at BU, he can climb so much higher with this program.

With the return of quarterback Robert Griffin, the Baylor offense should be just fine in 2011. Griffin, who threw for over 3,500 yards and 22 touchdowns last season, will try to get the Bears a postseason victory for the first time since 1992, when they defeated Arizona in the Sun Bowl. Having lost their best running back – 1,000-yard rusher Jay Finley – to the NFL, the Bears must break in a new running back. Kendall Wright is one of eight offensive starters to return in 2011. Wright was nearly a 1,000-yard receiver last season.

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The defense is the big question mark for the coming months. Only returning five starters, Baylor will need some of its youthful up-and-comers like Ahmad Dixon to step up. Tevin Elliott will be a key cog in the linebacking corps. The defense allowed over 30 points per game, including a 38-point outburst from Illinois in that ugly Texas Bowl loss.  Baylor needs to show it can play with the top tier of the Big 12 after completely falling apart during last year’s November home stretch against Oklahoma State (a 55-28 loss), A&M (42-30, as mentioned above), and Oklahoma (a 53-24 loss). Take away the stunning victory over Texas in Austin, and there isn’t much else for the Bears to hang their hat on when the discussion refers to BU’s record against top-caliber teams.

The schedule is a mix of good and bad. The good includes home dates with Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas, thereby enabling the toughest contests to come on home turf. The bad will have the Bears traveling to Texas A&M and Oklahoma State in consecutive weeks in October. Baylor opens the season with defending Rose Bowl champion and rival TCU in week one. The 2011 Bears certainly won’t be able to ease into this year’s campaign. They’ll need Griffin and the offense to be at their very best from the word go.