Baylor Bears Defensive Line Letting Them Down Midway Through the Season
Even though the Baylor Bears lost nearly all of their skill position players from a historic 2021 season, fans and the media (myself included) justified the pre-season No. 10 ranking by simply pointing out the stability and effectiveness of two units: the offensive and defensive lines.
Midway through the 2022 season, the offensive line looks as though they have begun to find their rhythm. Their counterparts on the other side of the ball, however, are better described as a defen"sieve" line.
The aggressive, reckless way the defensive line played at the tail end of the 2021 season was seemingly a sign of things to come in 2022, but this unit has been anything but disruptive this season. It looks as though Dave Aranda expected more out of them as well.
“Overall, we are probably behind where we’d like to be,” Aranda said this week. “I think this last game [against West Virginia] our whole defense was colored by trying to make this play, that play, and every play as opposed to just playing your responsibility and making your play.”
Instead of making this play or that play, the defensive line has opted to take the confusion out of everything and just make no plays. While they are the third-best defense against the run in the Big 12, they allow an average of 116 yards a game, a stat that stands out since they didn’t allow a 100-yard rusher against them until week four.
Being a middle-of-the-pack team against the run isn't so bad if you can get after the quarterback. Unfortunately for Bears fans, those stats are even worse. Baylor ranks dead last in the Big 12 with 10 sacks this year. It only took these Bears half the season to get to the sack total they got to in the Sugar Bowl alone last season.
Look, we get it, this is not last year's Baylor team. No doubt, most comparisons to last year's team are completely unfair. Comparing the defensive lines is not unfair.
We expected the line to be stout this year because they brought back all of their starters AND added an all-conference player in Tulsa transfer Jaxon Player. Maybe the bright lights of the Power Five are too blinding, but Player has just three tackles for loss and 0.5 sacks in six games this season after 14 tackles for loss and four sacks last season.
Player is far from the only lineman not carrying their statistical weight this year. Gabe Hall, Baylor's so-called "secret weapon" heading into this season, has a whopping 1.5 tackles for loss and 0.5 sacks. Hall, Player, and senior T.J. Franklin have combined for almost two whole sacks on the year, but have only been able to muster 1.5 between the three of them.
Oh wait, I'm starting to remember now...Hall and Player got their only half sacks on the same play. Oh yeah, it was in week one against the Albany Great Danes out of the FCS!
jaxon player, gabe hall & jackie marshall just combined to sack the albany quarterback.
— drake c. toll, party animal. (@drakectoll) September 4, 2022
their combined weight is 878 lbs.
that's the weight of a grand piano.
Of course, playing on the defensive line isn't always about stats, and a lot of their effectiveness is not based on stats. Look at Siaki Ika, who is having a solid season, but of course not near the Preseason All-American status he earned this year. He even admits his unit needs to get better.
“We have got to get better, we are one of the older position groups on the team,” Ika said Tuesday. “Obviously, we’ve got to get a little more out of us in all aspects.”
Stats don't tell the whole story, so after comparing them to the players' stats from last year and how they are stacking up in the Big 12. So far this season, Ika has registered just one tackle for loss and not a single sack. At this point last year, in the same conference and with the same running mates, he had 2.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks.
Overall, no one has been disruptive enough up front, as evidenced by the Big 12 leaderboard in tackles for loss. The first Baylor Bear to appear on the list has the 14th most tackles for loss in the conference, and it's Al Walcott. Safety Al Walcott.
If the Bears want to gain ground in this wide-open Big 12 race, it's going to start by getting more out of the guys you depend on. It doesn't start with the inexperienced players who are in major roles, it doesn't start with saying 'oh, but look who we lost from last year,' it starts with the guys who were dominant last year and now are more recognizable on the side of a milk carton than they are in the opponent's backfield.
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You can follow Cameron Stuart on Twitter @RealCamStuart
Covering Baylor for Inside The Bears and the Locked on Baylor podcast. You can follow me for more Baylor content at @realcamstuart on Twitter. Originally from Rockland, Massachusetts and a Baylor alum, so I might mix the occasional bias and/or Boston sports tweet in there every once in a while.