What Went Wrong? Dave Aranda Explains Baylor's Offensive Woes vs. BYU
Baylor Bears fans watching Baylor’s 26 -20 double-overtime loss at BYU last Saturday would have felt that watching their team's anemic offense was akin to just running into the ground. In not so few words, that’s exactly what Baylor did.
The Bears ran the ball 52 times, the most ever in the Dave Aranda era, but only gained 152 yards on the ground. Even as they kept turning around and heading the ball off for marginal success, they never got the big running lanes they were expecting.
“I think some of the runs that were five or six could’ve been more,” Aranda said. “We kept trying to kind of find that big run to propel us to the other side of it, and we never quite got there.”
Part of the Bears' eagerness to keep the ball on the ground was due to the “big eyes” of their sophomore quarterback Blake Shapen, who started only his second true road game on Saturday and played in front of almost 64,000 fans.
Shapen went 18-28 on the night, throwing for only 137 yards and a touchdown. For much of the game, fans and coaches agreed the passing game didn’t look like the answer for the Bears.
“There was some uncertainty and some timidness in the throwing game, n the throwing, receiving and blocking part of it,” Aranda said. “It felt like the run game was there because, and I think what it boils down to, is that’s where the experience is.”
Taye McWilliams once again got the start at running back but was knocked out of the game in the first half after taking a hard hit to the chest. Juniors Qualan Jones and Sqwirl Williams took the brunt of the carries in McWilliams’ absence, combining for a modest 137 yards on 33 carries.
Aranda says they opted to keep the ball on the ground in order to open up windows in the passing game but that the BYU defense wasn’t “biting” on play fakes. Shapen struggled in the passing game, and his inexperienced receivers had plenty of difficulties getting open.
“The routes, the discipline to the detail of the routes, the speed in which we’re running the routes, all of it has a lot of room for improvement,” Aranda said. “From where we were in game one in terms of that environment and that execution to where we were in game two in that particular environment and how it affected the execution is something that we have to clearly see and agree on to move forward.”
Aranda says McWilliams and sophomore receiver Monaray Baldwin are questionable for Saturday’s game against Texas State.
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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.