Unpacking Baylor's Most Humbling Loss Under Dave Aranda
Saturday’s 31-3 pummeling at the hands of the Kansas State Wildcats was the most embarrassing loss for the Baylor Bears in the Dave Aranda era. After a week of build-up about a de facto Big 12 playoff game and what color to wear and how to sell out McLane Stadium, the Bears forgot they had a football game to play when the clock hit 6:15 p.m. Saturday.
After Blake Shapen’s first interception of the day came inside the red zone on the first Baylor possession of the game, the Bears all but rolled over in front of their capacity crowd. The Wildcats turned to their backup quarterback Will Howard and beat the home team like a drum to the tune of 405 yards of total offense and holding the ball for over 37 minutes.
Baylor looked so unrecognizable for the final 50 minutes of the game after the first interception that you almost have to call into question the mental toughness and drive this team has. One thing went wrong and they picked up their ball and went home pouting.
The students of the Baylor Line were prepped with black apparel under their jerseys since they were instructed to take off and wave the jerseys after the Bears’ first touchdown. The jerseys stayed on the entire night.
More than a few times this season, we have heard Aranda say he didn’t feel his team was ready to play going into a game day. They weren’t red flags when the team was still in the Big 12 championship hunt and maybe we are all naive for that, but when a team just flat out doesn’t come to play in its biggest game of the year, there have to be red flags and questions surrounding every position group and their respective coaches.
The most glaring deficiency was undoubtedly at quarterback. The offense could cover up Shapen’s shortcomings against the worst rushing defenses in the conference back-to-back weeks in Texas Tech and Oklahoma, but boy were they exposed Saturday night. Shapen went 22-38 for 202 yards and two interceptions for a QBR under 100 at 92.2. The play calling showed absolutely no confidence in Shapen or the talented stable of backs, and maybe that was for good reason.
The offense looked like a time warp of the brain dead, no hope, Larry Fedora-Charlie Brewer offense of the disastrous 2-7 2020 season. The reliable, violent offense that was so successful for them last year and the last three weeks leading into this game was nowhere to be found and the game resembled something like the Dayton Triangles of the leather helmet era taking on the present-day Buffalo Bills.
For a team that started ranked No. 10 nationally, Baylor fans are calling travel agents in Phoenix, Memphis, and Charlotte for their holiday trip to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, or the prestigious Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
The good news is, other than the arrival of basketball season is there is young talent on the team. We have seen bursts all year from several guys on both sides of the ball from Richard Reese to Monaray Baldwin offensively to Jackie Marshall and A.J. McCarty of the defensive side. This program isn't in shambles or at its lowest point, like some fans who took to Twitter Saturday night thought, it has a bright future. But right now, this team had the talent and the opportunity to protect their Big 12 title in Arlington and could well end up 6-6 with a game against playoff hopefuls TCU next week followed by a trip to Austin to face the Longhorns still on the docket.
As for the game this weekend, linebacker Dillon Doyle put it best when he said “there is no way to sugarcoat it, we didn’t play good football.”
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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.