Bears Preparing for Hostile Environment at BYU in Week 2
The Baylor Bears are expecting a hostile environment when they head to LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah to take on the BYU Cougars this Saturday.
While "hostile" and "BYU" don't often go together in the same sentence, it is the first true road game for the Bears since playing Kansas State in Manhattan last November, and they are preparing for a loud, sellout crowd under the lights this weekend.
"We have got a lot of tough road games this year," senior wide receiver Gavin Holmes said. "Coach [Aranda] has been preparing us for this, so I think we're ready."
The Bears do have some tough road games this year, namely trips to West Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas, but this is the first time a lot of the new skill players will experience an environment so vehemently against them. The Bears started four new receivers and running backs in Week 1 and featured four more throughout the night.
Sophomore quarterback Blake Shapen did get a win in relief at Kansas State last year, but has never started a true road game as a college player, although there was a lot more orange and black than green and gold at last year's Big 12 Championship Game.
Bears coach Dave Aranda knew he would be throwing his new players to the proverbial wolves in Week 2 this year, and has coached at LaVell Edwards Stadium in 2012 when he was on the staff at Utah State, so he has had his team prepping for it for months.
"[We have been preparing] since January," Aranda said. "It's been about everything that's not easy, everything that's not comfortable, saying yes to those things."
One aspect he has focused in on is the crowd noise. LaVell Edwards Stadium seats just over 63,000 and with this matchup being one of the best non-conference games of the year, they expect a sellout.
The coaching staff has even gone so far as piping in crowd noise for practice.
"We know it's going to be loud," Holmes said. "We can't let the outside noise get in our circle and mess up what we are trying to do."
On top of the one-hour time change, Saturday's game won't kick off until 8:15 p.m. local time (9:15 p.m. central) so the entire game day preparation is different from what the players are used to.
"[You are] stuck in your hotel room kind of looking at the clock," Aranda said. "There is a definite home field advantage there, but that is a storm we are going to have to run into."
In terms of running into that storm, Holmes and his teammates know they will have to draw their energy from each other, as the Bears fans will be heavily outnumbered.
"When we go out there, all we are going to have is us," Holmes said. "We talk about making our own energy, so we don't have to feed off of any other energy."
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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.