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Practically three years in the past, with a convention title on the road, Baylor’s protection changed into a brick wall.
Within the closing minute of the 2021 Massive 12 Championship Recreation, Oklahoma State had 4 tries to get 2 yards and a go-ahead landing. The Bears allowed simply 1 3/4, and Baylor received the Massive 12 crown in coach Dave Aranda’s second season.
On Saturday evening at Colorado, Baylor wanted one other game-sealing cease within the closing minute, with decrease stakes (the groups’ Massive 12 opener) and way more wiggle room: 45 yards to defend and solely two seconds for the Buffaloes to cowl them. However in a scene harking back to the one Kordell Stewart and Michael Westbrook produced 30 years in the past, Shedeur Sanders and LaJohntay Wester linked on a miracle Hail Mary to ship the sport to extra time, the place the Buffaloes ultimately received 38-31.
These two endings, 33 months aside, encapsulate how far Baylor has fallen from its peak beneath Aranda, who’s now 25-27 with this system.
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“The tip-of-regulation play is one thing I’ve by no means seen,” Aranda advised reporters.
Which may simply be in-the-moment postgame hyperbole, however the Bears executed their defensive plan so poorly that it was affordable to consider Aranda had by no means seen a game-winning Hail Mary.
Quarterback Sawyer Robertson and the Baylor Bears are 2-2 after their loss Saturday at Colorado. (Christopher Hanewinckel / Imagn Photographs)
As soon as the highest-paid assistant in school soccer revered for his defensive genius, Aranda entered the season squarely on the new seat in Yr 5 of his first head teaching job, and the Bears’ crushing loss to Colorado seems like a possible turning level. Can he recuperate?
For the reason that 2021 season, when Baylor went 12-2 with that Massive 12 title and a Sugar Bowl victory, this system is 11-18. The offensive and defensive staffs have turned over, which has been a theme of Aranda’s tenure.
After this system appeared to hit all-time low with a 3-9 end final 12 months, Aranda vowed to make extra adjustments, going heavier into the switch portal, leaning tougher into identify, picture and likeness compensation and putting in himself because the defensive play caller for the primary time since serving as LSU’s defensive coordinator in 2019.
The primary three weeks of the season supplied promise. The Bears regarded extra proficient and performed with an edge that appeared to be lacking final 12 months, and Aranda’s transition to develop into extra hands-on with the protection labored properly.
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Even in opposition to Colorado, there have been encouraging indicators. There have been eight sacks of Sanders and lots of extra pressures, a number of of which got here from Texas Tech switch Steve Linton. There have been nice offensive performs from quarterback Sawyer Robertson and receivers Monaray Baldwin and Hal Presley. There was a basic look of competence all through the crew that didn’t typically exist a 12 months in the past.
However how Baylor misplaced Saturday was embarrassing. The Bears gave up a 24-10 lead, they usually squandered a number of alternatives to place the sport away in regulation.
After back-to-back sacks of Sanders led to a punt on fourth-and-31, Baylor — main 31-24 with 3:58 left — took over on the Colorado 26 with an opportunity to take a two-score lead. The Bears ran the ball 3 times and settled for a 46-yard Isaiah Hankins area aim try that sailed extensive proper with 2:16 left.
On Colorado’s closing fourth-quarter drive, Baylor had the Buffaloes backed up, dealing with a second-and-24 at their very own 31 with 55 seconds left. But the Bears gave up all these yards on the subsequent three performs, maintaining the Buffs alive.
And earlier than Wester’s score-tying catch, Colorado flirted with a game-winner on the earlier play, as receiver Will Sheppard dropped a move from Sanders on the 2 after getting behind Baylor cornerback Caden Jenkins.
On Baylor’s closing defensive play of regulation, which Aranda stated is known as “Victory Cigar,” the Bears pressured Sanders and flushed him from the pocket to his left earlier than he launched the bomb to Wester. Aranda detailed a missed task on the strain, which he stated was “inexcusable” contemplating Baylor referred to as timeout to arrange the protection earlier than the play.
“I take full accountability for that,” he stated. “I’ve to have the ability to coach that higher.”
Baylor followers all over the place nodded in settlement. It may be the Bears’ most painful loss since Sept. 11, 1999. That evening, Baylor led UNLV 24-21 and possessed the ball with 20 seconds left and the Rebels out of timeouts. As a substitute of taking a knee, the Bears ran the ball and fumbled; UNLV returned it for a 100-yard landing and a 27-24 win.
This Baylor crew, as an alternative of returning dwelling 3-1 with optimistic momentum, should now recuperate from the emotional intestine punch, with a smaller margin for error on this ultra-competitive convention.
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If Saturday’s loss spawns a dropping streak, will probably be the third consecutive 12 months of frustration for the Baylor trustworthy. The upcoming schedule will not be forgiving. This weekend Baylor hosts No. 22 BYU, which simply dominated Kansas State. Then comes consecutive street video games at No. 18 Iowa State and Texas Tech earlier than returning dwelling for No. 20 Oklahoma State to shut out October.
If the Bears can’t shortly choose themselves up, Aranda’s seat could possibly be on hearth heading into November. Though Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades hasn’t publicly dictated a sure variety of wins for Aranda to outlive the season, making a bowl is a baseline expectation. That was made loads tougher by squandering Saturday’s sport at Folsom Discipline.
The season will not be over, by any means. Baylor (2-2) is only a third of the best way by means of the schedule, and if the Bears can rebound shortly and snag a win over the Cougars, it might go a great distance towards shifting previous Saturday’s nightmare end. This 12 months’s Massive 12 is bound to be unwieldy, with three of the highest 4 groups within the league’s preseason ballot having misplaced their convention openers.
However urgency in flipping the script is paramount. The Massive 12 championship season in 2021 is the outlier of the Aranda period. Baylor had dropping information within the different three years and is now 13-25 total mixed in yearly besides 2021. The final time Baylor had consecutive profitable seasons was the ultimate two years of the Matt Rhule period (2018 and 2019).
Baylor management desires Aranda to succeed. He’s properly preferred across the constructing as a result of he comes throughout as considerate and real. He’s not the fire-breathing caricature that’s typically the soccer coach stereotype. In school teaching, being a pleasant man should buy you additional time, and it actually helped earn Aranda this 12 months, regardless of declining outcomes.
Whether or not he will get one other will depend on how Baylor responds to its newest debacle. The choice received’t be made a method or one other due to Saturday’s consequence. However the best way the Bears misplaced will definitely stick out if there’s any ambiguity concerning the future when Rhoades weighs the choice at season’s finish.
After Saturday’s loss, Aranda stated the Bears would attempt to get their coronary heart again of their physique and referred to as the loss “an enormous wake-up name.”
“I do know we’ll reply,” he stated. “I do know this crew. And I do know we’ll come out stronger due to this.”
In the event that they’re going to hoist one other trophy of any form beneath Aranda, they higher.
(High photograph: Andrew Wevers / Getty Photographs)
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