Baylor Bears: CFN College Football Preview 2021
College Football News Preview 2021: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Baylor season with what you need to know.
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– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– Baylor Schedule Analysis
– Baylor Bears Previews
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015
2020 Record: 2-7 overall, 2-7 in Big 12
Head Coach: Dave Aranda, 2nd year, 2-7
2020 CFN Final Ranking: 87
2020 CFN Preview Ranking: 42
2019 CFN Final Ranking: 21
Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Offense
– Yeah, the whole Baylor offense thing didn’t exactly work in Dave Aranda’s first season. There was an attempt to change things around a bit, but the results were painful – the program had NO time to work in the global pandemic offseason.
The Bears finished 118th in the nation in total offense averaging just 310 yards per game, and the scoring didn’t get better as the year went on and the O failed to get past 24 points six of the nine games. However, there’s plenty of experience returning, a full offseason, and a new offensive coordinator in Jeff Grimes from BYU to get this going.
First things first …
– Baylor has to settle its quarterback situation, and Grimes doesn’t have a Zach Wilson to work with. Longtime starter Charlie Brewer is off to Utah, but backups Jacob Zeno and Gerry Bohanon are around with a little time logged in. True freshman Kyron Drones might be a factor in the fall camp battle for the open gig.
The receivers are there to start opening things up a bit more. The trio of RJ Sneed, Gavin Holmes and Tyquan Thornton has one of the best combinations of experience and explosion in the Big 12 – and potential. Getting back good receiving TE Ben Sims helps, too. Now the passing game has to work the pop and big plays weren’t there.
– The ground game has to be better, and the offensive front that struggled in pass protection has to be a whole lot stronger despite losing three starters. The transfer portal should help with a few new parts coming in – Grant Miller from Vanderbilt and Jacob Gall from Buffalo – to push for jobs along with veterans Connor Galvin at tackle and Xavier Newman-Johnson at one guard spot.
The running backs are there to do a whole lot more for an attack that averaged just 2.7 yards per carry. 5-8 sophomore Craig Williams is a quick back who averaged 7.5 yards per carry with 197 yards in just four games.
2018 and 2019 leading rusher John Lovett left for Penn State, but 230-pound Qualan Jones and 215-pound super-senior Trestan Ebner return in a good rotation.
– What You Need To Know: Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– Baylor Schedule Analysis
NEXT: Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Defense
Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Defense
– The defense was good, and now it can and will be better after giving up a not-that-awful 383 yards and 29 points per game.
Dave Aranda is too strong a defensive mind and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts is too good to not create a killer with – to rig the numbers a bit – ten starters expected back along with a few new guys who’ll help.
– The Bears have the tacklers. Pass rusher William Bradly-King is done, but that’s about it. The linebacking corps has the upside to be phenomenal with Terrel Bernard back after missing almost half of last year and Dillon Doyle a 242-pound hitter in the middle who finished second on the team with 56 tackles.
There’s size, quickness, and options across the board to clean up everything the line doesn’t get to.
6-4, 350-pound LSU transfer Siaki Ika is the big anchor the line needs, but the line is already full of decent-sized veteran. There aren’t any Coke machines like Ika, but 290-pound TJ Franklin and 291-pound Ryan Miller have the time logged in to be decent.
– The pass defense did a decent job. It was second in the Big 12 allowing just over 200 yards per game and picked off 12 passes.
All five starters are expected to be back led by top tackler Jalen Pitre at one hybrid safety spot along with the all-star, three-pick-each safety tandem of JT Woods and Christian Morgan.
Add in Jairon McVea, and four of the top seven tacklers were in the safety rotation. Raleigh Texada is a good-tackling corner on one side with a rotation rolling on the other.
– What You Need To Know: Offense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– Baylor Schedule Analysis
NEXT: Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Top Players
Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Top Players
Best Baylor Bears Offensive Player
WR RJ Sneed, Sr.
Flip a coin between Sneed and Tyquan Thomas as the star of the show, and it would be a massive positive if one of the quarterbacks ended up taking this spot.
The 6-1, 203-pound Sneed was steady as a sophomore and took off as a junior, with a team-high 39 catches for 497 yards and three scores, buuuuuut …
He’s steady, not necessarily sensational. Thornton averaged under ten yards per catch, but the 6-3 senior cranked up over 17 yards a catch and five scores as a sophomore. He might be the home run hitter set up by a slew of Sneed singles.
2. WR Tyquan Thornton, Sr.
3. RB Trestan Ebner, Sr.
4. OG Xavier Newman-Johnson, Sr.
5. RB Craig Williams, Soph.
Related
Baylor Football Schedule 2021, Analysis, Best & Worst Case Scenario
Best Baylor Bears Defensive Player
LB Terrel Bernard, Sr.
The 6-1, 222-pound all-star was rolling right along being his normal self – with 55 tackles in the first five games with 19 against Texas and 13 against West Virginia, but he suffered a shoulder injury and was out for the year.
An academic all-star, he’s a true leader and quarterback of the defense who led the team with 112 tackles in 2019 and cranked up 47 as a freshman. If he stays healthy, he’s a 100+ tackle force and potentially the Big 12’s best linebacker.
2. S Jalen Pitre, Sr.
3. S Christian Morgan, Sr.
4. S JT Morgan, Sr.
5. DT Siaki Ika, Soph.
Top Incoming Baylor Bears Transfer
DT Siaki Ika, Soph.
A 6-4, 350-pound massive space-eater who started out his career at LSU as a part of the rotation for the epic 2019 team with 17 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss. Last year, though, he didn’t see a whole lot of time early on and got into the transfer portal.
Ika landed with former Tiger defensive coordinator Dave Aranda to be the main man for the interior of the D line – at least that’s the hope – for a front that needs a true anchor.
– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Keys To The Season
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– Baylor Schedule Analysis
NEXT: Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Keys To The Season
Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: Keys To The Season
Baylor Bears Biggest Key: Offense
The Bears have to get more out of the offensive line in the tweaked system. New offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes was able to help crank up the BYU offense last because 1) he had Zach Wilson to work with and 2) the O line was a dominant force.
Xavier Newman-Johnson is only 6-2, but he’s a 315-pound veteran of a blocker on the inside, 6-7, 310-pound Connor Galvin is an experienced tackle, and a few parts are coming in through the transfer portal …
And now the line has to be better.
Baylor was among the worst in the nation at giving up sacks – 3.44 per game – along with a whole bunch of tackles for loss. Not surprisingly, the running game didn’t do much and the downfield passing game struggled as team after team applied too much pressure.
Baylor averaged just 2.7 yards per carry and failed to hit 100 yards on the ground in every game but the win over Kansas and the close-call loss to Texas Tech.
The program didn’t consistently crush in the big 2019 season and didn’t hit five yards per carry since 2016, and it’s not exactly going to be Wisconsin this year. However, as long as the line is a bit better and the running game can be consistent enough to be a positive, the offense will take on a whole new look.
Baylor Bears Biggest Key: Defense
Be bit more consistent against the run. The defense was solid overall and did what it could considering the offense didn’t provide any help.
There weren’t that many problems early on – no one hit four yards per carry in any of the first three games – but Kansas, West Virginia and Texas each scored multiple rushing touchdowns.
Everyone but Oklahoma ran for rushing touchdowns in the strange defensive fight – a 27-14 Sooner win – late in the year. However, just when it seemed like the Bears were past the 256 rushing yards allowed to Kansas State the week before, Oklahoma State thumped away for 261 yards on the ground to close out the year.
Five of the last seven teams ran for 198 rushing yards or more on the Bear D – the 2019 defense allowed over 200 yards just twice in 14 games.
Baylor Bears Key Player To A Successful Season
QB Jacob Zeno, Soph.
And junior Gerry Bohanon. The 6-2 Zeno was a terrific recruit for the program, but he hasn’t been able to see too much time over his first two seasons throwing just 26 passes so far. He’s got the upside to blow up if he gets the full-time gig, but Bohanon is getting an equal shot.
The 6-3, 221-pounder is most famous for almost pulling off the 2019 Big 12 Championship when Charlie Brewer got hurt. He’s an academic all-star who’s got the mobility, size, and just enough experience to take over.
However, in a new system under a new coordinator, the gig is open.
Baylor Bears Key Game To The 2021 Season
Iowa State, Sept. 25
Baylor won just two games in 2020 against a slate full of just Big 12 teams. It pushed Iowa State on the road in a 38-31 loss after pulling off a big 23-21 win in 2019 – the Cyclones have won three of the last four – but this one could be the pivot point early on in the Dave Aranda era.
At Texas State, Texas Southern, at Kansas. Baylor should be 3-0 to start the season, and if it can pull off the upset at home over the Cyclones, all of a sudden, a big season is possible.
2020 Baylor Bears Fun Stats
– Fumbles: Opponents 11 (lost 5) – Baylor 5 (lost 1)
– Field Goals: Opponents 12-of-12 – Baylor 10-of-16
– Rushing Offense Yards Per Game: Opponents 180.4 – Baylor 90.3
NEXT: Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: What Will Happen, Season Prediction
Baylor Bears College Football Preview 2021: What Will Happen, Season Prediction
There’s a whole regression-to-the-mean thing happening for several teams – some good ones, some bad – after dealing with the insanity of a global pandemic, and nowhere is that about to happen to a greater degree than Baylor.
The Bears overperformed in 2019 – coming within an overtime loss to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship of almost certainly going to the College Football Playoff – and then crashed in 2020 as the new coaching staff had almost no time to work in a rebuild year.
Think 2018. Baylor went 11-3 in 2019, 2-7 in 2020, and 7-6 in 2018 when the team beat the teams it was supposed to, came up with one nice win, and went on to win a bowl game to finish with a winning campaign.
Set The Baylor Bears Regular Season Win Total At … 6
The 2019 team had great chemistry and a little magic, and it also managed to crank up the wins against a slew of bad teams – seven of the 11 victories came against teams that finished with losing records – and managed to pull off four key victories by six points or fewer.
Last year? The 2-7 team lost three games by seven points or fewer and was in a good fight in a few of the other defeats. The other big key was the competition against a slate full of all Big 12 teams – just one of the losses came to a team that finished worse than 6-4.
There weren’t any layup non-conference games to fatten up on. That’s not a problem this time around with at Texas State, Texas Southern, and at Kansas to kick things off.
At least split the winnable home games against West Virginia and Texas Tech, hope to pull off a tough win in Waco over BYU, and come up with an upset here or that on the road – this team can do that.
Dave Aranda is about to show what he can do now that he’s had some time to put this together. Don’t expect miracles, but the rebound is coming.
– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– Baylor Schedule Analysis
