ANALYSIS: No spin needed; the Baylor 2017 season is spiraling
Stephen Cook
The bad season is here.
I made the point during the week - heck going back to a tweet this past Sunday afternoon - saying that UTSA was no longer a game of curiosity but a game where all hands on deck were needed.
Following Saturday evening's 17-10 loss to the Roadrunners, there is no way to spin this. Baylor isn't a very good team.
It's too young. Too many freshmen are playing. We are already up to 14 from the 2017 class who have burned redshirts since Rob Saulin, Timarcus Davis and James Lynch burned theirs. It's too beat up. It's not very physical with either front. And no team at any level of football can make a living if it isn't very good on either side of the trenches.
That's why you get a fairly young Division I program - UTSA began playing in 2011 - picking up its first win over a Power 5 program.
Last week, Baylor players and coaches were saying they overlooked Liberty and didn't take the Flames seriously and that they would do better this week. The fact that they even admitted that should have made everyone who follows Baylor football wince.
Well, they can't say that about about this one. Baylor just got beat. It's that simple. The Bears weren't good enough against a team that's picked third in its division in Conference USA.
Not only is that sobering, it also tells you the chore that Matt Rhule has ahead of him if he is going to ever pivot Baylor into a positive direction. That's not going to happen in 2017. To be honest, it's probably going to look a little dicey in 2018.
We live in such an instant gratification society, that we believe quick fixes are the norm and that everything will get back on track within weeks or months. Football reminds us there is no such thing as a quick fix. Reconstruction projects are time consuming and require patience. Perhaps the 2016 run to the Cactus Bowl borrowed some time and shielded us all.
Baylor football is a shell of what it was when it won the 2013 and 2014 Big 12 championships and appeared in New Year's Day bowl games. The roster depletion is evident. If you missed the SicEmSportsCast earlier in the week, Stephen Cook and your publisher talked about the impact of the 2016 class has on this year. It redshirted only two players in linebacker (now defensive end) Deionte Williams and defensive back Raleigh Texada. Everybody else saw the field.
The key components of the class never arrived. That's defensive end Brandon Bowen. That's offensive linemen J.P. Urquidez and Patrick Hudson. That's defensive back Parrish Cobb. That's wide receiver Devin Duvernay and athlete Donovan Duvernay. That's running back Kameron Martin. Defensive lineman Jeremy Faulk and offensive lineman Branton Autry were dismissed in the spring.
In fact, you can take it back to the end of the 2015 recruiting season. The coaching staff spent that January scrambling for linebackers. It gave you Eric Ogor, Jordan Williams and Lenoy Jones Jr. Neither of these were No. 1 on Baylor's board. Baylor liked Jones when he was committed to Houston. But it was hoping it that it could somehow shock the world and get Malik Jefferson. When Jefferson committed to Texas in December 2014 and enrolled in January 2015, that put the staff on red alert.
Had the 2016 recruiting season finished like it looked when the recruits all signed on the first Wednesday in February, Baylor wouldn't be in this spot. But when you go through a history making event for the wrong reasons like Baylor did, you don't notice the fallout until much later.
Well, much later is here.
Now you can understand why athletic director Mack Rhoads offered a 7-year contract and why Matt Rhule accepted it. Baylor football is going through a period where it may have to hit bottom before it can climb back toward respectability. It's a process.
Consider when Rhoads started in the summer of 2016, he had to go through a complete evaluation of where the program was and be realistic about its future. Rhoads knew things about what was going on internally that many of us probably did not. Whether the names that were connected to the job - Colorado's Mike McIntyre - were legit or not, Rhoads understood that he was going to have sell this hard and convince someone he would have time. You rarely hear of new head coaches signing 7-year deals. Those are usually five.
The easy thing about being a T-shirt fan, is that you can get on or get off anytime you want. The more the merrier when things are going good. You can't find anyone when things are going bad. The boos at McLane Stadium are understandable. It's been good around The Brazos since 2010.
For the longtime loyalists, who have seen it all, this is the beginning of a cycle that will bring more frustration than smiles. But the loyalists get it. They're not going anywhere.
The start to the Rhule era isn't very good. However, the 2017 season should not define whether he can or cannot coach at the P5 level. There can be no doubt that there are some things from a sideline chaos standpoint that he and his staff must command better. There appears to be more confusion about what to do and where to go in certain game situations. In time, those should smooth. At least, they should.
Still, that doesn't change the fact that this defense was once again was pretty much ineffective. For the second consecutive week, Baylor allowed its opponent to hold the ball for 38 minutes. For the second consecutive week, it allowed the opposing quarterback to dictate the flow of the game. UTSA's Dalton Sturm was efficient.
Offensively, UTSA reminded you that there is a talent level difference between FCS teams and FBS teams, even if this opponent is not a Power 5 team. Baylor's inability to do anything well makes you nauseous.
I'll get into more about this on What Was He Thinking. However, I will leave you with this: go back to what I said about quarterback Anu Solomon following the spring game. He cannot throw the football anymore. Yes, he was pretty good against Liberty. He kind of looked like the QB at Arizona. Actually, I was surprised. Tonight should tell us he's no longer that guy.
As for calling for an 0-fer this season, we'll find out. The only thing that Baylor can do is pick itself up on Monday and do the best that it can to prepare for the challenge that awaits at Duke next Saturday.
