Shall we annoint him a "Samurai"?

I know it's a bit early too even begin the talk of comparing Joe Pawelek and Mike Singletary, but the kid is showing himself to be something really, really special.

14 tackles (11 solo), a QB hurry, and one of the most important turnovers in this year.

And Baylor is heading to Austin next week in a battle for first place in the Big XII South.


Sure it's only the third week of Big XII play, but that remains to be the case (I'm assuming that Tech drops their game to Missouri, not because I think it'll happen, but because I HOPE it will happen).

This is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, wins in Guy Morriss' career here at Baylor. Heading into Boulder, a very tough place to play, on Colorado's Homecoming, to a team with a LOT to prove, and not only do we pull out the game, but we show incredible determination in doing so. And while the altitude might have had an effect, it didn't show late in the game as the team made big play after big play after big play.

HUGE congratulations to the team. Enjoy this win, and then get ready to go to war. Nothing we've seen up until now will be good enough against Texas in Austin. But if we can finally put together a great game in all facets of our team, there's no reason we can't do something special next weekend.

Colorado Prediction

I think Baylor will struggle to score in this game, but the defense will make the stops when they need to.

Jackson will run all over our defense, but the offense will show us something, some consistency.


My hope: Whitaker or Mosley remember how to run the football.

My wish: Bell passes for 7+ yards per attempt.


My prediction:

Baylor wins a close one in the fourth quarter with a late touchdown:

Baylor - 17
Colorado - 13 (Cosby is a field goal kicking fool)

Kansas State Imploding

After the Baylor game, apparently Coach Ron Prince lost him mind.

During practice on Monday, he apparently demoted starting running back Clayton to third string, suspended a bunch of other player for two days of practice, and they are not certain to even play on Saturday.

One player (a 4* OL recruit) has quit the team after being berated for not practicing through a shoulder injury.

Apparently Prince is taking the tactic of: if practicing didn't lead to a win, perhaps NOT practicing will lead to a win.

To me, he just seems like a Steele-esque coach that goes insane instead of going jogging/drinking carrot juice.

I feel bad for the Kansas State players, especially now that we've beaten them, but I am keenly interested to see how this one develops over the rest of their season. Especially since they'll likely be battling Colorado for the basement of the Big XII North.

To Burn or Not To Burn?

Sorry I've been gone for a couple days. I got a not so little bug and was down and out, then swamped at work when I got back.

But, Baylor football keeps on going, and we've got a game in a couple days!

One of the big questions for the upcoming game is what to do about Tim Atchison with Jordan Lake out with a broken collarbone.

Let me preface this by saying that I think Tim is going to be a star in the secondary. He's smart, athletic and big. He's going to be a great free safety, as early as next year. He could be good for us this year.

But I wonder if we are, perhaps, too quick to burn his shirt. A redshirt year is a very important development period where a player can learn the position, get bigger, get used to going to classes and being mature about your time-management before having the responsibility of also playing well on Saturdays.

Atchison is good enough right now to back up Crawford. He is, but if we could give him this year to really prepare his body for the Big XII, then I think the next four years he could be very, very good. I think he could be a special player in the secondary.

On the flip side, Atchison could get some valuable experience playing against the Big XII, and since he is already basically prepared to go, maybe he doesn't need the redshirt year as badly as someone else.

If he can get as many snaps as Lake was getting, then I think we should go ahead and play him. But if we are going to play Crawford more, and be scared to use Atchison, then what's the point? I still get frustrated when I think of burning Francis' shirt and then not playing him all that much. Or Zeigler getting 9 catches his true freshman year. Or Baker, Teasley and Sims combining for 22 catches for the year (average of 7 each) last year in their true freshman year. And don't get me started on Gettis/Smith this year.

If you're going to burn the shirt, use the kid. If you can't use him enough, or are going to be too scared to play him, then don't.

Next year I can foresee Lake or Atchison starting at FS, Crawford sliding down to OS in Linquist's spot, and then having Widemon and Davis starting at the corner and Stiggers at the other OS spot. That is a stout, stout secondary, even with the loss of CJ Wilson and Arline. That secondary might be better than this years version. Especially if you consider that the depth will be more talented (Atchison/Lake, Criss, Williams, etc.).

Who is Colorado?

Yeah, they are 0-5, but let's not beat our chests. We are a 2-3 team that dropped 3 games we should have won. Colorado is insanely close to having our record, including a win over a nationally-ranked opponent on the road. They lost two games by a combined 5 points. Our two close calls that could have been wins were 17 points away. Our sole win over a D1 opponent came by a mere 14 points, with some very lucky stops by the defense.

Long story short, we cannot take this game lightly. In fact, we are going into this game as an underdog, CU is favored by 5.5 points over Baylor this weekend.

So what does Colorado bring to the table?

Bernard Jackson, is CUs quarterback and is just above 50% passing, with 486 yards on 84 attempts (5.78yds/attempt). He has thrown 2 interceptions so far this year and is yet to pass for a touchdown this year. Jackson has improved every game in his passing abilities. He's gone from 70 to 190 yards, with incremental improvement each week. That's something that Baylor will have to keep in mind.

While he's still developing in the passing game, he is already dangerous on the ground. Do not underestimate him in that regard. We haven't faced a truly mobile quarterback yet this year, and while we've done well against the option attack, a mobile quarterback in the system that Colorado is running is a different animal.

Jackson has run for 218 yards on 66 carries (3.3 yds/carry), 95 yards behind their leading rusher, Hugh Charles (313 yards). And while he might not have the most rushing yards, he does have three rushing touchdowns to Charles' 0. Charles is averaging over 5 yards per carry, though and should not be ignored. Baylor will have a tough time covering both these areas.

The good news is that despite his rushing ability, and his increasingly successful passing attack, he has thrown 2 interceptions, one in each of the last two games. Baylor's defense has forced more than 3 turnovers a game so far this year, which is tied for first in the nation. One other bright spot in this is that while he is mobile and dangerous on the ground, he has been susceptible to being sacked. He has 15 sacks in the CUs last 4 games, for a loss of 80 yards. For comparison sake, Bell has been sacked 12 times in 5 games.

Colorado's offense as a whole is averaging less than 14 first downs a game, 134 yards on the ground, while only managing 119 yards through the air. Of course, CU has managed 165 yards through the air in the last two games, and as I said before have seen improvement in that area every game. Perhaps the worst facet of Colorado's offense is their 3rd down conversion rate. Colorado has only managed 19 third down conversions in 5 games, and only in 67 opportunities. That's 28.4% folks. Sad, sad, sad.

Colorado's defense hasn't had much success stopping people to this point. They've allowed 320 yards per game, have only forced 9 turnovers in 5 games, and they've been been very welcoming to passing scores in the redzone. They've allowed 13 scores in 18 opportunities in the redzone. 11 of those 13 scores have been touchdowns, and 9 of the 11 touchdowns have been through the air. If there was a game in which Bell and the offense wanted to get their redzone scoring fixed, this would appear to be the one.

As bad as the CU offense is at 3rd down conversions, the CU defense might be doing even less on their end in that area. They are allowing more than 45% success on third down conversions (34-75), which is even worse when you consider that the average "yards-to-go" for those third-down conversions was 8.1 yards. Baylor has been averaging a very healthy 39% conversion rate on their own, which hopefully will mean that we have a really good day on 3rd downs.

Further, Colorado's opponents have also lost another touchdown, brought back due to penalty.

The biggest thing to remember is that Colorado and Baylor are two teams that are going through the growing pains of a new offense under new leadership. The scary part is that we don't know which one is going to start to grow up first. Is it going to be the Bear Raid offense under Bell? Is it going to be Hawkins Boise St. offense going under Jackson? I have a hard time betting against our defense, but in that altitude if the offense doesn't give us enough rest, we are going to be hurting towards the end of the game.

With My Own Eyes

Was in Waco on Saturday to see the Bears win one. I've been thinking about it all weekend and all I can really say is that we were out "Baylored" on Saturday. Look, we did some things well and made plays when we absolutely had to but overall if you looked at my initial post, I was right on. My main points from the game are as follows:

• I said we needed a 14 point lead to win. K-State was forced to throw the ball with it's AWFUL pass offense and they couldn't make it work.
• We were thisclose to having to really get tested. The Wildcats fumbled twice inside the 10 which kept almost sure points off the board. These fumbles combined with the 3 interceptions are the self destrictive traits we need in opponets until we can prove we can stand toe to toe with teams and exchange blows.
• I agree with JudgeChamber in that Joe Pawelek is really coming along. He was everywhere.
• The defense did step up and stuff the run. That made Kansas State have to throw more which they showed they could not do with either quarterback.

I want to talk a little bit about Shawn Bell's performance. He was better but cannot play like he did if we are going to win 4 more this season. He did throw the deep ball more which led to a score. However, there are times when he decides he's going to throw it to someone no matter how many people are guarding him. On his interception, I saw that someone had seen the coaches getting on Gettis for not running the right route or something. Even if Gettis had run to the spot it came down, there were still two defensive backs there and the pass was so bad it would have made Quincy Carter cringe.

We will get tested in Colorado. We have yet to play a clean game (no turnovers, less penalties, close a game). As much as we see 0-5 by Colorado, you know that they look at us as very beatable and we are. We have yet to show any consistency on offense. We did not get one first down in the 4th quarter on Saturday. I don't think that will fly no matter who we play from here on out. The Buffs are no doubt seeing us as the cure to their problems. If we don't play better we will be their cure.

I don't mean to trash the team, they played tons better than last week (I think that loss is going to really bite us at the end of the season) but K State really beat themselves and had possibly the worst quarterback situation in the conference, by far. All I'm saying is that we've yet to play a complete game and that's what it's going to take to make this season semi-salvagable.

Let's get it together and beat CU. They are going to be up for the game since they see it as very winnable.

What a Game!

It wasn't a perfect game, which makes the result all the more pleasing in a way.

The defense played great. They played their best game of the year. And they didn't let up the whole game. They made some spectacular plays to keep KSU from scoring, they didn't bog down when the offense stalled or turned the ball over, they played with great intensity. I am so proud of their effort and the results.

The offense did a better job of moving the ball. Shawn Bell threw some deep passes, and even though he only really got a couple "deep" balls to connect, I think his biggest improvement was doing a better job of leading his receivers to allow them yards after catch. He still has a lot of improvement in that area, as far as consistently getting the ball in stride, but he was better than previous games.

And man, that deep ball to Shelton was beautiful.


Some concerns, though:

• We only had 13 first downs in the game.
• We averaged less than a yard rushing (18 yards on 19 carries)
• We averaged less than 6.2 yards per attempt (6.13/attempt)
• We allowed 13.5 yards per completion, including 17 yards per completion to Freeman
• Special Teams (missed FG, two lost punt returns)
  

Some good things:

• Averaged over 11 yards per completion
• Only allowed 12 first downs to KSU, including only 5 in the second half
• Allowed only 2.1 yards per attempt rushing, and 45 yards total
• Special Teams Punt Coverage (1.7 yards per return! GREAT!)
• Sepulveda - 9 punts, 52.1 yards per punt; 51.0 net punt average = Ray Guy Award
• Forced 5 turnovers

I like that Zeigler, Parks and Shelton were the main targets in the offense. I said a few weeks back that while it's nice to spread the ball around (8 players caught passes), we need to get the ball in the hands of our playmakers. Zeigler led the team with 8 catches and Parks had 7 catches. I like that Shelton got the long pass, but I would have liked to see him get a few more catches in the mid-range areas (12-18 yards).

On defense, I liked the fact that we have 6 players with 5 or more tackles. Joe Pawelek is really coming into his own at the linebacker spot and Maurice Linquist has been super-productive from his outside safety spot, especially in the last three games (27 tackles, 2 TFL, 1 FF, 1 INT), and has been the leading tackler in each of those games.

CJ Wilson was thrown on a few times, and while he didn't record an interception, he broke up two passes, and had two tackles. It seems that teams are going to be very selective about throwing on him, which I think is smart. He'll have to work harder to get his interceptions, but he's shutting down part of the field and opening up opportunities for other players like Arline and Crawford.

Teasley has to hold onto the ball. I say give Shelton a chance to return some punts, he's got the speed and the moves to be successful there. We need to do something to stop killing ourselves on the punt return team.

All in all, it was a good game, a good win and a good step into conference play. We need to go up to Colorado and get our third consecutive conference win, and get to .500 on the year and we'll be much closer to a bowl game than we were on Friday. This team can do it, and Colorado is as good a team as Kansas State for getting a healthier record. The defense will need to come up big again, and the offense will have to continue to take steps forward, but the optimism is seeping back in, and if we can go 1-1 or 2-0 in the next two road games, we will have a rocking house for the Homecoming game against Kansas, another very winnable game.