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Bring On The Baylor Bears

Inveigle

All American
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Jan 20, 2014
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On Saturday at 12:30 pm the Baylor Bears and the Duke Blue Devils will be meeting up in Week 3 college football action at Wallace Wade Stadium. Duke has only played Baylor once, winning that game in 1958 12-7.

Baylor is sitting at 0-2 to open up the season, following a 48-45 loss to Liberty in the opener and a 17-10 defeat at the hands of UTSA in Week 2. In that game, Bears QB Anu Solomon posted a 10-of-26 line for 121 yards, a TD and a pick. John Lovett was the top Baylor rusher with 18 carries for 72 yards. This year so far, Solomon has 399 yards with four touchdowns and two picks, while Lovett leads Baylor on 32 carries for 161 yards and two TDs. Chris Platt is the Bears’ lead receiver with 160 yards and two scores on seven receptions.

Duke is coming off of two impressive outings against NC Central and a Northwestern team who the Devils have had trouble beating until last Saturday. In that Northwestern game, Devils QB Daniel Jones went 29-of-45 for 305 yards, two scores and a pick. Jones also led Duke in rushing on 16 carries for 108 yards and two TDs.

2017 Team Stats --------------- Baylor -------- Duke
----------------------------------------------------------------
Points Per Game --------------- 27.5 ----------- 50.5
Points Allowed Per Game ---- 32.5----------- 12.0
Total Yards ---------------------- 403.0----------- 531.0
Yards Passing ----------------- 207.5----------- 293.0
Yards Rushing ----------------- 195.5----------- 238.0
Yards Allowed ------------------ 480.0---------- 174.5
Pass Yards Allowed --------- 301.0----------- 131.5
Rush Yards Allowed --------- 179.0----------- 43.0

Baylor is 4-1 ATS in the last five games versus the ACC and 2-7 ATS in the last nine games overall. The Bears are also 1-5 ATS in their last six non-conference games and 1-5 ATS in their last six games in September.

Meanwhile, Duke is 5-0 ATS in their last five home games and 5-1 ATS in their last six games following an ATS win. The Blue Devils are also 7-2 ATS in their last nine games overall and 6-2 ATS in the last eight games on grass.

So far this year, these two teams have been heading in opposite directions. Baylor has more issues than a lot of people realized to open the season, and Duke simply seems to be cruising. Duke is a -14 point favorite this week.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Zack, my team stats got all sucky. I tried to edit. Can you help?
 
Although Baylor is a shit-show right now, I hope that the coaches can keep the players focused. There are no gimme games for Duke. Baylor still has athletes and could put it together at any point. You have to imagine that they are pissed they've lost two games that should have been easy wins for them. Maybe they take it out on the Blue Devils, especially with the line being that high.

All that being said, start off 3-0 going into UNC and the roof is the ceiling. I think UNC is not very good. Our offense should have a field day against their defense, but as we have seen before, it doesn't matter which team looks better going into that game, funky things can and have happened and it's always a close one (41-0 notwithstanding).

We've got a pretty damn good football team, and I could see us winning 9 games this season.
 


Fun while it lasted. We know the other guy is terrible. We do not know that about this guy. Stats last season were pretty good, though reps were probably against bad competition for the most part.

Odds have not shifted much. If anything, this caused the line to move in Duke's favor, as I'm seeing Duke -14.5 at some books now.

Still, this is a loss.
 
Also sad to realize we lose out on making childish anus name jokes in football this season, to go along with the usual Anas-related stuff in basketball.
 
Also sad to realize we lose out on making childish anus name jokes in football this season, to go along with the usual Anas-related stuff in basketball.


Yep. The secret was to chant "Anu" and "Solomon" together without a break in first and last names.
 
So can anyone give the one-paragraph summary of Baylor's current talent level and why they're do bad?

I know they had that one lost recruiting class due to the scandal and lost a lot of good players to transfer, but other than that, I don't have much of an idea what type of talent level they're working with.
 
So can anyone give the one-paragraph summary of Baylor's current talent level and why they're do bad?

I know they had that one lost recruiting class due to the scandal and lost a lot of good players to transfer, but other than that, I don't have much of an idea what type of talent level they're working with.



 
Thanks, "Sean". Such a strange situation. From some additional googling, my other takeaways are:

1. The four skill players I looked up (two WRs, RB, new QB) were all 4-stars. They probably still have more high-end recruits than Duke.
2. Both of lines seem to be awful. No pass rush, and gave up double digit TFLs against UTSA.
3. Former Duke basketball recruit Ishmael Wainwright plays TE for them. Remember the dude from Montrose who looked exactly like Justin Anderson on the court but was a couple years younger? So weird.
 
They're also 5 spots higher than Duke on the 247 team talent composite, which averages composite rankings of all scholarship players. I don't really get how they've been S bad as they are, even with the attrition.
 
I was looking for something that provided depth chart with recruiting rank for each player. Good to know 247 has something to that effect. I imagine Baylor as a bunch of really fast, finesse, pass blocking guys on offense, trying to play Harbaugh football.
 
If we'd played Penn St. - Brazos two years ago, they'd have been 14 point favorites. Now we are. Crazy how fast the fortunes of programs can change.
 
Duke is favored by 14.5 points everywhere now. Objectively would be a much more embarrassing loss than the one to Richmond a few years ago.
 

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