It's game day once again for Baylor's 11th game of the season against Texas Tech in Arlington, Texas. Baylor will be the home team tonight against Tech at Cowboys Stadium, and the game is set for broadcast on Fox Sports Southwest with the pregame show beginning at 5:30.
Here we go...
- First on the docket today is the game page from the mothership at SBNation Dallas. They preview the odds for the game as of this moment, where Baylor is a 12 point favorite. That page will be updated as the day goes on with reports from the game.
- Another page worth refreshing is David Ubben's Big XII blog over at ESPN. It's safe to say that the Baylor-Tech game is the biggest remaining for the Big XII this week since Texas and A&M have already played, OU should crush ISU (sound familiar?), and Missouri WILL kill Kansas. I missed a post from Ubben yesterday about Wright and Griffin moving onto Todd McShay's draft board. McShay may be a hack, but it's good publicity.
- ACCInsider posted their thoughts about RGIII yesterday morning. I missed that one by not having links yesterday, too.
- I noted it earlier in the week, but the Texas Tech Scout site is not at all optimistic about Tech's chances. If the score ends up the way they predict-- Baylor 48, Tech 17-- I will be very impressed. Particularly with our defense. That same site also posted a few interesting statistics about the two teams playing tomorrow.
- NewsOK, on the other hand, still seems to be quite mad about what happened last week and picked Tech in its Big XII Upset Special. Oh u still so mad. Notice their record of 5-7 in picking upsets.
- ESPN posted its preview of the game on Friday. One thing I hadn't through about was that Baylor has two chances in the next two weeks to get its fifth Big XII win of the season. We've never done that before. That's both sad and exciting at the same time. Kinda like Baylor football.
- The Dallas Morning News thinks we win a game very similar to last week against OU. That's probably more likely to happen than we blow them out like Tech's Scout site predicted.
- DMN's counterpart to the west, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, notes the relatively high stakes of this game for both teams and has quotes from Briles about making sure his team approaches this game with the proper gravitas.
- The Houston Chronicle decided to get in the act by previewing today's titanic contest. They held off on predicting a victory for either team and took a more neutral approach.
- Finally, BaylorBears.com wants you to know you can still Join the Third and support Robert Griffin III's Heisman campaign.
- UPDATE: BaylorBears.com posted their Gameday Central for the game.
We didn't really get the opportunity to post a complete statistical breakdown for today's game this week because of the holiday, but I thought I'd take a cue from Therm's great work last week and see what Football Outsiders had to say about the two teams after the jump...
| Overall | FEI | S&P+ | F/+ |
| Baylor | 43 | 18 | 42 |
| Tech | 79 | 77 | 79 |
| Predicted Score |
I'm still working on the Predicted Score thing. I don't know where Therm got that. Maybe he can update it for me with that information?
Baylor Offense
Tech Defense
F/+
2
107
FEI
1
114
First Down Rate
4
104
Available Yards %
5
112
Explosive Drives %
3
118
Methodical Drives %
10
76
Value Drives %
6
109
S&P+
6
108
Rushing S&P+
19
94
Passing S&P+
4
104
Standard Downs S&P+
4
101
Passing Downs S&P+
8
98
| Baylor Defense | Tech Offense | |
| F/+ | 95 | 51 |
| FEI | 88 | 41 |
| First Down Rate | 113 | 26 |
| Available Yards % | 113 | 27 |
| Explosive Drives % | 117 | 84 |
| Methodical Drives % | 93 | 2 |
| Value Drives % | 105 | 28 |
| S&P+ | 68 | 41 |
| Rushing S&P+ | 63 | 51 |
| Passing S&P+ | 55 | 40 |
| Standard Downs S&P+ | 90 | 52 |
| Passing Downs S&P+ | 35 | 21 |
I didn't include special teams because frankly, both teams are not great. Tech is actually ranked quite a bit better than Baylor according to ST F/+ at 76th to Baylor's 110th. If Baylor wants to improve next year, special teams seems the easiest possible way to do it. I guess we just have to hope Briles devotes his attention to finding an outstanding special teams coordinator this offseason like he did a defensive coordinator last year.
As for Baylor's special teams, I'll admit that the descriptions of the special teams stats seem a bit vague, but as far as I can tell, Baylor's biggest weaknesses are on kickoff returns, punts, and field goals. Considering our punter is a true freshman, our kicker on kickoffs is Ben Parks, and our placekicker is Aaron Jones, I believe all three of those things are probably true.
Having looked at the data, I think the biggest takeaways for this game are that Baylor's offense is even more incredible than we probably think that it is and Tech's isn't as good as it has been in years past, particularly through the air. Neither defense is very good at all, but Baylor's seems to have an easier job ahead of it. Tech's tendency to give up explosive plays does not bode well at all for its chances tomorrow, though Baylor does suffer from the same tendency. Without being 100%, I'm relatively certain that Tech's success on "methodical drives" this season stems not from being the plodding SEC-type offense that stat would lead one to expect, but rather from throwing a multitude of shorter passes due to Doege's lack of arm strength.
Last week I predicted that OU would win 38-28. I got their score correct but underrated Baylor's offense. This week I'm going 48-31. Baylor gets its 8th win of the season and ends Tech's bowl streak.
What say ye?