Daily Bears Report 8/25/2017 Football, Volleyball & Soccer

Today’s Event

Women's Volleyball, vs Florida State, 7:00 PM at the Ferrell Center, Listen, Watch

Volleyball

Preview: VB Opens Season With Baylor Invitational
The Baylor volleyball team begins its 2017 campaign by hosting 15th-ranked Florida State, Illinois State and UC Santa Barbara as part of the Hampton Inn & Suites Waco North Baylor Invitational Friday to Sunday at the Ferrell Center.

Baylor volleyball focused heading into opening weekend, Nobody is more familiar with Florida State, Baylor volleyball’s opening opponent, than Baylor’s head coach Ryan McGuyre.

Prior to coming to Baylor, McGuyre was the associate head coach for the Seminoles in 2013 and 2014, where he helped lead them to the sweet sixteen in consecutive seasons while compiling an overall record of 56-11 overall and 33-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

McGuyre said, personal connections aside, that Florida State is the perfect measuring stick for his team early in the season.

“If you want to be the best, you have to play the best,” McGuyre said. “It’s a great program, having gone to the Sweet Sixteen last year and both years I was out there. They know what they’re doing.”

Baylor volleyball's upward ascent no longer avoiding radar screens | Baylor Volleyball | wacotrib.com, Imagine a runner taking on a marathon while wearing ankle weights. And not just ankle weights – but bulky, 40-pound doozies.

Rico!!!

Rico Gathers Could Be NFL's Next Great Tight End, If He Can Learn How to Do It | Bleacher Report, The 6'8" tight end they call Zeus has everyone gawking again. Only this time, the highest-paid practice-squad player in the NFL isn't gliding across a football field. He's humiliating men on a basketball court...

Football

CBS Sports analyst says Baylor has talent to 'win every game it plays', CBS Sports' Barton Simmons said Baylor has enough talent to "win every game it plays" in his preseason predictions for the Big 12 Conference.

Coach Rhule: Best Players Will Play, Matt Rhule has made one thing clear. No matter the age, the class, or whether they’re scholarship players or walk-ons, “I’ll always play the best player, no matter who they are or what age,” he said.

Big XII

Quarterback competition common in Big 12 | The Baylor Lariat, The battle for the starting quarterback job during a transition year is nothing new especially considering the position’s importance on the field.

This has been one of the challenges facing head coach Matt Rhule as he enters into his first season. However, he has made it clear, he has been in no rush to decide.

“I think they’ve all done a really nice job,” Rhule said. “I think they’ve all in their own way moved the team moved the offense you know. So I think we have three guys who’ve proved they can be the starting quarterback here.”

College Sports: Why Baylor's Matt Rhule – not Tom Herman or Lincoln Riley – might be Big 12 coach with most to prove in Year 1 | SportsDay, I think Matt Ruhle has a lot to prove at Baylor. He needs to get to a bowl game and show recruits that things have changed but they can still win.

2017 Big 12 expert picks: Overrated, underrated, predicted order of finish - CBSSports.com, Taking a close, detailed and opinionated look at the Big 12 a week before the start of the 2017 season.

College Sports: Expansion? Big 12 has only one reason to do that now -- and no, it's not to just get bigger | SportsDay, Who are you going to get? Colorado State? The Big 12 didn't care when Colorado left. Why would they then prefer Colorado State? The only reason to expand is to add a package like, say, Arizona State and Arizona. The problem with the Big 12 now isn't its size, per se. It's that too many of its members aren't contenders or ratings magnets.

Football Tomorrow

Soccer

Soccer Draws with Rice in Houston, Baylor soccer (2-0-1) took it the full 110 minutes, ending its match with the Rice Owls (1-1-1) in a scoreless tie on Thursday evening at Holloway Field in Houston.

From Brazil to Waco: Soccer player pursues passion on the field | The Baylor Lariat, From residing in Belo Horizonte, Brazil to living in Waco, Texas, Aline De Lima’s love for soccer has only grown stronger.

“I think God gave me the true gift of playing soccer,” Lima said. “I love soccer. Soccer is my whole life.”

With the support and equal love for soccer from her family, Aline has been refining her skills since she was seven years old.

“The first thing that has pushed me to keep going is my family because they love soccer too,” Lima said. “God gave me this beautiful gift to play soccer and I’d like to keep playing.”

Sports Hall of Fame

Sports briefs | Sport | wacotrib.com, Waco native and former Baylor Lady Bear basketball great Maggie Davis-Stinnett is among nine new inductees to the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame.

Flashback

The Wonder of Waco: How Hubris and Stupidity Cost Baylor a 99.99% Chance to Win - HERO Sports, In 1999, all Baylor had to do was take a knee on UNLV\'s 8-yard line to secure a 24-21 win. It didn\'t. Then this happened: The Wonder of Waco.

Scandal Fallout

College Sports: DB Travon Blanchard picks transfer school if current suspension is upheld by Baylor | SportsDay, Last season at Baylor, Blanchard was voted second-team All-Big 12 after posting 73 tackles, 9 tackles for loss and 6 passes defended. Blanchard was...