Baylor Opens as 10-Point Favorite over Kansas for Homecoming

The now-unranked (in both polls) Baylor Bears will face off this Saturday at 11 AM with the also-unranked (in both polls) Kansas Jayhawks at McLane Stadium. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.

The early line for this game has been released, and it is Baylor -10 in a bit of a shocker until/unless you remember that KU will be without their star QB Jalon Daniels, per reports. Though Jason Bean has played well in his absence, he’s no Daniels. KU has lost its last two Big 12 games—against TCU and OU, respectively—after Daniels went down. Neither of those is really a bad loss, though, especially given how TCU has played this season and how far they’ve risen. I bet we see this line move down over the course of the week. In fact, the VI Consensus at VegasInsider.com is already -9.5 with several books at Baylor -9. The total is 63.5, meaning there is no much confidence in either defense in this game.

In other Big 12 news, the following lines went up for conference games (all ranks being AP):

• West Virginia @ Texas Tech (-4) —2 PM on FS1 or FS
• #20 Texas (-3.5) @ #11 Oklahoma State—2:30 PM on ABC
• #17 Kansas State @ #8 TCU (-5.5)—7 PM on FOX or FS1

If you’re looking for a little context that might inform some of these lines, Bill C’s Week 8 SP+ rankings came out today. The Big 12 is well represented with 6 teams in the top 25, led by Texas at 6 and followed by Oklahoma State at 12, TCU at 13, KSU at 17, OU at 19, and Baylor at 21. Baylor is now #30 in offense and #23 in defense after the loss to West Virginia.