Baylor Football
Russell knows fixes are needed, but doesn't see unfixable issues
More: A Baylor v. Texas Hype Video | Create a free account today!
Coming off of a neck injury that forced him into surgery and to miss the final six games of the 2015 season, Baylor quarterback Seth Russell returned to the football field for his senior season and racked up 21 total touchdowns through his first six games.
SicEm365
Senior quarterback Seth Russell has scored 73 career touchdowns.
As good as that number is, there looks to be a high ceiling that Baylor fans are anxiously awaiting to see Russell hit. Completing slightly better than 57 percent of his passes this season, there is a belief that if that number improves, an offense ranked No. 4 nationally in yardage per game will climb to another level.
“If I can complete the ball more that would be a lot better, but for the most part I don’t have a statistic I want to hit,” Russell said. “As long as we win the game that’s all that matters.”
Baylor head coach Jim Grobe is in the same boat. Wins matter, and Russell is leading his team to victory.
“Honestly, I couldn’t be happier with where Seth is right now,” Grobe said. “I think he’s doing good job leading our football team.”
The issue for the Bears, now bowl eligible for the seventh consecutive season, is that six wins do not carry as much water. It’s a check box marked off, but it’s quite obvious the offense still has room to grow if expectations want to be met.
Completing 9-of-22 passes against Kansas with games against Texas, TCU and Oklahoma looming caused great concern. According to Russell, the second off week gave time to address the issue.
“We’ve got some young guys out wide, they want to make big plays, and sometimes you have to be able to make the small play first,” Russell said.
“We’ve been working on that this week, these past couple of weeks actually. Kansas kind of opened up our eyes a little bit. If we need to sit it down, you’ve got to sit it down.”
With an offense that is predicated on pounding the defense with a physical run game before attacking the secondary vertically in the pass game, the career 58.2-percent passer knows that his ability to throw the deep ball is a love and hate relationship when it comes to his statistics.
“It reflects on percentage of completions or not,” Russell said.
“The deep balls are lower percentage passes and we like to throw those a lot and it kind of showed in the last game with that.”
Grobe also added that the speed at which Baylor wants to move their offense complicates things on occasion as well.
“One of the things that happens is that when you go really fast, at times, the receivers aren’t always where they need to be,” Grobe said. “At times, you may get flushed out of the pocket. At times, you’re going to get different coverages.”
Whatever the case, Baylor's offense will need to play at a high level if they expect a seventh victory on Saturday against the Texas Longhorns.
Coming off of a neck injury that forced him into surgery and to miss the final six games of the 2015 season, Baylor quarterback Seth Russell returned to the football field for his senior season and racked up 21 total touchdowns through his first six games.
SicEm365
Senior quarterback Seth Russell has scored 73 career touchdowns.
“If I can complete the ball more that would be a lot better, but for the most part I don’t have a statistic I want to hit,” Russell said. “As long as we win the game that’s all that matters.”
Baylor head coach Jim Grobe is in the same boat. Wins matter, and Russell is leading his team to victory.
“Honestly, I couldn’t be happier with where Seth is right now,” Grobe said. “I think he’s doing good job leading our football team.”
The issue for the Bears, now bowl eligible for the seventh consecutive season, is that six wins do not carry as much water. It’s a check box marked off, but it’s quite obvious the offense still has room to grow if expectations want to be met.
Completing 9-of-22 passes against Kansas with games against Texas, TCU and Oklahoma looming caused great concern. According to Russell, the second off week gave time to address the issue.
“We’ve got some young guys out wide, they want to make big plays, and sometimes you have to be able to make the small play first,” Russell said.
“We’ve been working on that this week, these past couple of weeks actually. Kansas kind of opened up our eyes a little bit. If we need to sit it down, you’ve got to sit it down.”
If I can complete the ball more
that would be a lot better, but for the most part I don’t have a
statistic I want to hit. As long as we win the game that’s all that
matters.
With an offense that is predicated on pounding the defense with a physical run game before attacking the secondary vertically in the pass game, the career 58.2-percent passer knows that his ability to throw the deep ball is a love and hate relationship when it comes to his statistics.
“It reflects on percentage of completions or not,” Russell said.
“The deep balls are lower percentage passes and we like to throw those a lot and it kind of showed in the last game with that.”
Grobe also added that the speed at which Baylor wants to move their offense complicates things on occasion as well.
“One of the things that happens is that when you go really fast, at times, the receivers aren’t always where they need to be,” Grobe said. “At times, you may get flushed out of the pocket. At times, you’re going to get different coverages.”
Whatever the case, Baylor's offense will need to play at a high level if they expect a seventh victory on Saturday against the Texas Longhorns.
Never miss the latest news from SicEm365!
Join our free email list