GameDay Thread: Baylor (1-0) faces Texas Southern (0-1) for home opener

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Baylor (1-0) is set to play its home opener for the 2021 football season on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. CT against Texas Southern (0-1).

Quote of the week...

Dave Aranda: “Completing our shot plays. At the end of the game, the Texas State coordinator, we we were shaking hands, we'd always meet and talk ball at various places. It's a good, good young coach and shaking hands and I go, "man, good idea with a man coverage." They are not a big man team, and they played man versus us. In the first game, there's always adjustments to be made. So this just happened to be one of them, and we're able to adjust to it. But I think until we can complete balls down the field, you're asking defensively for a certain way people gonna play you. So you have to stretch it out.”

Craig Smoak’s Players to Watch 

Texas Southern — Linebacker Tim Walton Jr.

It was not a banner day for the Tigers' defense last week, but the senior linebacker was very active collecting a team-leading 8 tackles, 0.5 sack, 1.5 TFL, two forced fumbles, and a pass deflection. Going back to Aranda's comments, Walton Jr. will be a big part of that defensive pressure the Bears' offense is expected to face. 

Baylor — Wide Receiver Tyquan Thornton

Thornton's 46 yards receiving on five catches last week means he's only 112 yards and one touchdown away from matching his season totals in 2020, which is wild.

As mentioned earlier, the pass defense was not a strength for TSU in their debut. I expect WR1 RJ Sneed will do his thing as usual, but this seems like a ripe opportunity for Thornton to take a step forward. He should be a dominant number two wide receiver at this point in his career.

If the number of targets last week is any indicator, the Florida native will have opportunities, and now he needs to take further advantage of them. 

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