The Good, The Bad & The Ugly from Baylor's Week of Sports

Baylor Football regrouped this weekend while the Big 12 remained a busy battleground elsewhere. Beyond the gridiron, Golf, Tennis, Soccer, and Equestrian continued their journeys, while the hoops warmup has reached the preseason all-conference teams phase. 

Here's a look at The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly from the past week in Baylor Athletics. 

The Good

Football — OL Khalil Keith returned to practicing, in individual drills, as of Saturday. 

No. 17 Volleyball — Earned two Big 12 wins last week, beating OU 3-2 at home, followed by a 3-0 win over WVU in Morgantown on Saturday. The top 25 Bears travel to Rice on Wednesday and host Texas for a White Out on Saturday. 

MBB — Cool to see Scott Drew delivering some new jewelry to Bear-turned-Spurs rookie Jeremy Sochan. 

Although, Sochan may need some liquid soap and resizing at some point. 

WBB — The program earned some solid preseason attention, with voters selecting transfer guard Aijha Blackwell as the Big 12's Newcomer of the Year and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs the Freshman of the Year. 

Blackwell and fellow guard Sarah Andrews were also selected Preseason All-Big 12, while Ja'Mee Asberry and Dre'Una Edwards were named Honorable Mention. 

Women's Tennis — Finished 4-2 on the final day as hosts of the H-E-B Invitational, following a rocky first two days. Highlights during the event included Isabella Harvison and Paula Barañano, each earning a top 100 ranked win, and Sunday's strong ending record-wise. 

Equestrian — Madaline Callaway (Reining) and Annie Vorhies (Fencing) earned Big 12 Riders of the Month honors in their respective specialties. The team next rides against Oklahoma State in Stillwater this Saturday. 

Soccer — Scored two goals in the final three minutes to beat Kansas 3-2 on Thursday. 

Men's Golf — The team finished third at the Trinity Forest Invitational last week. The break in the competition since that concluded ends next Monday with Big 12 Match Play. 

Texans Win — Jalen Pitre and the Texans earned their first victory, defeating the Jaguars. The rookie safety continues to impress, notching a team-leading nine tackles, including seven solos, in Sunday's win. 

Richard Reese — Awesome to see him land a NIL deal with Reese's, thanks to his last name. NIL, at its most fun and innocent. 

The Bad

Lingering Issues — On Saturday, during Aranda's presser, he discussed the team still working through immaturity with younger players and overcoming complacency with veterans. These topics have been discussed or mentioned in some fashion going back to directly after last season, as Aranda began preparing to retool a veteran-laden championship roster. So yeah, that's a problem. But if it hasn't changed with nine months of warnings, why will it change in less than two weeks? If this team doesn't win a Championship or Sugar Bowl, that's okay. But, I hope for the players' and coaches' sake, whoever needs to hear it, realizes there are potentially only seven weeks left for this team to leave its mark before moving on to the history books.

Jacob Wilson - SicEm365

Josh Fleeks — The 5th year WR/RB entered the transfer portal, to no one's surprise, except it took this long. I fully expected him to leave this past offseason for Texas Tech, but now I'm curious to see where he ultimately lands. Wherever he goes, like many, I wish him the best. 

Soccer — The club couldn't follow up their dramatic win over KU to earn a Sunflower sweep, instead surrendering a penalty kick goal with 18 seconds remaining to fall 2-1 at home vs. Kansas State. The team heads out for three straight road trips (Ames, Morgantown, Lubbock), including Iowa State on Thursday and WVU on Sunday.

Women's Tennis — The team had a rough first two days of the H-E-B Invitational, going 1-3 in singles competition and 0-2 in doubles competition on Friday, and then 1-3 (singles) and 0-3 (doubles) on Saturday. At least they closed strong on Sunday. 

Men's Tennis — The duo of Finn Bass and Juan Pablo Grassi Mazzuchi fell in the consolation doubles finals to Virginia Tech to bring the ITA All-American Championships to a close in Tulsa. Next up, the program hosts the ITA Regional Championships beginning Thursday at the Hurd Tennis Center. 

The Ugly 

Taye McWilliams — Aranda mentioned a potential return is still a couple of weeks away. Selfishly, that's not good news for a team that could use his style, size, and talents in the backfield. But it's primarily troubling that it's taking him this long to return from the big hit against BYU. 

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

No Room for Error — I mentioned above some of the issues plaguing Baylor Football, according to Aranda. Despite being on the road, this Thursday could be the team's best remaining shot for a win this season. It could also be a key outcome in whether or not this team makes a bowl game, much less a championship game. The latter certainly isn't happening without the former. The Big 12 is a minefield, and the Bears can ill-afford to show up without their best efforts in tow. Gut check time. 

Okla-omg, this is bad — I've watched a lot of OU Football in my time, and Saturday's blowout loss to Texas was easily the lowest point in over 20 years for the Sooners program. Other losses were painful or ultimately cost more, like championships. And Venables deserves proper time like any other coach. The Sooners are playing with fire right now, and there's growing nervousness about the future. 

Is Texas Good? — That was a historic blowout of a historically bad OU team, but this feels a little different than all of the other "Texas is Back" false alarms, primarily because of the young millionaire playing QB. Besides the Ehlinger-led Sugar Bowl run, it's been a fun decade-plus as an admitted Longhorn antagonist. I'm afraid those days could be winding down, but I am hopeful the remaining Big 12 will stand up and play spoiler.