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

Milan-Puskar Stadium remains a haunted house for Baylor Football as the Bears face .500 and another critical turn in the win-loss column this Saturday. Meanwhile, fall sports continued to varying degrees of success, headlined by a huge conference showdown for Volleyball. 

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

The Good

Gavin Holmes' Career Night — The super senior put on a career-best performance against WVU, shining like a star with seven receptions for 210 yards and a touchdown. I had social media folks rushing to tell me Holmes would rather have a win than a personal accolade. I agree, but given his years-long injury history and previous rocky outing, that was important and impressive to see him return with a purpose and reckoning. That was far and away his best performance in college after a long, winding road. We can appreciate these things while also lamenting a loss. 

The Offense — Before Blake Shapen's exit, thanks to a dirty hit, the Baylor offense was cooking in the passing game with Shapen racing his way towards 400 yards through the air. Kyron Drones entered, played well, and led two successful scoring drives of his own. Turnovers and injuries killed this group, and the run game still leaves something to be desired, but not a bad night overall for the Bears' offense. 

NFL TD — Tyquan Thornton earned his first and second touchdowns in just his second NFL game with the Patriots. 

JaMycal Hasty scored his first TD with the Jaguars. His other two carries on the day combined for -4 yards, so good to see him make the most of this one. 

Preseason Accolades — The league's coaches voted Baylor MBB preseason conference favorites, receiving 5 of nine possible 1st place votes. Meanwhile, Adam Flagler earned Preseason All-Big 12, Keyante George was voted the conference's Preseason Freshman of the Year, and George, along with LJ Cryer, was All-Big 12 Honorable Mentions. 

Elsewhere:

• #18 Volleyball swept #22 Rice in Houston before falling again to #1 Texas at home, 3-1, in front of a great turnout. 
• Men's Golf begins the Big 12 Match Play Championship on Monday. 
• Men's and Women's Cross Country competed at the Arturo Barrios Invitational to close the regular season. The women finished in 8th place overall (out of 38), led by Ellie Hodge's 18th-place individual finish. While on the other side, the men's squad landed in 13th, highlighted by Ryan Day finishing 7th out of 360 runners. 
• Men's Golf begins the Big 12 Match Play Championships on Monday in Houston, looking for their third win in five tries at the event. 
• Men's Tennis continues hosting the ITA Regionals on Monday at the Hurd Tennis Center, with the doubles (morning) and singles (afternoon) semifinals. The Bears are repped in the semis duos by the teams of Zsombor Velcz & Tadeas Paroulek and Finn Bass & Grassi Mazzuchi. At the same time, Bass was the lone Bear to earn a singles spot in the semis.  
• Soccer went 1-1 in road conference play, beating Iowa State 3-2 in Ames before losing 3-1 at WVU. 

The Bad

The Defense — It was a rough night for Ron Roberts' bunch on the whole, particularly on the back end. The defense could not get off the field to save its life, and when it managed to, the air was quickly let out by a miscue in another phase. The Mountaineers are talented and deserve some credit, too, but overall it was one of the more disappointing defensive showings in the Aranda era. 

Injury Issues — Blake Shapen stays in that game, and the Bears probably win, but either way, his departure, along with Sqwirl Williams in a short span and the heat of battle, was a considerable blow to the offense and team morale. Part of the game, but it is frustrating nonetheless. Hopefully, both are back quickly, but the RB room is now getting light. 

Equestrian — The Bears got walloped by #4 Oklahoma State, 17-3, in Stillwater. 

The Ugly 

The WVU Loss — That was an ugly loss, and it didn't need to be that way. I couldn't have been the only one wondering if a Blake Shapen-led blowout was in store early on. But, unfortunately, a 65-yard fumble return, a blocked extra point, turnovers as a whole, poor tackling, an injury to Shapen, and so on all added up to a really tough night on national TV. So, even giving WVU the proper credit, that was a significant missed opportunity for several reasons. And that's not the first time I've said that this year. But, alas, that's college football, and that's the breaks. It just so happens few are going the Bears' way these days. 

Complementary Football — Part of why the latest trip to Morgantown proved unsuccessful. It's been disheartening to see the lack of this component. The program's recent success can be directly attributed to this topic more than any player, group, or position. This game seemed like such a struggle because of an inability to play off each other and sustain momentum, particularly when needed. Some of this is undoubtedly experience-related. There are great plays here and there in all three phases but rarely do they run in combination effectively enough. 

Remaining Slate — There's not much room for error at this point regarding the Bears' season goals, including a bowl game. Can they go 3-3 at least? Absolutely. But given the opponents, they'll cut it close if certain things don't change, starting this Saturday.