Breaking Down Baylor Soccer's 2025 Schedule: Home Tests, SEC Showdowns, Road Battles, More
New Members: Subscribe to 3 Months of SicEm365 Premium for $5
Last Wednesday, the Big 12 conference announced its 2025 soccer schedule. Baylor soccer subsequently released its full season schedule as well. The Bears are set to host eight of their 18 regular-season matches at home, including most of the team’s biggest games.
“I think we have put together a competitive schedule that will help position us well within the RPI in order to be considered for an NCAA bid,” Baylor head coach Michelle Lenard told SicEm365. “Our non-conference schedule will challenge our team and prepare us for a tough Big 12 schedule. We are excited and feel very prepared to compete well with this schedule.”
Using that statement as a foundation, let’s run through the 2025 Baylor soccer schedule to see how it stacks up to last year’s and where the toughest stretches may be.
As I analyze, please note that the expected strength of opponents is based largely on last season’s final RPI ranking as well as recent program success.
Now let’s get to it!
The home games to circle on the calendar, at first glance, are Mississippi State, Texas, Texas Tech and BYU. Colorado’s visit to Waco is another good contender here. On the road, the toughest contests will likely be at TCU, at Oklahoma State, at Kansas and at Texas A&M.
Overall, the schedule is well-balanced. Four of the toughest games are on the road, and the other four are at home. Three of the toughest games are non-conference contests, compared to five in the Big 12.
Looking at recent program success, the Bears play eight teams that made the NCAA Tournament bracket last fall. Of the nine opponents mentioned so far in this article, the Aggies are the only team that did not make the field of 64. Yet again, a lot of balance to the schedule for Baylor.
In fact, when looking at 2024 RPI, the Bears perfectly bisect their list of 2025 opponents. The graphic below shows where the Bears landed among their 2024 and 2025 opponents when it comes to 2024 final RPI ranking. For a complete breakdown of opponent 2024 RPI, record, winning percentage, postseason finish and conference standings finish, there is a graphic later on in this article.
Now let’s run through the Bears’ season in order to get a feel for the flow of the schedule.
Three games away from home to start the year appears worse than it is in this case. A Thursday trip down to College Station to face Texas A&M with no game on Sunday is a great way to pick up a good resume piece from the jump.
Follow that up with a trip to a cooler climate for games against Denver and Montana in Missoula and you have a recipe for a quick start against decent competition. Denver and Texas A&M also happen to be the two closest teams in 2024 RPI to the Bears. Those games could be highly competitive and show fans how much Baylor has or hasn’t improved.
The Green and Gold will need to rack up a couple of wins in the first three because the pair of SEC heavyweights coming to Waco right after will be incredibly tough matchups. Mississippi State won the SEC regular season crown and went to the Sweet 16 last year after beating Baylor 1-0 in the 2024 season opener. Texas was the SEC tournament champion and just beat the Bears 3-1 through 60 scrimmage minutes this spring. Baylor should be capable of winning either game, but few, if any, teams the Bears will face could be better than these two.
After a sneaky tough trip to Texas State and one of the weakest teams on the schedule in Abilene Christian, Big 12 play starts with a fury.
Texas Tech comes to Waco looking to improve on its second-place finish in the conference last season. Next, the Bears will travel through the Sunflower State on a road trip, and they will need to find points on the road to avoid the slow start to Big 12 play that plagued them last season.
The three-game homestand against Iowa State, Colorado and BYU that follows will be where fans learn if the Bears can push for a finish near the top of the conference or will be fighting tooth and nail to make the newly downsized Big 12 Tournament.
Lenard’s squad performed well in Boulder and Provo last year, so there is reason for optimism here.
A trip up I-35 to TCU will bring a fantastic rivalry game before the Bears host Utah for their final home game of the regular season. The match against the Utes will likely be a “must-have points” game regardless of where the Bears are in the standings.
Similarly, the three-games-in-eight-days closing road swing to UCF, Houston and Oklahoma State is ripe with opportunity. All three games could see the Bears leaving with points. None of these teams will be out of Baylor’s weight class — the Cowgirls will likely be the biggest challenge — but depending on what the Bears need out of them, they could all prove tricky.
Once again, the ebb and flow of opponent strength throughout this schedule is solid as you can see in the graphic above. However, the flow of travel is a little rougher. If this edition of Baylor soccer proves to be good at locking in on the road, then the floor will be higher than expected.
Now is not the time for predictions in my mind, but the schedule looks to me like that of an NCAA tournament team. The opportunities for resume-building wins are there, and only ACU is — for lack of a better term — a cupcake. More than two losses would be telling, and no win against an SEC opponent would be disappointing on the resume front as well.
As for the Big 12 schedule, Baylor looks to have it easier than last year. The Bears could still end up playing all of the top-five teams in the conference, but the teams Baylor is “dodging” in 2025 (West Virginia, Arizona, Arizona State and Cincinnati) are a slightly stronger group than those “dodged” in 2024 (Kansas State, Kansas, UCF and Cincinnati).
On top of that, no trips to the mountains or the desert in conference play mean that the toughest trips will be 100 miles north at rivals TCU and reasonable distances to Stillwater and Lawrence.
As always, the team has to show up and show out to earn the results, but a second winning season for Lenard and a top-four finish in the Big 12 are on the table for Baylor soccer in 2025. They just have to go out there and make it happen.