Gameday Thread: Baylor Travels to Stillwater to Face Oklahoma State

Youre a clown said:

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bear2be2 said:

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Until our defense improves, our ceiling is 8-4. And if our offense takes a dip, that ceiling drops further.

Dave Aranda needs to treat this issue like his Baylor tenure depends on it because it very likely does.

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I'm not sure it does. I think he easily wins enough to keep his job this year. 2026 is where it gets dicey. We lose a ton on offense, and I don't think our defense is going to be able to step up

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I've been saying all year that we need to hire an outside DC in the offseason. Obviously, I still feel that way.

That is the path to an improved defense. This unit isn't getting significantly better with the same people building it.

bear2be2 said:

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Dave Aranda needs to treat this issue like his Baylor tenure depends on it because it very likely does.

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Now you're talking. But unfortunately that probably isn't true.

Conference Road Wins are Always Nice ; )

Youre a clown said:

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historian said:

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ImABearToo said:

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20 point favorites. Right.

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We won by 18

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Which is less than 20

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True but it's close enough. I don't know of any coaches who care much about the spread and they shouldn't. It was ugly at times but in the end we won by a large margin.

An offense with little more than a warm body at QB still ran up far too many yards on us and scored more than they should have. Aranda is not the guy.

CorsicanaBear said:

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D has not looked good so far today against a group that had trouble scoring against Tulsa.

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We won 45-28 on the road against a B12 opponent. Give it a rest. It was a good win. We won by 17 on the road. Anyone questioning has an agenda or does not know football.

FLBear5630 said:

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CorsicanaBear said:

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D has not looked good so far today against a group that had trouble scoring against Tulsa.

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We won 45-28 on the road against a B12 opponent. Give it a rest. It was a good win. We won by 17 on the road. Anyone questioning has an agenda or does not know football.

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So much of the crowd here will never be happy unless we bring CAB back. It was a good road conference win. Offense looked good and defense was much better in the second half.

Sic em Bears!

Ain't got a dadgum thing to do with any ancient ships that already sailed for good..

We're just waiting to see a confident, fundamentally sound team that plays to its talent. There are glimpses here and there, but they don't last long. The need to jell for the long term and get that whole culture going soon.

Yeah, this game could be an outlier, underwhelming against a team on an emotional high and a mission to prove something. But it's looking like that basically every week. Is it getting better than previous years, for the long term? Just waiting and hoping to see that.

Give OSU some credit. In the first half, they were doing some crazy spit on offence, and it had our defense discombobulated. Once that stopped working for OSU, we did okay (not in any way good, just . . . okay).

Aranda **** the bed again on defense, but Sawyer and the offense were good enough it didn't matter


Aranda proved yet again he needs to be fired, but his supporters will cheer him on all the way to our bowl loss after a 6-6 campaign with guys who deserved much better.

Oldbear83 said:

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Aranda **** the bed again on defense, but Sawyer and the offense were good enough it didn't matter


Aranda proved yet again he needs to be fired, but his supporters will cheer him on all the way to our bowl loss after a 6-6 campaign with guys who deserved much better.

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The supporters are comfortable with mediocrity . They weren't around or forgot how good it was when we played stronger teams than now throughout the year and beat almost, if not, all of them. A few or some think of him as a permanent DEI hire that we must keep because it fits their politics.

Has Baylor really upset a perceived superior opponent since 2019, by having a great game plan, calling a near perfect game and having a team totally fired up and ready?

I'm sure there has been something like that at some point, but I can't think of it.

Dia del DougO said:

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Has Baylor really upset a perceived superior opponent since 2019, by having a great game plan, calling a near perfect game and having a team totally fired up and ready?

I'm sure there has been something like that at some point, but I can't think of it.

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Ou 2021. Ou was top ten I believe and we were not.

People are just pointing out the obvious that we didn't look good. Oklahoma State's stadium was half full. They fired their loyal coach of 21 years because their program cratered. This was not a good win. It was a win and I'll take a one of those over a loss but let's not call a sloppy win a good win.

Iowa State had a good win. Utah had a good win. They played solid 4 quarters of complementary football against an inferior opponent.

I'm not jumping for joy because I believe this team has the talent to fight for a spot in the Big12 title game but with the sloppy play of today we will be fighting for whatever bowl takes a 6 or 7 win Big12 team.

The defense is consistently out of position and missing tackles. Spav will call a beautiful drive and then turn into a bone head the next drive. We have yet to open a game firing on all cylinders on both sides of the ball. I expected a leaky defense but not making Oklahoma State look competent.

Oldbear83 said:

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Aranda **** the bed again on defense, but Sawyer and the offense were good enough it didn't matter


Aranda proved yet again he needs to be fired, but his supporters will cheer him on all the way to our bowl loss after a 6-6 campaign with guys who deserved much better.

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Really a 17 point win on the road against a B12 opponent is ****ting the bed?

Curious, just where do you guys think Baylor football fits in the football world that road wins by 17 are crap?

By the way, my take on yesterday is any conference win on the road is a good day. Scoring 45 and the game not really a game in the 2nd half, very good day

- el KKM

D!

Go Bears!!

Road Conference W

FLBear5630 said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Aranda **** the bed again on defense, but Sawyer and the offense were good enough it didn't matter


Aranda proved yet again he needs to be fired, but his supporters will cheer him on all the way to our bowl loss after a 6-6 campaign with guys who deserved much better.

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Really a 17 point win on the road against a B12 opponent is ****ting the bed?

Curious, just where do you guys think Baylor football fits in the football world that road wins by 17 are crap?

By the way, my take on yesterday is any conference win on the road is a good day. Scoring 45 and the game not really a game in the 2nd half, very good day

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When you only lead a team as devastated as OSU 35-27 with 12 minutes left in the game you take a chance on having another huge loss. And yes, we know where Baylor fits in football world.

Have you seen how bad OSU is? Oregon made them look like Samford and Tulsa made them look like a bottom feeder C-USA team. So no, a 17pt road win against OSU is not a good win. It's a sloppy mess of a win. Obviously any win beats a loss but let's not pretend this was some great achievement like 5 years ago when was Stillwater was a difficult place to go to. Stadium was half full. OSU QB still has yet to throw a touchdown pass all season yet he looked pretty decent against us.

No one is expecting us to turn into a top tier SEC team but we have the talent to beat a mid tier SEC team like Auburn and we did not. Our defense finally played a decent game against ASU and the offense got the turnover bug and Spav forgot how to call plays in the red zone.

Why can't our team's offense and defense play complementary football for one whole game? The OSU game encapsulated it. Defense gets a stop, offense goes 3 and out. Offense makes quick work of OSU and defense blows a coverage or falls for motion and OSU gets quick points on the board.

The frustration is from knowing this team can play better but consistently does not. It's one thing lining up like Kent State in your first 3 games knowing you're completely out classed. It's another thing watching your team lineup and make bone headed mistakes. That's coaching not Kent State's jimmies and Joes getting railed by Ohio State, Tennessee, and whoever else paid them to play.

Baylor MIGHT end up being favored in two games during the remaining schedule.
How Vegas views Baylor is a realistic informed third party assessment.

Baylor annually leads the nation in one category: the percentage and fervency of our Pollyanna crowd.

boykin_spaniel said:

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Have you seen how bad OSU is? Oregon made them look like Samford and Tulsa made them look like a bottom feeder C-USA team. So no, a 17pt road win against OSU is not a good win. It's a sloppy mess of a win. Obviously any win beats a loss but let's not pretend this was some great achievement like 5 years ago when was Stillwater was a difficult place to go to. Stadium was half full. OSU QB still has yet to throw a touchdown pass all season yet he looked pretty decent against us.

No one is expecting us to turn into a top tier SEC team but we have the talent to beat a mid tier SEC team like Auburn and we did not. Our defense finally played a decent game against ASU and the offense got the turnover bug and Spav forgot how to call plays in the red zone.

Why can't our team's offense and defense play complementary football for one whole game? The OSU game encapsulated it. Defense gets a stop, offense goes 3 and out. Offense makes quick work of OSU and defense blows a coverage or falls for motion and OSU gets quick points on the board.

The frustration is from knowing this team can play better but consistently does not. It's one thing lining up like Kent State in your first 3 games knowing you're completely out classed. It's another thing watching your team lineup and make bone headed mistakes. That's coaching not Kent State's jimmies and Joes getting railed by Ohio State, Tennessee, and whoever else paid them to play.

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Yeah, Gundy was fired for it. Gundy WAS OSU football when he was there, he set the tone and the direction.

New guy, new tendencies. He may have been OC under Gundy, but he was obviously not thought to be "Gundy 2" or they wouldn't have given him the job. OSU played inspired yesterday, tip of the cap. He got them up for BU and they looked good for a half or so. Just didn't have the horses, once BU said enough and ran it the game was over. It was never in doubt from the 2nd Quarter on. The rest of the Nation, sees a dominating BU 17 point win on the road. BU made them look like Rice. Put up some points but really no chance of winning.

So, I see a dominating win by 17 and a nice job by a new coach to get his guys up. You know the other team is trying to do well too...\


You know you guys need to get away from the "should haves" and "so & so did this stuff". Why have your perceptions ruin a good day?

This was a perfect opportunity to work on getting the offense and defense both playing to peak potential and it didn't happen. We play like we did yesterday and we may lose to KSU or have to have furious SMU like rally. Teams can't rely on late 4th quarter rallies every time they play a team with a pulse.

FLBear5630 said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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Have you seen how bad OSU is? Oregon made them look like Samford and Tulsa made them look like a bottom feeder C-USA team. So no, a 17pt road win against OSU is not a good win. It's a sloppy mess of a win. Obviously any win beats a loss but let's not pretend this was some great achievement like 5 years ago when was Stillwater was a difficult place to go to. Stadium was half full. OSU QB still has yet to throw a touchdown pass all season yet he looked pretty decent against us.

No one is expecting us to turn into a top tier SEC team but we have the talent to beat a mid tier SEC team like Auburn and we did not. Our defense finally played a decent game against ASU and the offense got the turnover bug and Spav forgot how to call plays in the red zone.

Why can't our team's offense and defense play complementary football for one whole game? The OSU game encapsulated it. Defense gets a stop, offense goes 3 and out. Offense makes quick work of OSU and defense blows a coverage or falls for motion and OSU gets quick points on the board.

The frustration is from knowing this team can play better but consistently does not. It's one thing lining up like Kent State in your first 3 games knowing you're completely out classed. It's another thing watching your team lineup and make bone headed mistakes. That's coaching not Kent State's jimmies and Joes getting railed by Ohio State, Tennessee, and whoever else paid them to play.

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Yeah, Gundy was fired for it. Gundy WAS OSU football when he was there, he set the tone and the direction.

New guy, new tendencies. He may have been OC under Gundy, but he was obviously not thought to be "Gundy 2" or they wouldn't have given him the job. OSU played inspired yesterday, tip of the cap. He got them up for BU and they looked good for a half or so. Just didn't have the horses, once BU said enough and ran it the game was over. It was never in doubt from the 2nd Quarter on. The rest of the Nation, sees a dominating BU 17 point win on the road. BU made them look like Rice. Put up some points but really no chance of winning.

So, I see a dominating win by 17 and a nice job by a new coach to get his guys up. You know the other team is trying to do well too...\


You know you guys need to get away from the "should haves" and "so & so did this stuff". Why have your perceptions ruin a good day?

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I'm not sure who you mean by "you guys." I guess you haven't noticed the articles about every game this season from the 365 staff.

They pretty much all start with something like:

"Sloppy, Bounce back, get back on track, get right, looking for answers" etc...

That's just what serious observers are thinking about this team. Every game so far has had concerning issues, win or lose. It's just reality.


Still, it's a good win. I don't write off the emotional post-Gundy team playing its best against Baylor this week. OSU has always been an adventure for Baylor on the road. I'm not trying to fire anybody.

But there needs to be a lot of improvement on this team if they are going to contend for a conference title, and fix things that have had a tendency to creep up even before this season and others.

We'll see what happens in the next couple of months. I hope it's a more confident and powerful team with far fewer questions, taking care of business in the Big 12.

Oklahoma State fires defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, @On3sports reportshttps://t.co/7KFR4TQqhj

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 28, 2025

boognish_bear said:

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Oklahoma State fires defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, @On3sports reportshttps://t.co/7KFR4TQqhj

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 28, 2025

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They are gonna be needing an all-volunteer staff soon enough

Interesting firing at this point. Makes one wonder this came from above, or if they are giving Meachum the nod to shape his staff and give him a legit chance to show what he has a permanent head coach.

Seems doubtful that they won't be shopping for a better known hire that can move the needle, perceivably.

Dia del DougO said:

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Interesting firing at this point. Makes one wonder this came from above, or if they are giving Meachum the nod to shape his staff and give him a legit chance to show what he has a permanent head coach.

Seems doubtful that they won't be shopping for a better known hire that can move the needle, perceivably.

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They were saying during the broadcast that they are looking for someone younger that would really dive into NIL.

He's an alum so they'll at least politely consider him. Brent Key has done pretty well with Georgia Tech as an interim turned permanent head coach. Not apples to apples comparison but something to note if Meacham gets donor backing and lays out a solid vision for the modern landscape

boognish_bear said:

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Dia del DougO said:

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Interesting firing at this point. Makes one wonder this came from above, or if they are giving Meachum the nod to shape his staff and give him a legit chance to show what he has a permanent head coach.

Seems doubtful that they won't be shopping for a better known hire that can move the needle, perceivably.

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They were saying during the broadcast that they are looking for someone younger that would really dive into NIL.

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Don't they still get T Boone Pickens' oil well trust or something like that?

boykin_spaniel said:

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Have you seen how bad OSU is? Oregon made them look like Samford and Tulsa made them look like a bottom feeder C-USA team. So no, a 17pt road win against OSU is not a good win. It's a sloppy mess of a win. Obviously any win beats a loss but let's not pretend this was some great achievement like 5 years ago when was Stillwater was a difficult place to go to. Stadium was half full. OSU QB still has yet to throw a touchdown pass all season yet he looked pretty decent against us.

No one is expecting us to turn into a top tier SEC team but we have the talent to beat a mid tier SEC team like Auburn and we did not. Our defense finally played a decent game against ASU and the offense got the turnover bug and Spav forgot how to call plays in the red zone.

Why can't our team's offense and defense play complementary football for one whole game? The OSU game encapsulated it. Defense gets a stop, offense goes 3 and out. Offense makes quick work of OSU and defense blows a coverage or falls for motion and OSU gets quick points on the board.

The frustration is from knowing this team can play better but consistently does not. It's one thing lining up like Kent State in your first 3 games knowing you're completely out classed. It's another thing watching your team lineup and make bone headed mistakes. That's coaching not Kent State's jimmies and Joes getting railed by Ohio State, Tennessee, and whoever else paid them to play.

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We can't play complementary football because our defense is consistently terrible.

When your offense goes over 600 yards and puts up 45 points -- with a turnover and missed field goal -- it has done its part even with a few stalled drives because that's football. No offense is perfect.

Our issue is that our defense never does its part. Even in the games where it plays well for spurts (Arizona State), it finds a way to revert back to its factory settings in crunch time.

If we just put a decent defense on the field, a lot of these complaints about complementary football would go away. But we've proven for years now that we can't do that. This defensive staff is incapable of fielding a competent defense in 2025, and it needs to be replaced in the offseason by a new DC who has proven he can.

bear2be2 said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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Have you seen how bad OSU is? Oregon made them look like Samford and Tulsa made them look like a bottom feeder C-USA team. So no, a 17pt road win against OSU is not a good win. It's a sloppy mess of a win. Obviously any win beats a loss but let's not pretend this was some great achievement like 5 years ago when was Stillwater was a difficult place to go to. Stadium was half full. OSU QB still has yet to throw a touchdown pass all season yet he looked pretty decent against us.

No one is expecting us to turn into a top tier SEC team but we have the talent to beat a mid tier SEC team like Auburn and we did not. Our defense finally played a decent game against ASU and the offense got the turnover bug and Spav forgot how to call plays in the red zone.

Why can't our team's offense and defense play complementary football for one whole game? The OSU game encapsulated it. Defense gets a stop, offense goes 3 and out. Offense makes quick work of OSU and defense blows a coverage or falls for motion and OSU gets quick points on the board.

The frustration is from knowing this team can play better but consistently does not. It's one thing lining up like Kent State in your first 3 games knowing you're completely out classed. It's another thing watching your team lineup and make bone headed mistakes. That's coaching not Kent State's jimmies and Joes getting railed by Ohio State, Tennessee, and whoever else paid them to play.

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We can't play complementary football because our defense is consistently terrible.

When your offense goes over 600 yards and puts up 45 points -- with a turnover and missed field goal -- it has done its part even with a few stalled drives because that's football. No offense is perfect.

Our issue is that our defense never does its part. Even in the games where it plays well for spurts (Arizona State), it finds a way to revert back to its factory settings in crunch time.

If we just put a decent defense on the field, a lot of these complaints about complementary football would go away. But we've proven for years now that we can't do that. This defensive staff is incapable of fielding a competent defense in 2025, and it needs to be replaced in the offseason by a new DC who has proven he can.

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Something you keep saying is that we know this defense can play better but doesn't. Then you guys compare our jimmy and joes to Ohio St. The guy won at Wisconsin, won at LSU, won at Baylor. Maybe it is not coaching. Baylor is not in the same world as Ohio St in terms of ability to attract top talent. We are at TCU, Texas Tech and other B12 levels. I think you guys expectations are more an issue than a 48-31 win in Stillwater.

Either way, you take one game at a time. We won and had a good day.

There are teams that recruit at around our level that are still inside the Top 25 in Scoring Defense. Obviously, having top-tier talent makes a huge difference...but scheme and coaching is part of the equation too.

4 BYU
5 Indiana
7 Maryland
8 TT (although their recruiting is probably a level above us now)
14 UH
18 Iowa St
19 Utah
21 UCF
23 Iowa
25 Arizona

105 Baylor

FLBear5630 said:

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bear2be2 said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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Have you seen how bad OSU is? Oregon made them look like Samford and Tulsa made them look like a bottom feeder C-USA team. So no, a 17pt road win against OSU is not a good win. It's a sloppy mess of a win. Obviously any win beats a loss but let's not pretend this was some great achievement like 5 years ago when was Stillwater was a difficult place to go to. Stadium was half full. OSU QB still has yet to throw a touchdown pass all season yet he looked pretty decent against us.

No one is expecting us to turn into a top tier SEC team but we have the talent to beat a mid tier SEC team like Auburn and we did not. Our defense finally played a decent game against ASU and the offense got the turnover bug and Spav forgot how to call plays in the red zone.

Why can't our team's offense and defense play complementary football for one whole game? The OSU game encapsulated it. Defense gets a stop, offense goes 3 and out. Offense makes quick work of OSU and defense blows a coverage or falls for motion and OSU gets quick points on the board.

The frustration is from knowing this team can play better but consistently does not. It's one thing lining up like Kent State in your first 3 games knowing you're completely out classed. It's another thing watching your team lineup and make bone headed mistakes. That's coaching not Kent State's jimmies and Joes getting railed by Ohio State, Tennessee, and whoever else paid them to play.

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We can't play complementary football because our defense is consistently terrible.

When your offense goes over 600 yards and puts up 45 points -- with a turnover and missed field goal -- it has done its part even with a few stalled drives because that's football. No offense is perfect.

Our issue is that our defense never does its part. Even in the games where it plays well for spurts (Arizona State), it finds a way to revert back to its factory settings in crunch time.

If we just put a decent defense on the field, a lot of these complaints about complementary football would go away. But we've proven for years now that we can't do that. This defensive staff is incapable of fielding a competent defense in 2025, and it needs to be replaced in the offseason by a new DC who has proven he can.

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Something you keep saying is that we know this defense can play better but doesn't. Then you guys compare our jimmy and joes to Ohio St. The guy won at Wisconsin, won at LSU, won at Baylor. Maybe it is not coaching. Baylor is not in the same world as Ohio St in terms of ability to attract top talent. We are at TCU, Texas Tech and other B12 levels. I think you guys expectations are more an issue than a 48-31 win in Stillwater.

Either way, you take one game at a time. We won and had a good day.

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I have never once compared our defensive talent to any of those schools. But our defensive talent is certainly good enough to field a competent Big 12 defense. I'm not asking for elite. I'm asking for a competent, sound Big 12 defense. That is the standard. And we haven't come close to achieving it since 2021.

And the other side of that coin is that our staff is responsible for the talent they're plugging into their schemes. If our talent is substandard, it's still 100 percent on the coaches.

But outside of the line, where we're below average even by Big 12 standards, our talent is plenty good to build a sound defense. That we can't put one on the field is a Dave Aranda problem. This defensive staff has failed. Plain and simple.

If our DBs had guys just running by them that's one thing. If Coleman for Auburn went for 250 and 3 scores then we have an obvious jimmies and joes issue on defense (side note I'm not comparing us to Ohio State. We have one DL who would make their two deep in Jackie Marshall).

A lot of our defensive issues are breakdowns in fundamentals which is a coaching thing. Poor tackling, poor ball swarming, poor technique in coverage, poor containment, etc.

boognish_bear said:

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There are teams that recruit at around our level that are still inside the Top 25 in Scoring Defense. Obviously, having top-tier talent makes a huge difference...but scheme and coaching is part of the equation too.

4 BYU
5 Indiana
7 Maryland
8 TT (although their recruiting is probably a level above us now)
14 UH
18 Iowa St
19 Utah
21 UCF
23 Iowa
25 Arizona

105 Baylor

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The talent argument is such a red herring. There are teams all over the country fielding competent, sound defenses with less or comparable talent than/to us. There is no good excuse for us to be fielding an incompetent, unsound defense, particularly given that we've been trying to fix this same problem since 2022.

This staff knows our defense is our weakness, and it is clearly helpless to fix it. It's time to bring in a new voice to lead that side of the football. And if Dave Aranda doesn't in the offseason, he should be sent packing.

I don't want a coaching change/program reset. There's a lot about the culture that Aranda has built that I want to preserve. But we can't go forward with this defense. It puts a hard ceiling on what we can accomplish as a program.