SicEm365’s Jack Mackenzie answers the questions posed by Grayson Grundhoefer in his weekly “Inside the Huddle” piece, this time looking at Baylor’s performance against UCF.
Q: Can the Baylor offense find some answers against a solid UCF defense?
A: Spavital’s unit looked like it had all the answers for UCF’s defense for the second and third quarters. During the middle 30 minutes, the Bears scored 27 points and put up 344 yards of offense. Of the seven Baylor drives that started in those two quarters, five ended with points, including three touchdowns, and the other two drives ended with a field goal miss and a punt.
The first and fourth quarters were different stories, but neither mattered to the result. The offense took a little time to find a groove, but they did find it to complement the great outing from the defense. DJ Lagway was efficient, passing the ball for 319 yards and 4 TDs while keeping the defense honest with his 11 rushing attempts for 23 yards.
The Bears also found ways to run on a stingy UCF front, finishing with 184 yards on the ground despite UCF holding Power 4 opponents to 103.2 rushing yards per game heading into Friday’s matchup.
The only major offensive issue was penalties. Ten of Baylor’s 12 penalties were on the offense, and those ten resulted in 60 yards of punishment. If the Bears can clean up the five false starts and two holdings without hurting the physicality of the O-Line, then things might be looking up despite the defenses that await in the stretch run of the schedule.
Q: Was last week a fluke, or is that who UCF is starting to become?
A: It was a fluke for UCF against BYU. There aren’t many other ways to look at this one unless the Knights go on to sweep through the rest of their schedule. Scott Frost’s team just doesn’t look like one built to score enough on good defenses. 13 points vs. TCU, 7 points vs. Pitt, and 17 points vs. Houston before 9 points vs. Baylor. Finding a way to get 24 points in regulation on BYU looks like a fluke, and the ‘Nauts came back down to earth in the “Space Game”.
Q: Will Joe Klanderman’s defense be able to slow down the Knights on the ground?
A: Heading into this one, Grayson said: “The Knights' offense goes as the run game goes.” UCF rushed for just 66 yards from scrimmage, with an average of 2.2 yards per attempt. Adjusted for sacks, it was 4.4 yards per rush (101 yards on 23 attempts), which is more respectable but still shows how the Bears' defense forced UCF to abandon the ground game. Looking at advanced stats, the Bears held the Knights to a 35% rushing success rate, so no matter how you slice it up, Klanderman’s defense made UCF one-dimensional. The Knights are now 1-4 in games where they have rushed for under 170 yards.
Q: What is the state of this Baylor team heading into this game?
A: This is not a question I can really answer, but every viewer saw the energy that Baylor played with. It was a short week and a hectic week. The Bears were adjusting to a coaching change and dealing with back-to-back defeats. Klanderman clearly had things under control and pulled the right motivational levers to get Baylor where they needed to be to execute at a high level. It will be interesting to see if the Bears can build on the result or if they settle down from the new coach bounce.
