How Rhule's progress in year two compares to the previous two decades

When it comes to all sports, history has a hard time with comparisons. The philosophy is continuing to evolve season and season, and in some cases, from game to game. Even without drastic change to philosophy, rarely is the rebuilding of a program not needed after a coaching change.

For a Baylor that has endured a variety of different changes over the years, including six head coaches over the past 21 seasons, here is a look at the first two seasons of each of those six staffs in several comparisons. 

YARDS PER GAME

Though there are more advanced analytics to help compare and contrasts different schemes from different eras, one of the easisest ways to compare the same offensive scheme over consecutive eyars is yards gained. For the defense, yards given up is another quick review. Below is a quick look at the average plays and yards for the offense and defense in year one and two each of the previous six staffs.

POINTS PER GAME

Yards per game don't always tell the entire story as the scoreboard awards a win or loss on points. A team has to score more points than the opponent to win and by the stats below one can see a bigger picture of the failures of past seasons. As seen below, only interim head coach Jim Grobe succeeded in scoring more on average in his first year after taking over the Baylor program. Currently, head coach Matt Rhule is the only Baylor coach of the modern era to score more on average than his opponent in his second season.

RUNNING GAME

Despite the hardships of 2017 on the ground, nothing compares to Kevin Steele's second year for ineptitude. Future NFL offensive linemen Jason Smith, JD Walton and Dan Gay paved the way in for Robert Griffin‍ and company in 2008, but saw a fallback when the future Heisman winner was hurt early in 2009. Jim Grobe inherited a well oiled machine in 2016 and currently has the best of the past six staffs.  Jeff Nixon and Glenn Thomas are just the second offensive coordinators to increase the yardage average in their second season, but none were increased over a yard until 2018.

PASSING GAME

The game has changed since 1997 and nothing is more evident than the basketball on grass offenses introduced to the Big 12 by Mike Leach and Mark Mangino while offensive coordinators at Oklahoma. The two later before became head coaches at Texas Tech and Kansas. Jim Grobe continued the Baylor legacy of revved up offenses later in the Art Briles era and Matt Rhule looks to be continuing the offensive output through the air. The 2016 and 2017 seasons almost mirrored each other through the air and 2018 could push towards 4,000 yards.

* THROUGH SEVEN GAMES