Baylor has a lot of things going against it this season.
- The conference schedule is much much tougher than it was 3 years ago.
- The defense is aweful. If Baylor had a workable defense than I would give them more of a chance, but Baylor was easily the 3rd worst defense in the conference last year and it wasn't close between them and the 4th worst. I'm not seeing how there is going to be a big change there? I hope for Baylor there is.
- The offense should still be good, but you can't lose two of the greatest players in Baylor history (WR and QB at that), and not expect to see a dip in production. We have seen this problem in the past here at ISU. See 2003. In 2002 we were ranked as high as #9. In 2004 we came within a OT lose of winning the Big 12 North outright. In 2003 we won 2 games.
- You can have depth in all areas but lose a lot of games because of lacking a few stars. I see this in store for Baylor. I think Baylor will be between 4 and 6 wins and maybe a 7th if they make a bowl game. This doesn't mean that Briles is a bad coach or his only success was because of RGIII, but look how long it is taking Rhoads to rebuild ISU and Baylor was in much worse shape. It will take some time and even then Baylor will have those seasons when nothing goes right.
