Texas Football: 4 reasons why the Longhorns can dominate Baylor

Baylor’s issues contesting space will be dangerous against Texas’ abundance of skill weapons

There aren’t many defenses in the Big 12 equipped to go one-on-one with many dangerous Texas skill weapons in space. After Baylor’s struggles in the first few weeks of the season to contest space, especially in pass defense, Texas could have a very sizable advantage with their skill guys compared to the Bears’ defense this weekend.

Let’s start with the struggles of Baylor’s pass defense in space this season. Baylor’s inexperience in the secondary, where they have four new starters (all but one of which are underclassmen), has caused them issues early this season.

The troubles in the Baylor secondary came to the forefront in the season opener against Texas State, where it allowed nearly 300 passing yards and three touchdowns without turning over the Bobcats once.

It’s hard to judge Baylor’s secondary in the last two weeks, though, since Utah didn’t have its starting quarterback, Cam Rising. And Long Island wasn’t a formidable foe for the Baylor defense, as an 0-3 FCS team.

I have to think that if Texas State’s skill guys in the passing game were giving Baylor’s defense this many issues, Texas would be a load for their secondary to defend this weekend.

A good illustration of the issues Baylor is having contesting space this season is the missed tackles per reception allowed. Baylor leads the Big 12 in missed tackles per reception at 0.3 (per PFF). To put this in context, Texas has 0.22 missed tackles per reception allowed in coverage this season against much stiffer competition, namely Alabama.

Texas has so many weapons that present matchup issues for this Baylor defense. For one, Baylor hasn’t dealt with a tight end the caliber of junior standout JT Sanders this season. Baylor did face Sanders when these two teams met last season, and he gashed them for two big receptions that went for a whopping 65 yards.

Sark can also utilize a lot of pre-snap motion and the horizontal passing game to get dangerous weapons such as junior wide receiver Xavier Worthy, junior Adonai Mitchell, redshirt senior running back Keilan Robinson, and redshirt senior slot receiver Jordan Whittington in space.

Worthy has already lived up to the billing as a dangerous YAC monster behind the line of scrimmage and in the short and intermediate passing game this season. He had a big fourth-quarter touchdown just last weekend, taking a screen pass for 40+ yards to the house to extend the lead against Wyoming.

This should be a huge week for Sanders and Worthy for the Longhorns against an overmatched and inexperienced Baylor secondary.