Baylor Football: 2017 season preview and predictions
By Matt Workman
Baylor football is starting over in 2017. Can Matt Rhule take the Bears to top of Big 12 in 2017 in his first season at the helm in Waco?
After a seven year hiatus, Baylor has been to seven straight bowl games. Along the way the Bears racked up a lot of wins and points in with their high-flying offense. Gone are Art Briles and his staff and offensive schemes. The question for Baylor fans is this: Can Matt Rhule can build something special at Baylor or will the Bears regress?
Luckily for Rhule he has a typical Baylor non-conference schedule to start the season. Baylor will face Liberty, UTSA and Duke before Big 12 play begins. That is when things get interesting. The Bears will face Oklahoma, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Texas in consecutive games. Fortunately three of those five games are at home. They only have to travel to Manhattan and Stillwater.
If the Bears can get through that slog relatively unscathed they have opportunity to finish year strong. They wrap up the year with Kansas, Texas Tech, Iowa State and TCU.
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Expectations are not very high for the Bears in 2017. After starting 2016 a perfect 6-0 they finished the year with six straight losses. Even with the Bears falling in second half of season, they managed to finish strong in Cactus Bowl by routing a good Boise State team 31-12. The Bears are hoping to build on that momentum and be rejuvenated with the hiring of Matt Rhule to have a successful 2017 campaign.