Saturday Blitz
Fansided

Baylor Football: Bears face make or break year in 2018

By Matthew Bartlett

WACO, TX - OCTOBER 28: Head coach Matt Rhule of the Baylor Bears looks on as Baylor plays the Texas Longhorns in the first half at McLane Stadium on October 28, 2017 in Waco, Texas. Texas won 38-7. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
WACO, TX - OCTOBER 28: Head coach Matt Rhule of the Baylor Bears looks on as Baylor plays the Texas Longhorns in the first half at McLane Stadium on October 28, 2017 in Waco, Texas. Texas won 38-7. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Baylor football is hanging on to relevancy by a thread. If the Bears don’t take a significant step forward in 2018 they might fade away for good.

Matt Rhule took over the Baylor football program under extremely tenuous circumstances. After three straight 10-win seasons the program was rocked by scandal, falling to 7-6 in 2016 and 1-11 in 2017. Now the Bears are at a crossroads.

What Briles was able to achieve at Baylor was unprecedented. Prior to his arrival the Bears had one 10-win season in program history (1980). During his tenure he produced four such seasons which included two conference titles. At one point in 2015 the Bears had climbed as high as No. 2, their highest ranking in program history.

Baylor cam perilously close to a win-less campaign in year one under Rhule. Had it not been for the good fortune of playing in the same conference as the lowly Kansas the Bears wouldn’t have won any games at all. In 2018 they have the opportunity to dispel this woeful season as a fluke or confirm their return to mediocrity.

For much of their history Baylor has been an afterthought. That was true in the Big 12 and in the Southwestern Conference. If Rhule is able to get back to .500 in the Big 12 in his second year at the helm he’ll have charted the course for continued relevancy for the Baylor football program. However, if things do go south, the Bears could be facing years of prolonged ineptitude.

Next: Building the best college football super team

Conference realignment has cooled down over the last few years, but it won’t be too long before its time for tv contracts to be renegotiated. If Baylor doesn’t get their act together they could lose their seat at the table. Once that’s gone it’s hard to get back, just ask the University of Houston.

Home/Baylor Bears