Baylor football: 3 takeaways from tight win over West Virginia

West Virginia traveled to Waco for a Halloween bout with No. 12 Baylor football. It was a near-scare for the home team, but Baylor escaped with a win.

This wasn’t your typical Big 12 shootout that the talking heads on ESPN speak of. Instead, it was more of an offensive struggle and defensive-minded game between Matt Rhule’s Baylor Bears and Neal Brown’s West Virginia Mountaineers.

Whether you want to credit the defense’s or blame the offense’s, though, is entirely up to you. But the Mountaineers’ defense has been stellar all season, continuing that Thursday night against the Bears, while their offense has looked pedestrian at best. And the Bears, they’ll need to figure some things out offensively if they want to beat Oklahoma and Texas down the stretch.

Either way, Thursday night’s game on ESPN was a fun one. Pat McAfee, former Mountaineer punter/kicker, helped produce some of that excitement, too. He was dressed as Champ Kind from the Anchorman movies and lived up to the hype. If you didn’t know who he was, though, you wouldn’t have known he’s a Mountaineer; there was no bias in his commentating.

The Bears came out victorious and did just enough to escape Thursday night with a victory. Quarterback Charlie Brewer threw for nearly 300 yards on just 20 completions and added two touchdowns, but it was West Virginia’s offense — or lack thereof — that handed Baylor the win. What can we takeaway from this Big 12 collision on Halloween night 2019, though?