College Football Rankings 2020: Projected preseason Top 25 sans Pac-12, Big Ten

22. Baylor Bears

• Where they were ranked in the 2019 preseason: unranked (0 points)
• Where they were ranked at the end of 2019: 13th (827 points)
• Where they were in our way-too-early Top 25: unranked
• Where they ranked in the preseason Coaches Poll: 31st (66 points)

Baylor is another one of those programs that will benefit immensely from the depleted depth of the Power Five field as they enter somewhere in the low 20s of the first AP Top 25 of the new year. The Bears are breaking in a new head coach, albeit one coming off a College Football Playoff national championship in former LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda.

Returning to Waco this season is a fair amount of the offensive production from a team that averaged nearly 34 points per game. That includes senior quarterback Charlie Brewer, who posted his second straight 3000-yard passing season in 2019 and finished with 32 total touchdowns (21 passing, 11 rushing).

For Aranda, the defense loses far more than the offense. Baylor loses more than two-thirds of its defensive production from a unit that ranked second in the country with 30 takeaways and also finished in the top 10 in sacks. The defensive line must be rebuilt completely, with defensive ends James Lynch and Clay Johnston and defensive tackle Bravvion Roy all going in the later rounds of the 2020 NFL Draft.

That said, even some defensive dropoff still leaves Baylor likely among the top defenses in the Big 12, and in a year with so many fall cancellations perhaps even once again among the best in the entire country.