With the weight of lofty preseason expectations resting on their shoulders, the Baylor Bears will welcome longtime rival SMU into brand new McLane Stadium for each team’s season opener on Sunday.
A sellout crowd of 45,000 is expected in Waco to cheer on the 10th-ranked Bears, who are coming off their first outright conference title since 1980. They will take on a Mustangs team that is coming of its first losing season since 2008 and looking to replace star quarterback Garrett Gilbert.
Sophomore Neal Burcham will replace Gilbert under center in June Jones’ run-and-shoot offense, but he’s being thrust into the spotlight in his first game as SMU’s permanent starter.
Baylor has made significant strides since Art Briles took over as head coach after the 2007 season. Briles took a stagnant program and perennial Big 12 bottom feeder and has turned it into one of the conference’s elite teams. The Bears enter the 2014 season expecting to contend for another Big 12 conference title, with senior quarterback Bryce Petty leading the way on offense.
Petty, the 2013 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, threw for 4,200 yards and 32 touchdowns last year while also running for another 14 touchdowns. Not surprisingly, he’s a front-runner in the 2014 Heisman Trophy race. Petty also has one of the best wide receiving corps in the country at his disposal, including seniors Antwan Goodley and Levi Norwood.
This could spell trouble for the Mustangs, who struggled mightily in their secondary last year. Their defensive backfield will be more experienced in 2014, but they’ll face a major test against an offense that set a Football Subdivision record by averaging 52.38 points per game in 2013.
The (somewhat) good news for SMU is that Baylor’s secondary is fairly inexperienced as well, which could bode well for Burcham and the pass-happy Mustangs offense. But even if Burcham rises to the challenge and finds success against the Bears, it’s still hard to imagine that SMU will be able to keep up with Baylor’s potent offense.
This Sunday’s game will be the 80th meeting between the two programs, with the series tied at 36-36-7. However, Baylor has won each of their last 10 games against the Mustangs, and will now have a chance to take a lead in the all-time series for the first time since 1924.
While this rivalry is in a better place now than it was about a decade ago, thanks to Briles and Jones pushing these programs in the right direction, the Bears are clearly the superior team.
If SMU is going to spoil the opening of McLane Stadium and pick up its first win against Baylor since 1986, it will take an upset of epic proportions.
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