Monday Rewind – Baylor: Bears did what Bears do; time to move on

photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas linebacker Schyler Miles is slung out of bounds while trying to bring down Baylor running back Lache Seastrunk during the first quarter on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013.

Typically, these Monday Rewinds are spent looking back at a certain aspect of KU’s most recent game that either impacted the outcome, added to a trend or simply was eye-opening enough — good or bad — to merit further discussion.

And while last week’s loss to Baylor certainly included a few of those things, I thought I’d take a break from examining the Jayhawks’ struggling offense or trying to pinpoint how or why things unfolded the way they did against the Bears. The reason? I want to talk about the Bears themselves.

It’s not every day you watch one of the best offenses in college football history. It’s not every day that you think the team on the other side of the field might be the best in the country. It’s not every day (even if it may be every year in the ultra-tough Big 12) that you walk away from a game thinking to yourself that you might have just watched the national champions play.

But I thought all of those things when I watched Baylor and, to be honest, I’ll quietly be rooting for it to happen. The Bears are a great story and are a team full of confident and talented individuals who come together to create one heck of a unit. Sure, running back Lache Seastrunk may be a little outspoken and may have caught people off guard when he said last summer that he was going after the Heisman Trophy. But I like it. And can you blame him? He can clearly back it up. The only problem with Seastrunk’s bid to win the Heisman is that Baylor has been up so big so often this entire season that he hasn’t logged enough snaps to put up truly ridiculous numbers. If that weren’t the case, and if the Bears needed him for four quarters each night, I think he’d have a great shot.

Another guy who should have a great shot but isn’t getting talked about much in the conversation is quarterback Bryce Petty. I’m not sure what more you want a guy to do to warrant Heisman chatter. He’s deadly accurate, throws for a ton of yards and touchdowns and even can run it a little bit himself. Heck, his 12 incompletions vs. Kansas over the weekend were a season high and even with that his completion percentage still hovered around 65%.

It’s not like Baylor isn’t getting respect nationally. The Bears are ranked 6th in the latest BCS standings and are finding their way onto all kinds of highlight shows for their insanely entertaining offensive performances week in and week out. But because they’ve played most of their games at home and have yet to do what they do against a ranked opponent, they’re not getting the same kind of love as the Florida States, Oregons and Alabamas.

They should be. And I know that now after seeing them at Memorial Stadium with my own eyes.

The reason for saying all of that — aside from sharing my enormous respect for Baylor’s program? I think it’s important to remember exactly who Kansas faced last weekend when talking about the Jayhawks and their continued quest toward improvement and that elusive conference victory.

There certainly are areas of this KU team that can and should be criticized, and we’ve covered those plenty so far throughout this season. But if you’re looking to pile on because of the Baylor game, I think you’re misguided.

I have no doubts that the Jayhawks worked their butts off all week to get ready and entered Saturday with a solid game plan. Sometimes, the other team is just that good. I mean, did you see the socks that Seastrunk wore? They had lightning on them! And, hey, Baylor’s done this to everybody, and likely will continue to do it to everybody the rest of the way.

Rather than dwell on it and use it as more fire for the anti-KU football movement that’s out there, I think it’s best to burn the film, leave it in the past and move on to the next challenge.

Vegas had the Bears as 35-point favors for a reason, and, outside of KU’s locker room, where I’m sure they truly believed they had a shot, last Saturday’s outcome was not a huge surprise to anybody.

But I think it’s more because Baylor’s that good, not because KU is that bad.

With five games remaining in 2013 and a schedule that softens just a little, we’ll find out.