Baylor Bears Gear Up For Lubbock Lions' Den at Texas Tech
All the aspects outside the lines in Saturday's Baylor-Texas Tech football game favor the Red Raiders. The game is in Lubbock, it's sold out, it's a nighttime kickoff, the fans will be clad in black, Joey McGuire will be coaching against his old team, and Red Raider legend Patrick Mahomes will be in the building and will be inducted into Tech's ring of honor.
Luckily for the Bears, they only keep score of what goes on inside the white lines. That said, they've struggled with atmospheres this year.
“Obviously we can’t turn off the crowd, but we’ve been in atmospheres before, like BYU and Iowa State,” senior wide receiver Gavin Holmes said. “We know when we go out there, it’s only going to be us and everyone else is going to want to take our heads off.”
In week two, the Bears lost in front of a sold-out crowd at BYU and coach Dave Aranda said his players had "big eyes" as they couldn't handle the moment.
"The environment in Lubbock will be a good one," Aranda said. "They play hard and aggressive and it's impressive to watch."
The onus will of course be on the Bears' defense to keep the crowd out of it, but it's certainly easier said than done, as the Red Raiders have the second most yards per game of any team in the Big 12, only behind undefeated TCU.
The Bears struggled against BYU in Provo and also against West Virginia in a half-full Pusker Stadium earlier this month, but the team is drawing inspiration from their only road triumph so far this season, when they traveled to Ames and knocked off Iowa State, 31-24.
“Initially, it was really loud at the beginning of the game, you could feel the momentum,” safety Devin Neal said. “With the defense doing what they needed to do…you could see people leaving the game, you couldn’t hear anything, it felt like a practice.”
Baylor had two takeaways in the Iowa State game and 10 of the Cyclones' points came in garbage time. It was also maybe the best the Bears' offense looked all year when they went for 361 total yards and quarterback Blake Shapen threw three touchdown passes.
The road struggles have continued for Aranda this season, who is now just 4-9 away from McLane Stadium, including a last-second loss in Lubbock in 2020.
As a program, the Bears have not won at Texas Tech since 1990, which is misleading because the two squared off in neutral sites for every matchup of the 2010s. Still, these Bears seem to know the challenge ahead of them.
"We've just got to lock in and stay focused," Neal said. "We're all we got."
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