Austin Novosad's Flip Puts Baylor Bears In Panic Mode
Positivity around the Baylor Bears program was as high as the Waco temperatures this July with a top 10 team coming off their most successful season ever and maybe the school's biggest quarterback recruit, Austin Novosad, taking official visits to Ohio State, Notre Dame and Texas A&M and turning them all down to reaffirm his commitment to Baylor.
This week, temperatures in Waco will drop to the single digits and the confidence of Bears fans will drop even lower. Baylor went 6-6 in the regular season, face a difficult test against the Air Force Falcons in a bowl game being played at their biggest rival's stadium and, at the eleventh hour, Novosad announced he will flip his commitment to the Oregon Ducks.
What once seemed like such a safe and stable future for a program is now completely in limbo.
Most pressingly, the Bears only have one scholarship quarterback on the roster. At this point, if Blake Shapen were to go down at some point next season, Baylor would be turning over the reigns to someone who has not taken a single meaningful snap in a college football game.
Novosad was set to enroll in January, sharing that sentiment on Locked On Baylor just a week and a half ago, which means he would have gotten a full spring and fall camp under his belt before backing up Shapen in the 2023 season. Not anymore!
The distant future is even more of a question mark, as Baylor not-so-subtly mortgaged their future on Novosad. They will now go through two recruiting cycles without bringing in a quarterback because they put all their eggs in the Novosad basket.
In fact, they also missed out on one of the top quarterbacks in the 2024 class, Willis' DJ Lagway, likely in part because there was such a highly touted quarterback just one year ahead of him at Baylor.
Coach Dave Aranda and the Bears are still welcoming in a solid 2023 recruiting class with stars like tight end Matthew Klopfenstein, offensive linemen Sean Thompkins and Isaiah Robinson, and running back Bryson Washington, but Novosad's flip will likely see their class ranking tank outside the top 20.
The most perplexing part of this whole saga is the timing and the suitor. Oregon had interest the way everyone else in the nation had interest, but had never offered him, nor had he ever taken a visit to Eugene.
Meanwhile, not only were the Bears the first to offer Novosad, but the Dripping Spring product turned down offers from some of the biggest football programs in the nation this year to reaffirm his commitment to Baylor.
So what happened in the 11 days since he went on Locked On Baylor and talked about the plan to enroll early and lead Baylor to glory? What happened in the two days since his in-home visit with Ducks coaches?
The Bears had a disappointing season, no doubt, but it's tough to even justify that as the reason Novosad flipped. Baylor offered him in June 2021, half a year removed from a putrid 2-7 mark in Aranda's first year and Novosad subsequently committed even before the Sugar Bowl victory.
Former defensive coordinator Ron Roberts left but Aranda, offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes and quarterback coach Shawn Bell are still here. Every coach Novosad committed to is still at Baylor.
Mediocre season aside, if he comes on board, the trajectory is still the same as when he originally committed.
It is always tough to read the mind of a 17-year-old kid, NIL era or otherwise. Novosad is making what he feels is the best decision for him and his career in what is the biggest decision of his life to this point.
The question should be, however - How responsible is the coaching staff?
Unpredictable or not, they just lost one of their most important recruits ever. If Baylor limps to the kind of subpar football they played this year and don't have the promise of Novosad's golden right arm for the future, best believe the rumblings of "the 2021 team was just Matt Rhule's guys" will come out to play and fans might just see the coaching staff in a new light.
It can't be understated how monumental a loss this is for Baylor.
While the Bears have committed to the program over powerhouses before, this seemed like a changing of the guard. In the NIL era, this commitment seemed to prove you could still get the best players through coaching stability, a winning culture and the promise of doing something special. The golden child was allowed to go and taste the fruits of the world's best gardens and he still decided to come home, until there was one apple that was just too darn good to resist.
There hasn't been much positivity surrounding the program in the last month and a half, and it is hard to find any here. To have such an important recruit swooned just hours before he was to send in his letter of intent is all time pain.
It's time for Baylor to find a Plan B...and quick.
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