Baylor Bears Back to Playing Green in Impressive Road Win
Baylor Bears coach Dave Aranda often talks about his team needing to "play green"...that means playing loose or with reckless abandon for those who don't speak Aranda. Even though his team was wearing white uniforms Saturday on the road, they played more green than they had all season.
Playing green is something that is hard to quantify or describe. Surely Aranda thinks of the words Justice Potter Stewart famously used in 1964 when he said "I know it when I see it."
We saw it Saturday because it's the first time the 2022 Baylor Bears looked like the 2021 Baylor Bears.
Defensively, they got after the quarterback with 4 tackles for loss and 4 sacks. One of the misconceptions about Baylor's defensive line is they are the ones who get after the quarterback and gets the sacks. No, the defensive line plugs the gaps so well and takes so much of the attention from the opposing offensive line, forces the offense to send extra blockers at them, and allows the more speedy linebackers and defensive backs to wreak havoc behind the line of scrimmage.
In a defense with Siaki Ika, TJ Franklin, and Gabe Hall up front, who was Baylor's sack leader in 2021? Linebacker Terrel Bernard.
No, Bears fans and Rick Pitino, Bernard is not walking through that door. But linebacker Bryson Jackson is, and he lit up Cyclones quarterback Hunter Dekkers twice in the second half.
Aranda leaves it vague by calling it playing green. Jackson, weirdly enough, is the one that sounds like the coach when he describes how the defense played.
“[Saturday] was a great example of complementary football,” Jackson said. “Doing those things on the field today was all about focus and preparation.”
Playing green is usually easy to see on defense, but it can't be complementary unless it carries over to the offensive side. Oh yeah, the Bears did that, too.
Quarterback Blake Shapen was the most composed and effective we have seen him all year. No play was more green than his touchdown pass to Gavin Holmes in the fourth quarter to go up 31-14. Richard Reese took the handoff going right, pitched it to Monaray Baldwin going left, who pitched back to Shapen to find a wide-open Holmes in the end zone for a 38-yard touchdown to put the game to bed.
You know you're playing green when the second greenest play is a passing touchdown to your linebacker on a bootleg.
The Bears and the whole of McLane Stadium will be decked out in gold for a titanic matchup against the Oklahoma State Cowboys next Saturday, but the key to victory will be all about who is greener.
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