Everything Baylor WR coach Dallas Baker said ahead of Cincinnati showdown

This was some great insight from the former Florida great and NFL WR.

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Baylor arguably has one of the best wide receiver corps in the entire country, led by former Florida great Dallas Baker. On Tuesday, Baker spoke with the media to talk about plenty of things, and this was probably one of the better reads you'll find.

Here is everything Baker told the media on Tuesday.

How he wants to bounce back after TCU loss

So I would say this, okay, so I'm a name drop a little bit, okay, and so for me when I talk I'm always honest, so I'm probably not the guy to put up here all the time. So I play for guys like Urban, Mike Tomlin, Charlie Strong, Dan Mullen, Gray Madison, Billy Gonzalez, you know I could go on and on, Dick Lebeau, and so what I learned from them is the same way you coach when you win is the same way you coach when you lose, so you don't have to change how you coach. So for me when we win, okay, I coach this way.

When we lose, I coach this way. And so what I look at is the details from the game, whether we win or lose, okay, and so what I could say from the receiver room, I'm telling the guys we have to be more player-led, you know. For example, last year we had a guy like Hal Presley.

Hal was a great leader. Not saying that we don't have great leaders in the room, but we have a lot of guys who do a great job of focusing on their job and not focusing on what everyone else do, and it can't be that way. Not disrespecting any one sport, but this isn't tennis, this isn't bowling, this is a team sport.

So especially when you have an older room, I have to make sure I do my job, but I gotta make sure the man next to me is being held accountable. And so in my room, I also think we need to start freestyling on rock so much, okay. If you're supposed to be at 12 yards, get to 12 yards.

Don't say, oh, I'm gonna take it deep to give us a spark. It's not what I coach you to do. But again, Coach Meyer, Coach G would tell me, either you're coaching it or you're allowing it. Either way it goes, you're in the room. So what I have to tell them, that's my fault, but we're going to do punishment for it. So you understand that's not how we do it, okay.

I would say the last piece is just always making it feel like fourth and one. I make it intense so it doesn't matter who comes to the game, you know, because it's the same way for me. Like playing at Florida, we one and five, the stadium is full. We five and one, the stadium is full. It didn't matter because why?

Practice was hard. So for these guys, I make practice hard so the game is easy. So I haven't changed up at all because I always say, I also say this, I hope coaches and leaders and everyone listening to this, if you change how you coach according to wins and losses, players start calling you fake.

On the mindset of 4th and 1

Um, I say for now, I say for the most part, it's been that way. But again, I'm the head coach of my own room. So I speak in my room. It's like that all the time. You ask the parents of my players, I tell them all the time, I owe it to them to make sure the young men become men, but more importantly, men of God. So you go into class, you don't go to class, there are consequences.

One of the consequences is I'm gonna let your parents know. I'm 18. I'm probably not supposed to say that because they said you're not supposed to tell the parents of the players doing academically because they're 18. I don't care. So I tell their parents, Hey, this is his grades. Some parents happy, some parents upset, right?

They're gonna come to practice and hey, I got on him today because of that great job, coach bait. So in my room, it's always fourth and one. So again, that way you have a standard like that's part of being a goon because I feel like receivers are prima donnas. So I don't call them goons because we're like offensive linemen that get to score touchdowns and we get to dance and we get to wear a nice strip. So well, goons is someone that's fundamentally sound. Okay.

It's also someone who is selfless. You know, they'll block for someone. Uh, they don't care how many passes you catch. You know, that will be playmakers with or without the ball in the hand, you know, and then someone that's tough. And then here's what we talk about. Tough, tough isn't fighting at practice. We're not boxers. We football players. Tough is what I'm doing is way more important than how I feel.

You know, I love my parents have two sets of parents and we grew up rough. So not saying that my parents can't handle their business, but sometimes you're in school and you're worried, man, are the lights turned off at home. And so instead of going in the shell, my coping mechanism was to play hard at practice because I knew, hey, I could get my education. I kept my family out. Okay. I could also play hard in football and I can get a scholarship and maybe go to the NFL. So again, I was born in the fourth and one. And so having guys like Coach Meyer and stuff like that when I played for it just helped out. And so sorry to be long with this, but yeah, it goes back to what I said.

Like, I don't change according to wins or losses. And I don't think this program does either. Like our record doesn't show how hard these guys work. No, we make mistakes. We're making mistakes at the wrong moment of the game. You know, it's raining and we may get a fumble quarterback running back exchange, you know, and people from the outside or people even in the building on the stand, they could say, Oh, that's because they didn't practice harder as it wasn't fourth and one.

No, we weren't on our detail. It was practice hard. Like I would say this the last two years since I've been here, the work they put in after practice, I've never seen that in the first two years. If you want me to be honest, I probably shouldn't say that. But last year and this year, you hear the claps back there. These dudes working. It's guys outside working.No, we just have to be more in our detail.

On Jadon Porter's hard work paying off

So here's the cool part about that. So this is the first game he's graded out greater than 90% and he scored a touchdown. So, of course, coach being coached, I coach everybody hard, but I love even harder. The reason being because how hard I coach, right? But I use it as an opportunity to see why I coach you so hard.

And the fact that it worked out helps even better because now you're like, yeah, because I see that. And so now today when I'm coaching him hard, right, he doesn't even blink an eye. I want it now because you coach me hard and I scored a touchdown. And so for me, it was happy to, you know what I'm saying? I'm happy you scored a touchdown because now he's able to see why I'm really, really getting on.

Is this the best group he's been around

Yes, it is. And I haven't put that online, but I have to give credit where credit is due. It started with those guys last year. You have Presley's, Ketron Jackson's, your Monaray Baldwin's, your Jamaal Bell's, you know, it started with those guys who aren't here. And, you know, Josh is left over. Ashtyn is left over, you know, Jackson and Seth and Danny and Jade and all those guys are left over.

But this started last year, those 24 guys, you know, um, after being with those guys from 2022 and in 2023 and then, you know, those guys that constantly picking my brains with coach bait, you want a national championship, you want a Super Bowl, you lost in the state championships in high school, you play for this coach, you talk to this coach because he's your mentor, like, tell us. And one of the big things that I told those guys last year because of the 23 season was if you live for their praises, you'll die from their criticism. It's probably gonna be too deep. But I was 21 years old. We play Tennessee coach Fordor. Coach tell me it's not my fault, but I did something that I was coached not to do.

I'm saying it's not that they're not being coached. You just got barely detail and we lost to Tennessee and the way the Gator fans treated me and I love you. Everybody say I post about him like I bleed orange like I bleed green and go. But at 21 years old, I had me want to commit suicide because I felt like I let Gator Nation down. I felt like I let my family down. Like I would read things on Facebook.

They were actually put it in the paper back then. You know, now you gotta be careful what you do because the cancer coach, they were put in the paper about how I lost the game everything and I'm 21. And so I sat in my room for a week. Hold on. It was eight days. So a little over a week because we play Kentucky and the first play of the game. Guess what happened? I get another penalty for holding a call, which I feel like the ref was picking on me. But we win.

We beat Kentucky. But I just feel like the whole world hates me. And so what I've taught myself is I will post on instagram. I'll post on twitter and I apologize. All I think the reason I don't respond because I will post and I'll just go television and it's because that helped me. So what I thought was a curse is actually a blessing.

So I told these guys, if you live for their praises, you're dying from criticism, you know, because the fans are going to do what they're supposed to. They're supposed to hold us to a standard and we can't judge them for that. We have to do our job. They have to do their job of being famous. They have to fill the stadium. You know, they have to support us when we're doing bad.

Sometimes they have to get on us when we're doing bad sometimes, you know? And so that was one thing that I taught those guys. Another thing I taught those guys like you guys are saying the goon name. We started this in 2005 and there's guys like Percy Harvin, Riley Cooper, Lewis Murphy, Andre Carwood, Kenneth Toots. Like guys with this goon thing really, really mean something. Like it's not just something to say.

It means we're gonna be different from every other receiver call in the country. We're gonna block, we're gonna be the standard. And so last year is when they really was like, okay, coach bait, like we bought into this goon thing. And so this year it's a little easier because we've got an older room. But for all the coaches, here's why you have to be careful when you have an older room. Sometimes it's not that they think they know more than the coach, but you have to keep a tight grip on them because why they feel like they will experience.

I get it because you taught me this, but I'm gonna try this. No, you know what I'm saying? And so I would agree this probably the best room I've ever been around. Unfortunately, our record doesn't show that because I don't look at like the receiver steps. No, we threw the ball three times this year and we undefeated. I'm happy. So I never look at our steps.

On Micah Gifford as a WR, and other WRs on the team

A goon. The only thing Micah needed to work on was hand placement and eyes when he was catching. You know, like I hear people all the time and I'm not trying to judge anyone. They scream and yell, catch the ball. I used to happen to me. I'm not gonna say when, but then again, I have to give credit where credit is due.

Coach G, Coach Meyer taught me. It's not just catch the ball. It's hand placement. It's my hands and proper that I put my eyes on the ball. And so that was some of the things that Micah needed to work on. I told everyone by the time Micah is a junior, I don't care. We're on defense offense. Micah was gonna be a playmaker, you know? And so what we're seeing is just like doing what he's doing.

Can I help also about leadership because I hit on that. So there's something that I was taught when I was a leader, a part of a national championship team. Okay. And so right now these guys are trying to figure out how to be leaders because when you bring in transfer portal guys, you gotta hit your culture every year. Now that's what people don't understand. I get this transfer.

Get cool. Here's the deal. It's called 10 80 10. Okay. Because I was taught to be a leader in my first year being a leader. Y'all know my personality, right? I thought being a leader is trying to fight everybody. Even O line D line. If I lose, I'm gonna lose. But then when I was taught, you know, from us doing our leadership things is the 10 80 10. And that's what I tell my guys in the receiving room. You're gonna have 10% on every team that's gonna do exactly what they're supposed to do.

That's the stand. I'm a name drop like you're Josh Cameron. Okay. And of course, Sawyer, but I'm using him as an example. That's your 10% up there. They're gonna do whatever you ask. Coach, whatever. Then that 80% is the team, right? And then that bottom 10% is just gonna always be there. Okay. I'm that a booster or something going on and you cannot get rid of that bottom 10%. They're always going to be there.

But you need to understand as a leader is your top 10% need to be the strongest so they can take that 80% and pull it up there with them because that 10% can always be there. Now it's tough if some of your better players are in that bottom 10% because now they already have the ability to get that 80% to follow them because how good sports, you know what I'm saying? You just got to make sure they don't have too big of a voice because if they have too big of a voice and they're really good players, that's what that 80% come down and they pull them down on this team.

I could say that top 10% think about who in there. That's what I'm helping everybody understand that you're Josh. Can you know who they are? You see Kobe Prentice. Kobe is going that many touchdowns. Why? Because he post about God. He practice hard like God is blessing, you know? And so our 80% is with that 10%. It's just our detail. Like we got to hold them more to the standard. They got to trust what we're teaching them and everything else will take care of itself.

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