Head coach Dave Aranda updates health status of Baylor star Jackie Marshall
During Auburn's second drive of the game, Baylor star defensive lineman Jackie Marshall got rolled up under and needed help to the sideline. Coming out of the blue tent, it appeared that Marshall might've tried to give it a go, but the Fox broadcast confirmed Baylor would be without Marshall for the rest of the game.
The Tigers would go on to rush for 307 yards as a team, and Auburn QB Jackson Arnold crushed the Bears with his legs, rushing for a career high 137 yards. Not having Marshall on the field clearly hindered Baylor, and following the 38-24 loss, head coach Dave Aranda updated his health.
"So high sprain for him, and so he's day-to-day," Aranda said after the loss. "That was a hit for us. He's one of our better players on defense. And we went to more four down fronts with him. I think he can play a three down and two gap and play inside to outside. Not having him, we don't really have that ability to do that.
"So we have to play more just in your gap and one man, one gap, which becomes an issue with the quarterback a little bit. But tried to blitz a little bit more too when he was gone. So we're hoping that we get Jackie back. We've got some players that have been with us now for about two, three weeks that we gotta bring along. We added them for depth, and the depth is needed right now."
Baylor linebacker Keaton Thomas, who led the game with 15 tackles (10 solo), also said how bad it was without Marshall on the field, but as the saying goes 'next man up'.
"Yeah, it sucks when you have a player like that go down," Thomas said. "That's my brother, sad that he wasn't in the game. It's always tough when you have somebody with so much potential out, but it's next man by that point, it's football. You face adversity every time, every play, you gotta keep playing. So whoever's up has to step up and start making plays."
Baylor now has one week to figure things out before it has another tough test. The Bears will hit the road next Saturday for a big game against SMU and Kevin Jennings.
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