PHILADELPHIA – Matt Rhule, the son of a Baptist minister, left Temple after two highly successful seasons last winter to take on the challenge of sanitizing Baylor, a Big 12 school in Waco, Texas, that has been racked by a massive sexual assault scandal that led to the firing of head coach Art Briles. It seemed like a noble gesture by Baylor and the contract sounded like a good move for Rhule, seven years, $18 million.
The reality has become a different story.
Liberty, another religious affiliated school in Virginia that had never beaten a Big 12 team or a ranked opponent, ruined Rhule’s debut with a 48-45 upset victory in Waco. It was one of the low points for Baylor football in the past decade.
“If we converted a couple third down opportunities and got a couple of stops on third down, we win the ball game going away,’’ Rhule said. But we didn’t. And those are thing you have to have happen. I put this on me. I put this on the coaches. Our job is to get it fixed.’’
The Flames, which won’t be a full-time FBS school until 2019, rolled up 585 yards on offense and scored 31 points in the second half. Liberty quarterback Buckshot Calvert passed for 447 yards, including a game changing 26-yard TD pass to Spencer Jones that put the Flames up 10 with 6:12 to play.
Baylor had a chance for a Hail Mary but the pass was intercepted. Baylor had never lost to a lower level team. As you can imagine, the loss did not play well with Baylor fan base, whose team won the Big 12 in 2013 and had become used to winning on the field.
Other than a pick six on miscommunication, quarterback Anu Solomon played fairly well and running back John Lovett raced for 89 yards on 14 carries, scoring twice. Baylor had three receivers with at least 60 yards. But the Bears defense was a disaster. The secondary—which was missing all four starting defensive backs—Davion Hall, Taion Sells, Grayland Arnold and Jameson Houston– was forced to start converted safety Jourdan Blake and freshman Harrison Hand at cornerback—was constantly beat deep. The defensive line struggled.
“When you look at what went wrong, our inability to stop their passing game. We gave up 447 yards in the passing game,’’ Rhule said. “We got to do better than that. We allowed them to convert 15 of 24 third down opportunities. We must do better than that. We must get better on defense. We must to get to the quarterback.
“If we converted a couple third down opportunities and got a couple of stops on third down, we win the ball game going away,’’ Rhule said. But we didn’t. And those are thing you have to have happen. I put this on me. I put this on the coaches. Our job is to get it fixed. I feel bad for our fans they came out and we didn’t play at the level we expected.’’
Rhule has proven to be a good coach at Temple and was a popular hire, but this looks like a complete rebuild. Baylor plays UTSA next week in Waco.
