Less than an hour to kickoff against Oklahoma State, and ample seating remains at Baylor.
Any surprise there?
The Bears are winless in Big 12 play again this season. Guy Morriss is probably on his way out as the Bears coach. There’s just no mojo around this program.
Still, it’s sad to see.
Seems every conference has a Baylor, a private school that just can’t keep up in football. The ACC has Duke; the SEC, Vanderbilt; the Big Ten, Northwestern; the Pac-10, Stanford; and the Big East, Syracuse. Sure, all of them have had their moments of glory. Heck, a few have even had a couple seasons of glory, but none are able to sustain it long-term.
Baylor has been the same over the years. The Bears had a couple glorious years under Grant Teaff, and they count Mike Singletary as their greatest alum.
Past that, there’s been little joy in Mudville.
But there could be. Unlike those other private-school doormats, Baylor is located in a fertile land. The state of Texas has a bevy of big-time college football recruits. There’s so many that dozens of out-of-state coaches beat a path to the Lone Star State every year. Why couldn’t Baylor snag a few of those players?
Heck, it might not be a recipe for long-term success. No private school in a BCS conference may be able to sustain success long-term, but why couldn’t Baylor go to a bowl game every three or four years? That seems possible, even for a program that is struggling to draw more fans than the visiting team does.