An Introduction: Baylor vs. Texas Tech

TTU Pass Offense vs. BU Pass Defense	TTU Rush Offense vs. BU Rush Defense	TTU Pass Defense vs. BU Pass Offense	TTU Rush Defense vs. BU Rush Offense
427.09 (1,1)	124.64 (85, 11)	251.45 (99, 6)	124.82 (38, 6)
250.36 (98, 5)	145.36 (66, 8)	188.82 (87, 12)	192.73 (26, 3)

TTU Scoring Offense vs. BU Scoring Defense	TTU Scoring Defense vs. BU Scoring Offense
47.90 (3, 2)	23.60 (57, 4)
28.82 (87, 7)	28.00 (47, 9)

General Thoughts: That's really not what I was expecting when I was putting these numbers together. In fact, I had a couple of double-takes when, for all intents and purposes, Baylor is superior to Texas Tech is 3 of 4 categories.  Now, I know, games aren't won or lost on these 4 categories, but it does say something about Baylor, who I think we all have a healthy respect for, or at least I do. I'll say it now and I'll say it again, Baylor is not a bad football team and Art Briles is doing a stand-up job in his first year in Waco.

Statistical Interestingness:

• I'm not sure which Texas Tech dense shows up on Saturday. Oklahoma State was rushing for well over 200 yards and right now, Baylor is just a hair under 200 yards. The difference between OSU and Baylor is the quarterback. Robinson is known to be a guy who scrambles and is elusive in and around the pocket, but he's not. Robinson just doesn't rush the ball as much as we all remember. But Baylor mainly does it with QB Robert Griffin (67.64) and RB Jay Finley (69.09).  However, after Griffith's initial explosion on the scene, which was 217 yards against Washington State, he has slowed down a bit and can have his good days and bad days. Griffin had -15 against Iowa State, 12 against Oklahoma, 33 against Missouri and 56 against Texas A&M, winning 2 out of 3. 
• Baylor's not bad at defending against the pass, good for 5th in the conference, the problem of course is that it gets tougher in conference play, where the Bears have given up 336 against Nebraska, 337 against Missouri and 300 against Texas.   Thus, opponents that primarily pass seem like they are able to do a pretty decent job of doing going against the Bears. This bodes well for a Texas Tech team that is wanting to get back on track as the traits that Texas Tech typically struggles against are sacks (Baylor is 9th) and TFL at 4.36. The one statistic that does bother me is that Baylor is currently 2nd in the Big 12 in turnover margin and just as it is important to do every game, winning the turnover margin here is vita.
• The Bears are dead last in converting 3rd downs.  There's tremendous opportunity for Texas Tech's defense and offense to pick itself back up after last week. Converting 3rd downs for the offense has been critical to Texas Tech's success all year, while stopping 3rd downs has been equally as important. There's no doubt in my mind that Texas Tech needs to win the 3rd down battle convincingly on Saturday.
• Stop Griffin and I'll feel much better about stopping Baylor.  I know, easier said than done, but containing Griffin is going to be absolutely critical to winning on Saturday. Griffin accounts for 65.37% of Baylor's total offense and stopping him, or at the very least slowing him down

	Result		Result
Eastern Washington	W, 49-24	Wake Forest	L, 13-41
@ Nevada	W, 35-19	Northwestern State	W, 51-6
SMU	W, 43-7	Washington State	W 45-17
UMass	W, 56-14	@ Connecticut	L, 28-31
@ Kansas State	W, 58-28	Oklahoma	L, 49-17
Nebraska	W, 37-31	Iowa State	W, 38-10
@ Texas A&M	W, 43-25	@ Oklahoma State	L, 6-34
@ Kansas	W, 63-21	@ Nebraska	L, 20-32
Texas	W, 39-33	Missouri	L, 28-31
Oklahoma State	W, 56-20	@ Texas	L, 21-45
@ Oklahoma	L, 21-65	Texas A&M	W, 41-21

Ending Thoughts: Texas Tech needs a very convincing win on Saturday probably for my ego more than anything else. Statistically, Baylor has an interesting team that appears, at least on paper, to have some advantages over Texas Tech. If nothing else, this should be a clear warning to you and the team that Baylor is a talented team with an extremely talented player in Griffin, and he can quickly change the game.