Big 12 Roundup | Iowa St. & K-State Upset; Baylor, Texas, Oklahoma & Oklahoma St. Roll

Our Daily Bears (Baylor Bears) If anyone was worried that Wofford, a relatively unknown FCS school, would not draw a big crowd for Baylor’s season opener, those worries proved unfounded. In the opening game of Baylor’s final season at Floyd Casey Stadium, a turnout of 44,989 showed up for Saturday’s 69-3 Bear romp. That was the second-biggest opening-game crowd in program history, behind the 1973 opener against Oklahoma, which drew 46,000. (Link)

Wide Right & Natty Lite (Iowa St. Cyclones) The big positive about the offense was the newcomers: UNO transfer and previous walk-on wide receiver Justin Coleman accounted for 103 yards and a long touchdown, while Aaron Wimberly looked dangerous on almost every touch. They both also demonstrated a solid rapport with QB Sam Richardson, who had a solid game in his own right, going for 242 yards and 2 TDs through the air while adding 74 yards on the ground. The small amount of positive takeways from tonight's game were promising enough to believe that this team may yet figure it out, but if there aren't major improvements soon, the Cyclones are in for a long season. (Link)

Rock Chalk Talk (Kansas Jayhawks) Kansas had a week 1 bye.

Bring On The Cats (Kansas St. Wildcats) Much like Morse said in his wrap-up, Bill Snyder is not a Wizard. Just like any other coach, he's an architect. He draws the blueprint and expects it to be executed. He's not extravagant. He doesn't want the Taj Mahal. He's utilitarian. He's practical. He does what is needed and nothing more. If there were a Maslow's hierarchy of needs for football, it would be printed on every page of Bill Snyder's playbook. Over the last two seasons, a combination of underrated players and excellent schemes that maximize those players strengths have resulted in huge success on the field. Especially when it mattered most. Friday night, the strength of the offense was the passing game. If given time in the pocket, Jake Waters could be the best pure passer K-State has seen in a long time. He went through his progressions and found his target more often than not. (Link)

Crimson and Cream Machine (Oklahoma Sooners) Wow, what a difference an offseason makes. That wasn't just a different OU defense, that was.....I don't really know what to call it. Let's go with pretty damn impressive. Detractors are going to poo-poo the defensive performance away "because it was Louisiana-Monroe" but this was an experienced and talented offense the Sooners just completely shut down. Easily the most exciting part of the night from a defensive perspective was the pressure Oklahoma generated on Kolton Browning. This was a highly suspect defensive line heading into tonight's season opener and they came out and played with a reckless abandon. (Link)

Cowboys Ride For Free (Oklahoma St. Cowboys) After Chelf looked honestly out of whack on the first two drives, drilling a screen pass attempt into the ground and thanking Ateman for breaking up a SURE interception, we watched as Walsh didn't fair any better with REALLY suspect play calling for the next couple of drives. But when Walsh came out for his THIRD straight possession, the dye was cast, and pretty soon JW would put us a little more at ease. He directed a TD drive where he channeled Justin Blackmon...pretty much every successful play, including the TD, were a product of his legs. (Link)

Burnt Orange Nation (Texas Longhorns) The Longhorn defense showed to be a much improved unit from last season, allowing seven points our less for the third time in as many seasons. While the occasional missed tackle was met with serious Manny Diaz skepticism, for the most part the Longhorns looked like some seriously improved tacklers. Downfield coverage was solid from the DBs all night, and New Mexico State never had a chance to throw the ball downfield. However, Texas didn't seem to want to cover their TEs, as New Mexico State dumped the ball of for six or seven yards more often than not. The defensive line was fun to watch last night. Ced "wet the bed" Reed had a nice sack and Hassan Ridgeway literally tackled two people at once. Jeffcoat was JJ Swattin' passes and DT Chris Whaley was sniffin' out screens like it was nobody's business. If the LB's continue to improve, we might stop cringing every time they step on the field. NMSU only had two sustained drives of 50 plus yards, and excluding a very nice TD pass from McDonald, I've got nothing but love for the defense last night. (Link)

Barking Carnival (Texas Longhorns) NMSU is quite bad (though their coaches, to their credit, ran the only logical game plan they could) and it took us a quarter and a half to getting around to demonstrating that. Once we spat the bit, I was pretty impressed with the weapons at our disposal. And I liked seeing Ash struggle early and then right himself. Though only in retrospect. BYU's defense is very sound and should give us a very solid picture of where we are on offense. The defense has every opportunity to make a statement in Provo if we can stop the run. We'll see on special teams. (Link)

Frogs O War (TCU Horned Frogs) call me no-longer-convinced that TCU's offense is much improved over last year. Sure, LSU is a top-grade defense (we think) but this evening felt to me like a time machine. Pachall didn't spread the ball around; Boykin throws a soft ball that gives safeties time to make a play, and TCU's receivers just aren't play makers. Add false starts, stupid penalties, muffed punts, and a lot of dropped passes, and the whole package was very . . . 2012. Which means that unless something changes very quickly, we can expect TCU to do OK against OK teams; but top grade teams aren't going to have to worry too much about the Frogs. They especially won't have to worry about the Frogs' offense. (Link)

The Smoking Musket (West Virginia Mountaineers) It was far from the effort we'd all hoped to see, but WVU avoided the unthinkable with a 24-17 win over the FCS William and Mary Tribe to open the season in Morgantown. The Mountaineers were unable to get the ground game rolling the way they wanted to until late in the game but got the yards when it mattered. After driving down the field without problem on their first possession, the WVU offense promptly stalled, tallying just a single yard in the second quarter as the 'eers fell behind 14-7. The deficit grew to 10 at the half before the Mountaineeres rallied in the third quarter and tied it up with a field goal and 69 yard TD catch by Ronald Carswell from Paul Millard. Things picked up in the fourth and the turning point was punter Nick O'Toole's booming kick from his own end zone that flipped the field as the WVU offense was unable to escape their own 10 yard line. William & Mary then lost yardage on three plays and when WVU got the ball back they were on the 50. Eight plays later Wendell Smallwood provided the winning points with a hard-fought 2 yard touchdown run. (Link)