Aug. 1, 2007

Tentative Fall Camp Roster
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Coach Guy Morriss' Baylor Bears report for fall camp on Aug. 1 and hit the field for the first time on Aug. 2 at 6 p.m. Baylor is slated to workout from 6-8:30 p.m. through Aug. 18 and all practices are closed to the public, as they were toward the end of the 2006 season and during spring ball. Classes on the Baylor campus begin Aug. 20 with the season-opener set for Sept. 1 at defending Mountain West Conference champion TCU.

"I've run enough sprints and lifted enough weights," said Morriss. "I'm tired of all that mess. I'm ready to get it on."

Baylorbears.com will provide daily practice updates as well as player profiles and interviews throughout fall camp.

Baylor returns 40 lettermen, including 11 starters, from its 2006 squad which went 4-8 overall (3-5 Big 12), but sustained four losses by 10 or fewer points.

Offensively, the Bears return four starters from last year's unit which averaged 23.6 points per game, Baylor's highest mark since 1996, and a school-record 275.0 passing yards per contest. Shawn Bell, who started 23 career games at quarterback, completed his eligibility, as did the Bears top rusher a year ago (running back Paul Mosley, 43.4 ypg) and six of their 10 leading receivers, including the top two-Dominique Zeigler (54 receptions) and Trent Shelton (53 receptions).

Three of the Bears' returning starters are along the offensive line--fifth-year senior guard Chad Smith, junior tackle Jason Smith, who has more career starts (20) than any returning Bear on either side of the ball, and junior guard Dan Gay. Junior wide receiver Thomas White, who averaged 14.3 yards on 26 receptions a year ago, is the only returning offensive starter at a skill position.

The Baylor defense, meanwhile, returns seven starters and eight of its top 10 tacklers, but it must replace All-Big 12 cornerbacks C.J. Wilson and Anthony Arline, as well as outside safety Maurice Linguist and nose tackle M.T. Robinson. That foursome combined to start 44 games in 2006, with Linguist (71 tackles) and Wilson (59 tackles), ranking third and fourth, respectively, on the squad in tackles. Baylor yielded 408.2 yards and 32.6 points in 2006.

Leading the Bears' defense in 2007 will be sophomore linebacker Joe Pawelek, a 2006 first-team freshman All-American who registered a team-high 86 tackles as a rookie. Senior linebacker Nick Moore, the Bears' second-leading tackler a year ago with 75 stops, also returns, as does junior rover Dwain Crawford, senior strong safety Brandon Stiggers, sophomore defensive end Jason Lamb, senior defensive end Geoff Nelson and junior defensive tackle Vincent Rhodes.

With the graduation of two-time Ray Guy Award winner Daniel Sepulveda and honorable mention All-Big 12 place-kicker Ryan Havens, there are big holes to fill in the Bears' kicking game. Junior Caleb Allen is expected to battle a pair of true freshmen, place-kicker Shea Brewster and punter Derek Epperson, for the top jobs. Sepulveda led the nation in punting as a senior in 2006 with his 46.5-yard average en route to unanimous consensus All-America honors, while Havens made 32-of-33 PATs and 11-of-14 field goals.

Coaching Staff Features Five New Faces

In the off-season, Baylor's coaching staff underwent a makeover as five new faces were added, and the dean of the Bears' staff, Larry Hoefer, was promoted to defensive coordinator.

After spending the past three seasons as running backs coach at the University of Arizona, Kasey Dunn is Baylor's new assistant head coach, special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach. Former University of Houston All-America wide receiver Jason Phillips will coach the Bears' inside receivers and serve as recruiting coordinator after helping his alma mater to three bowl games in four seasons. Morriss also hired former University of Houston safeties coach Clay Jennings, a graduate of Waco's La Vega High School, as Baylor's cornerbacks coach.

Cornell Jackson, who coached running backs at the University of New Mexico the past two years and has 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, is the Bears' new running backs coach. Eric Schnupp joined the staff as tight ends and assistant offensive line coach after working three seasons in a similar position at West Texas A&M. He will assist Morriss with the offensive line.

Hoefer, the only remaining member of Morriss' original staff, was named the Bears' defensive coordinator in late February when Bill Bradley was hired as secondary coach of the NFL's San Diego Chargers.

Lee Hays returns for his second season as Baylor's offensive coordinator and will also tutor the Baylor signal callers in 2007, while Gary Kinne (linebackers) and Don Wnek (defensive line) are back for their second and third seasons, respectively, in the Baylor program.

The 2007 Baylor coaching staff boasts more than 160 years of experience at the professional, collegiate and high school levels. Seven members of Baylor's staff played NCAA Division I football and five played professional football.

Baylor Continues To Improve Under Morriss

Introduced as Baylor's 24th head football coach on Dec. 11, 2002, Guy Morriss inherited a proud program that had fallen on hard times and produced just 13 victories in the six seasons (1997-2002) prior to his arrival. He and his staff have already posted more wins both overall (15) and in Big 12 play (seven) in four years than the Bears registered in the six previous years (13 overall/three Big 12) before Morriss' Central Texas arrival.

Morriss has directed Baylor to seven of its 11 all-time Big 12 Conference victories and its only two conference road wins, while improving the Bears' league win total in each of the last three seasons. He owns a 15-31 record in four seasons at Baylor and is 24-45 in six seasons as a head coach overall.

The only active Division I-A head coach to have played in a Super Bowl, Morriss, a Lone Star state native, continues the successful transformation of the Baylor football program. For the second consecutive year, the former NFL All-Pro offensive lineman will coach the Bears' offensive linemen. Under Morriss' leadership over the last four seasons, the Bears have produced ...

•More overall (15) and Big 12 (seven) victories than the program registered in the six years (1997-2002) prior to his arrival (13 overall, including three Big 12) in Waco.

•A school-record three Big 12 wins in 2006; the third consecutive year Baylor improved its league win total.

•A school-record 18 2006 Academic All-Big 12 honorees, which included a program-best 11 first-team selections and the program's second four-time pick in Daniel Sepulveda. Over the last four years, 45 Bears have earned Academic All-Big 12 recognition, including 24 first-teamers.

•Thirty-one (31) coaches All-Big 12 selections on the field in four years, just three shy of the program's total (34) from 1997-2002. Morriss and his staff have coached the program's only two-time, first-team coaches All-Big 12 selections in Willie Andrews and Sepulveda.

•The first two-time Ray Guy Award winner ever in Sepulveda, who first won the award as the nation's top collegiate punter in 2004 and then repeated in 2006 after leading the nation in punting with his 46.5-yard average.

•Baylor's first unanimous consensus All-American since 1986 and its first, two-time, first-team Academic All-American since 1990 in Sepulveda, the only Division I-A player to earn 2006 first-team Academic All-America honors in the classroom and unanimous consensus All-America status on the field.

•The first Baylor player to earn a season-ending Big 12 Coaches Player of the Year award in Sepulveda, the league's 2006 Special Teams honoree, and the first to earn a season-ending Associated Press award in linebacker Joe Pawelek, who received 2006 Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year honors.

•Multiple NFL Draft picks in the same year for the first time since 1999 with Sepulveda's (Pittsburgh, 4th) and cornerback C.J. Wilson's (Carolina, 7th) 2007 selections.

Another Tough Schedule On Tap For 2007 Bears

After playing seven games a year ago against teams that went on to earn bowl invitations, Baylor will face eight bowl teams in 2007, including six in Big 12 play. But, that's nothing new for coach Guy Morriss, as 28 times in his first 46 games (including 25 of 32 Big 12 contests) along the Baylor sideline he's faced an opponent who ended the season in a bowl game.

The Bears' 2007 opponents combined for an 85-67 (.559) record a year ago and eight earned bowl bids -- TCU (Poinsettia champion), Rice (New Orleans), Texas (Alamo champion), Kansas State (Texas), Texas A&M (Holiday), Texas Tech (Insight champion), Oklahoma (Fiesta) and Oklahoma State (Independence champion). Baylor's eight 2007 Big 12 foes went 60-43 (.583) a year ago and recorded all three of the league's bowl wins.

Six of Baylor's eight losses in 2006 came at the hands of eventual bowl-bound teams while it knocked off Texas Bowl participant Kansas State, 17-3, and bowl-eligible Kansas, 36-35.

Over Morriss' four seasons in Waco, his teams have tackled the nation's 55th- (2003), sixth- (2004), 28th- (2005) and 49th- (2006) most-difficult schedules according to the NCAA.

All Eyes On Quarterback Battle

A year ago, the focus on the offensive side of the ball was aimed at Baylor's new spread attack. This year, though, the attention will be directed at the five-man race to replace Shawn Bell as the Bears' starting quarterback. Bell, whose Baylor career was cut short when he went down with a season-ending knee injury late in the Texas A&M game, established virtually every school single-season and career passing record despite not playing more than nine games in any season. He missed the final three games of the 2006 season, but still set school single-season records for passing yards (2,582), attempts (383), completions (241), completion percentage (.629) and touchdowns (19) while directing the Bears to a 4-5 record and a school-record three Big 12 wins.

Fifth-year senior and Kent State transfer Michael Machen emerged from spring practice on top of the Bears' depth chart, but he'll have to fight off Tyler (Texas) Junior College transfer John David Weed, sophomore Blake Szymanski, redshirt freshman Tyler Beatty and junior walk-on Ryan Roberts, a transfer from Midwestern State, to start Baylor's Sept. 1 season-opener at TCU.

"Joe Paw" Looks To Build On Outstanding Rookie Season

Sophomore linebacker Joe Pawelek enjoyed one of the finest season's ever by a Baylor rookie, earning 2006 first-team freshman All-America honors from the Football Writers Association of America and second-team recognition from Rivals.com. The Associated Press' 2006 Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year, Pawelek also garnered conference Defensive Freshman of the Year honors from The Sporting News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Houston Chronicle as well as second-team All-Big 12 honors from the league's coaches.

He led the Bears in tackles with 86 stops (46 solos) while playing in every game with 10 starts. Pawelek tied for 10th in the Big 12 with 7.17 tackles per game, the highest per-game average of any conference freshman, and finished the season with 4.5 tackles for loss (No. 4 on squad), 2.0 sacks (T-No. 2 on team), one interception, four pass breakups (T-No. 2 on squad) and a team-high nine quarterback hurries.

Pawelek was the only Bear named to the Football Writers' Association of America's 2007 Preseason All-America Watch List.

Family Affair

The Bears' 2007 roster includes the sons of seven former Baylor football standouts, three of whom were All-Americans during their Baylor careers. True freshmen Matt Singletary, V.J. McElroy, Chris Francis and Brock Bomkamp join three other sons of Baylor legacies already in the program--sophomore offensive guard Sam Sledge, redshirt freshman receiver Ben Randle and sophomore running back Tony Anderson, who must sit out the season as a transfer from I-AA Southeast Missouri State.

Singletary's father, Mike, was a three-time All-American and two-time Davey O'Brien Award winner who is enshrined in both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame after standout playing careers at Baylor and with the NFL's Chicago Bears. McElroy's father, Vann, was a two-time All-America defensive back at Baylor who went on to play in two Pro Bowls with the NFL's Los Angeles Raiders. The younger Francis' father, James, earned 1989 All-America and Southwest Conference Player of the Year honors and was a first-round NFL Draft pick of the Cincinnati Bengals.

David Sledge was an All-Southwest Conference performer for the Bears in 1978. Alfred Anderson, the third-leading rusher in school history, and Ervin Randle, an eight-year NFL veteran with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs, were Baylor teammates in the early 1980s. Gregg Bomkamp lettered for the Bears from 1981 through 1984.

Getting Better Yard By Yard

Over the last four seasons Baylor has improved its national standing in 11 of the 14 major team statistical categories tracked by the NCAA. The categories in which the Bears ranked lower nationally in 2006 than they did in 2002, the year prior to Guy Morriss' arrival, were rushing offense, total defense and rushing defense.

Those improvements have obviously made the Bears more competitive. In 2002, Baylor lost five games by at least 40 points, but it has had just six such setbacks in four seasons under Morriss and three of those came in his first year.

Here's a look at Baylor's NCAA and Big 12 statistical rankings in the year prior to Morriss' arrival compared to its standing at the end of his fourth season along the Bears' sideline:

AFCA Salutes Baylor For Football Graduation Rate

Baylor was one of 34 NCAA Division I-A schools to have its football program honored with the 2007 Academic Achievement Award by the American Football Coaches Association.

In the most-recent AFCA survey, four institutions registered graduation rates of 90 percent or more for their 2001-02 freshman football class, including Northwestern and Notre Dame, which earned top honors from the Touchdown Club of Memphis with their 95 percent marks.

Baylor joined Big 12 schools Nebraska, Texas and Texas Tech among the 32 institutions who received honorable mention recognition with a graduation rate of 70 to 90 percent.

The Baylor football program was also recognized in the AFCA's 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2006 surveys.

Baylor Turns Over A New Leaf

Baylor ranked 113th nationally in turnover margin and forced just nine opponent miscues over the 11-game 2004 campaign, but the last two seasons it has reversed that trend. The Bears' defense has forced 56 turnovers (32 interceptions, 24 fumble recoveries) since the start of the 2005 season to rank second in the Big 12 and 13th nationally among Division I-A teams in that span. Baylor has come up with at least one turnover in 20 of 23 games since the start of the 2005 season, including 14 with two or more.

Baylor forced 34 turnovers over 23 games in Guy Morriss' first two seasons, compared to the 56 it has totaled over the last 23 outings. Here's a look at teams nationally with the most turnovers forced over the last two seasons:

Baylor Has 20/20 Vision

In four seasons under head coach Guy Morriss, Baylor has established a bit of a vicenary rule on the scoreboard. The Bears are 13-11 when scoring at least 20 points and 2-20 when scoring less than 20 points since the start of the 2003 season. Likewise, the Bears are 9-3 when holding the opponent to fewer than 20 points and 6-28 when allowing 20 or more points in that time.

Football Operations Headed To Campus In 2008

Ground was broken May 10, 2007, on the Alwin O. and Dorothy Highers Athletics Complex and the Simpson Athletics and Academic Center, a $34 million complex that will integrate the Baylor athletics department and football program into the campus environment for the first time since the late 1950s.

The lead gift for the privately funded project and the largest single gift in school history is from the estate of Alwin O. Highers Jr. of Alexandria, La. A native Texan and a 1939 Baylor business graduate, Mr. Highers was well known as the owner of Alexandria's Dr Pepper Bottling Co. He also was a dedicated supporter of Baylor athletics and in particular its football program, until his death in 2003. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, who still resides in Alexandria.

The focal point of the Highers Athletics Complex will be the 96,300-square-foot Simpson Athletics and Academic Center, which will be built on University Parks Drive adjacent to Baylor's Mayborn Museum Complex and the university's other athletic facilities that are part of the Julie and Jim Turner Riverfront Athletic Complex on the Brazos River.

A Baylor University graduate and generous Baylor supporter, Bob R. Simpson is a co-founder, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of XTO Energy Inc. of Fort Worth. His leadership at XTO has been recognized by numerous publications, including Barron's ("30 most respected CEO's in the world," March 27, 2006), Oil & Gas Explorer ("Executive of the Year," March 2006), Institutional Investor ("Best CEOs," January 2006), BusinessWeek ("The BusinessWeek Top 50 Performers," April 2006) and Forbes ("2,000 Leading Companies in the World," April 17, 2006). Simpson earned a bachelor's degree in accounting and finance, with magna cum laude honors, in 1970 and his MBA in 1971.

The first floor of the Simpson Athletics and Academic Center will include functions that are currently housed at Floyd Casey Stadium, such as a main athletics training room, equipment room, football team locker room, coaches' locker room and weight room. Floor two will hold administrative offices, the football office and meeting rooms, as well as an academic center which will benefit all Baylor student-athletes.

The Highers Athletics Complex will include three football practice fields, two with a natural surface and the other with artificial turf. Construction will take approximately 18 months and is expected to be completed by July 2008.