Sept. 16, 2007
After improving to 2-1 on the season with Saturday's 34-27 victory over Texas State at Floyd Casey Stadium, the Baylor football team hits the road to Saturday's 6 p.m. (Eastern) game at Buffalo, a member of the Mid-American Conferences. The 1-2 Bulls, coming off a 45-24 loss at No. 12 Penn State, will be playing their home opener after three consecutive road games to open the season.
Here are Baylor coach Guy Morriss' thoughts on the Texas State game and Saturday's game at Buffalo:
Opening Statement:
Morriss: "Well we didn't play as well as we hoped, but we did enough to get a win. I've been through almost all of the film and it's nothing we can't fix. And that's what we've got to do. We need to get it fixed before we go to Buffalo."
Did you think that you should have dominated Texas State?
Morriss: "Dominate is not a word I prefer to use because you don't really do that much these days anymore. But I thought we could have played better. The first series offensively we threw a pick, and there were two or three bad throws in that whole series. We come back and score two touchdowns, but then the next time we touch the ball, we throw another interception. It was at that point, when we threw the interception, we went to sleep a little bit. We came out in the second half and in three series in a row we go three and out. But then we scored again. It was just a very inconsistent effort with mistakes that you don't like to see. Defensively, we made a lot mental mistakes. We didn't get lined up right. We didn't in the right gap. We had some blown coverage and didn't communicate well. From a special teams standpoint, we had a holding and they got a conversion on a fake punt. We just didn't react and play it very well. That part is disappointing. You kind of wonder where we were mentally. I thought we would play a lot better than we did."
Why do you think your guys played like they did?
Morriss: "I don't know if Texas State was one of those where we just weren't focused because we took them lightly because of the game they played the week before. It's hard to answer. I think Texas State played their best football game of the three. They played well last night. I don't know. It's hard to put your finger on because we warned them all week about that. They have got to be ready to play every time they step on the field."
Were you impressed with running back Jay Finley?
Morriss: "I know he started off well. I think he gave us a spark. He is definitely going to be our guy. He did enough to earn a start at Buffalo."
Talk about the performance of Krys Buerck.
Morriss: "I thought he had a nice game. He had a drop, but caught seven balls for 85 yards and a touchdown. He's got a good feel for the missile screen that he scored on last night. He had a couple of blocks that he just leveled a couple guys, and that's good to see. He played with a lot of confidence. He made a couple freshman mistakes, but if he continues to catch the ball and give us that kind of effort, then we can live with a few freshman mistakes, I can tell you that."
How do you feel about the progression of the offense after two straight 400-yard passing games?
Morriss: "I don't know the right words, but we will take 400 yards. There was just another couple hundred yards out there to be had last night if we made better throws and had less drops and pressure. There is a lot more juice in the system, I think. We'd like to be able to kick in another hundred yards on the ground. We are really impressed with Finley and hoping he could give us that spark."
What are you going to tell the guys this week about focus for your long road trip to Buffalo?
Morriss: "Some of the guys on my staff tell me that Buffalo is a pretty good football team. They've got some good athletes that make plays. We're going to have to zero down on our focus and eliminate our mental mistakes. It's a long flight. We will probably give them a walk through and loosen them up on Friday, see the stadium and so forth. But we have to have an all business type attitude and come out and play with a lot of energy."
Baylor Sunday Notes: Sophomore QB Blake Szymanski has become the first Baylor signal caller to throw for 400 yards in consecutive games after a 411-yard performance against Texas State, a performance which just a yard shy of his school-record effort against Rice a week earlier ... Szymanski has thrown 11 TD passes on the season (6 vs. Rice and 5 vs. Texas State) ... Szymanski needs just one more scoring pass to crack the school's single-season top 10 list and just nine to break Shawn Bell's Baylor single-season mark of 19 which he set in nine games a year ago ... 11 Bears have registered at least three receptions on the 2007 season ... Baylor has scored 76 points in its last two games, its most in a two-game span since totaling 76 in victories at SMU (28-23) and vs. Samford (48-14) to open the 2005 season ... Baylor has nine sacks on the season, just two shy of its 12-game total (11) a year ago ... The Bears have outscored their opponents 35-7 in the first quarter this season ... Baylor and Buffalo have never met in football ... The teams will play at Waco on Sept. 11, 2010, to complete the two-game series ... Baylor is bidding for its second 3-1 start in three seasons (2005) and just its third (2005, 1996) in the past 12 seasons ... Junior Rover Dwain Crawford recorded a career-high tying 11 tackles against Texas State, while sophomore FS Jordan Lake had a career-best 10 stops.
