By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
           
Baylor football coach Matt Rhule said the difference between his first spring training two years ago and now is "night and day."
           
"I'll do a team meeting today where I'll put up the policies and procedures of spring ball. I pulled out my one from two years ago and deleted like 20 things," said Rhule, who will open his third spring drills on Wednesday. "It's because the guys understand what's expected and they work at a really high level now. . . . When you have a hard-working group, you don't need quite as many rules. You can sort of let them run with it. It makes it a lot more fun."
           
Coming off a 7-6 season and Texas Bowl victory over Vanderbilt, Rhule said he's taking a developmental approach to this spring and "asking every player just to get one percent better."
           
"I know that sounds philosophically easy," he said. "We're just asking each guy to kind of build their game a little bit. If we do that, we have a lot of young players who have played. But, they've had a chance now to step back after a year or two years and see where they are and what they need to do to become a really good player."
           
His message to a player like sophomore defensive tackle Rob Saulin is to make the transition from being the hunted to becoming a hunter.
           
"Some of our guys had to play before they were ready," Rhule said. "Robbie came in and played as a true freshman. He was a d-lineman who became an o-lineman who became a tight end. Not many guys do that. Now, he's getting ready for his redshirt sophomore years, he's 290 pounds and runs fast and is athletic. There's not many guys like him in the country.

"His mindset and a lot of our guys' mindset has to flip from I'm a young guy out there playing to I'm a grown man. That's what this spring will be about, each guy shifting their mindset, shifting their skill set a little bit to really develop."

One of the differences he's already seeing came from an eight-week offseason strength program where now he can say "we're strong enough on the offensive and defensive lines."
"I think now when you see our guys squat-testing and bench press-testing – we've always been fast – but we have the size and strength to go along with it," he said.

Baylor's six-win improvement, from 1-11 to 7-6, tied for the best in the nation among Power 5 conference programs. It might be even tougher to make another jump next season, which kicks off with an Aug. 31 home game against Stephen F. Austin.

"It's not easy, but it's a lot easier to go in with a one-win team or a two-win team and get them to be respectful, get them to be a good team. It's much harder to go from good to great," Rhule said. "That's because most of us are pretty happy being good. We spend a lot of time saying, 'Hey, at least we're not as bad as we once were.' It takes elite focus and elite accountability to become a great football team. It's hard."

Quarterback Charlie Brewer threw for 3,019 yards and 19 touchdowns and added 375 yards and seven TDs rushing as a sophomore, earning Texas Bowl MVP honors. He threw for a Texas Bowl-record 384 yards and also rushed for a career-high 109 yards, the most ever by a Baylor quarterback in a bowl game.

"Sometimes, you feel like have to put your team on your back," Rhule said. "I thought in the last two games, you saw a guy who didn't force anything. He just let the game come to him and made the routine putt. That was something David Wetzel said the other day, and I thought it was great. I think that's something Charlie has shown. We're always going to work with Charlie on his deep ball. And not just him, but our receivers on the timing of the deep ball. Because with Denzel Mims and Tyquan Thornton and Josh Fleeks and Chris Platt, we need to be an elite deep-ball team. So, we need to shore that up."

Instead of spreading the spring drills over a five-week period, Rhule said he decided to "do an intense spring ball over four weeks" and wrap it up with the spring game at noon Saturday, April 13, at McLane Stadium.