By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
           
Trestan Ebner and R.J. Sneed had very different 2018 seasons.
           
Sneed had to "sit out of football" for the first time in his career, playing in just three games and getting a redshirt year, while Ebner had a monster game in the Texas Bowl victory over Vanderbilt with 199 combined yards rushing and receiving.
           
Their 2019 seasons started out very similar, though, as they combined for five touchdowns in helping the Baylor Bears open the year with an impressive 56-17 win over SFA Saturday night before a McLane Stadium crowd of 43,013.
           
Carrying over a fall camp that saw him earn a starting position and be named a game captain, Sneed had a career-high five catches for 57 yards and scored his first touchdowns on grabs of 11 and 21 yards from quarterback Charlie Brewer.
           
"So often, young people think about what they're not. I'm not as fast as (Chris) Platt, I'm not as tall as (Denzel) Mims," Baylor coach Matt Rhule said. "R.J. figured out . . . he's a tough guy, with great hands, who is really smart, who can run all day. So, he's accentuated the things that make him a really good player. His body control and ability to catch have been awesome. That's why I put him out there."
           
Ebner got the scoring started just over three minutes into the game, when he caught a pass from Brewer out of the backfield and turned it into a 16-yard touchdown. But, it was his run early in the second quarter that had everyone gasping, when he reversed field and turned what looked like a short gainer into a 21-yard touchdown that made it a 21-7 game.
           
"I saw a lot of white jerseys," said Ebner, who added an 11-yarder on the Bears' next series and added five catches for 40 yards and the one TD. "I saw a couple of guys coming from my right side and noticed their angle was off, so I figured I could reverse the field. It's one of those players where either you do it and it works out, or you look really stupid. So, I'm really glad it worked out."
           
Rhule said Ebner is one of the team's most dynamic players "and getting him the ball in space made a lot of sense."
           
"I thought, again, he just made the first guy miss," Rhule said. "We certainly had our share of missed tackles today, which we have to address, but I thought (Ebner) was a guy that really got us a lot of extra yardage at times."
           
After his Texas Bowl performance, Ebner said he came into this season with a lot of confidence.
           
"I just wanted to come in this season and capitalize on that game," he said.
           
Scoring three touchdowns on his seven touches for the night, Ebner said "that just goes to the guys blocking downfield for me. The receivers did a great job of perimeter blocking today. You just try to make the most of the opportunities you get. You never know how many touches you're going to get when you go into a game. You just play every play like it's your last."
           
While Ebner made the most of his two rushing carries, scoring both times, junior running back John Lovett finished with 108 yards and one touchdown on eight totes as the Bears piled up 268 yards on the ground and 518 yards total.
           
Sneed nearly matched his career total in one game. In eight previous games, he had six catches for 57 yards and no touchdowns. His first career TD reception came on an 11-yard pass from Brewer in the first quarter.
           
"I think it was good. It was the first two touchdowns of my career, so I think that was a great way to start the season," he said.
           
It went from good to great on Baylor's first series of the third quarter, when Sneed hauled in a 21-yard catch from Brewer and was able to tap his toe down before going out of bounds. After it was first ruled an incompletion, the play was reviewed and overturned.
           
"I knew I was in," Sneed said. "Once I caught it, and I saw he called it an incompletion, I started at him for a second because I just knew it was a touchdown. . . . Charlie made a check at the line, I got on top of the DB's toes and widened out and I saw the ball in the air and I knew it was mine."
           
Although it was tough to swallow at first, Sneed said redshirting last year "is the best thing that's happened to me."
           
"That made my body get mature, and I learned the offense even better than I did before," he said. "I think redshirting is not always a bad thing. And for me, it was the greatest thing that's ever happened."
           
With Sneed's second TD grab extending the Bears' lead to 42-7, redshirt freshman quarterback Gerry Bohanon saw his most significant playing time and engineered two scoring drives. Bohanon was 5-of-6 for 51 yards, throwing a nine-yard TD strike to Tyquan Thornton, and added 84 yards rushing on six attempts.
           
"I think you saw how much the team loves him," Rhule said of Bohanon. "He's running down the sideline and everyone is going nuts. They really care about him, so it was fun to see him get out there and play and have some extended time, because he certainly worked hard for it."
           
SFA scored twice in the fourth quarter against a host of Baylor reserves, as Rhule used 35 first-time players in the game.
           
"The standard doesn't change, whether you're a 1, 2 or 3," Rhule said. "At the very end, the standard doesn't change. . . . Playing smart disciplined football is what I want to see, and it looked like at times it was that way. I didn't see our guys talking trash, I didn't see our guys doing selfish things. I thought we looked like a good, clean football team."
           
Baylor returns to McLane Stadium to face UTSA (1-0) at 3 p.m. next Saturday. The Roadrunners are coming off a 35-7 win over Incarnate Word in the first Hometown Showdown of San Antonio rivals.