Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
 
HOUSTON – Going into a Kinder's Texas Bowl matchup versus LSU (8-4) on New Year's Eve, Baylor (8-4) is riding a six-game winning streak that started more than two months ago with a 59-35 road win over Texas Tech.
 
But Baylor coach Dave Aranda said it's "really important" that the Bears "finish what we started."
 
"I think there's some momentum going," Aranda said after Saturday night's Texas Rodeo Bowl at NRG Arena. "You get that momentum by winning, and that's what we've been able to do. And we've got to be able to continue to do that, in any circumstance. I think if we do that, it puts us in a good position for next year, to be able to win some more. We've worked really hard to win. This is going to be a tough game to win, but we need to win this game."
 
LSU coach Brian Kelly said that's the challenge of facing Baylor is "they believe they're going to win."
 
"The game is such an interesting one in that momentum, belief, confidence, they all play a role," Kelly said. "When teams are fairly equal – and that's what the case is – all those things that I just mentioned play a role. You're playing a team that believes they're going to win. They've won games that they hadn't won in a long time. They've gotten all that out of the way. So, that's probably the biggest challenge."
 
Agreeing with Kelly, Aranda credits the team's six-game winning streak to a confidence that has built with every win.
 
"You get a small win, then you start believing a little bit more," he said. "I think to have real strong belief without evidence, it's hard to do, especially when there's a lot of noise. To get a little bit of success, get a real strong belief, can allow you to get a bigger success. And that's continued to build throughout."
 
Senior receiver Hal Presley said the turnaround from a 2-4 start began with players "taking it more seriously as they saw their teammates being hurt about (the three-game losing streak."
 
"For me, there were three games in a row where I cried," Presley said. "And those tears were because I'm hurting actually because I love this sport. I feel like, just as a collective, we all wanted to see everybody happy. And we just came together and made it work."
 
Redshirt sophomore linebacker Keaton Thomas, a first-team All-12 pick who has a team-high 107 tackles, said it wasn't that "anything shifted" after the sixth game and a bye week.
 
"I think it just took a second to make sure everybody molded together," Thomas said. "Sometimes, we were so focused on trying to make the play instead of doing our job, we would mess up at times. It always comes down to four or five plays in the game. And it happened to us that on those four or five plays, some of us got selfish, and we made a mistake and ultimately lost the game."
 
'ROOTING FOR LSU . . . EXCEPT THIS GAME'
 
Aranda, who spent four years at LSU and was the defensive coordinator for the Tigers' 2019 national championship team, said he had "so many good memories . . . and such great respect and appreciation" for the school in Baton Rouge, La.
 
"For how my family was treated and just all of it," he said. "I'm rooting for LSU . . . except for this game."
 
But Thomas said Aranda hasn't focused or even talked that much about his time at LSU going into the bowl game prep.
 
"Coach Aranda is cool, calm, collected," Thomas said. "He's a big Zen guy, like a Zen master. So yeah, he keeps it calm."
 
With his mom's side of the family from Louisiana, Thomas said whenever he was "at their house, we were watching LSU."
 
"And now, they're going for us, just for this one game," he said. "But it's going to be fun, for sure. I know they're excited, they're pumped about it."
 
Similarly, Presley said he grew up watching LSU from his home in Mansfield, Texas, "knowing them as DB-U (Defensive Back University)."
 
"And I feel like it hasn't changed much," said Presley, who has hauled in 28 passes for a career-high 389 yards and three touchdowns. "So, I'm excited to go against them. I feel like it's going to be good for me."
 
HEY, I KNOW THAT GUY
 
As a senior at Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Fla., Thomas had 60 tackles, two sacks, four pass breakups and seven interceptions in the Conquerors' run to the Class 2A state championship.
 
Playing both ways as a safety and wide receiver, he also made 49 catches for 620 yards and six touchdowns over his last three seasons. His QB on that 2021 championship team was 17-year-old LSU freshman Colin Hurley, who reclassified to the 2024 class.
 
"I think that year, he broke a record at Trinity Christian," Thomas said of Hurley, who threw for 2,146 yards and 24 touchdowns during that championship season when he was a high school freshman. "He was a dog. I used to catch passes for him, too, in games where they put me out at the X (receiver). So yeah, that's my boy."