The UCLA Bruins football team will play Baylor in the
Holiday Bowl in San Diego on Dec. 27. So, who exactly are these Baylor Bears?
It might be best to start with who they are not.
They are not Robert Griffin III’s Baylor Bears. The Heisman
Trophy winner is the starting quarterback for the Washington Redskins these
days. But even though Baylor lost a first-round quarterback to the NFL, the
football team was left in two capable sets of hands.
The first pair belongs to receiver Terrance Williams. He is
making a variety of All-America teams and breaking even more school records.
Williams leads the nation with 1,764 receiving yards and was a finalist for the
Fred Belitnekoff Award. (Marqise Lee of USC won the award).
Williams holds the school record for receiving yards and is
second in school history in receiving TDs with 12 and receptions with 95. He
needs 236 yards in the Holiday Bowl to become only the second player in NCAA
football history with 2,000 receiving yards in a season. The way Baylor runs its offense, 236 receiving
yards is not out of the question.
Trevor Insley from Nevada is the only college receiver with
more than 2,000 receiving yards in a season. He caught 134 passes for 2,060
yards in 1999. Only two receivers have more than 1,900 receiving yards in a
season, Michael Crabtree at Texas Tech and Troy Edwards at Louisiana Tech.
Nick Florence, Baylor’s senior quarterback, has more than
delivered after RG3 left the team. Florence is 174 yards shy of breaking
Griffin’s school record for passing yards in a season. Florence is also six
touchdown passes short of breaking Griffin’s school record in that category.
Florence leads the nation with an average of 387.7 yards per
game of total offense. He is an academic All-American, the fourth quarterback
from Baylor to earn that honor. Of course, the last quarterback to do it was
Griffin in 2011.
Suffice it to say Baylor can put up some points. The team
can put up points at Oregon Ducks pace. The Bears might have a more potent
offense than USC. The Bruins will have their hands full, but then again, USC
was supposed to give them a handful, too.
