Sunday With Guy
11/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 12, 2006
The Baylor football team will close out its 2006 football season Nov. 18 at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco against 16th-ranked (both polls) Oklahoma at 11:10 a.m. (Central) on Fox Sports Net. The Bears, 4-7 overall and 3-4 in the Big 12 Conference, need a victory over the 8-2 (5-1 in Big 12) Sooners to record their first-ever .500 season record in the 11-year history of the Big 12 Conference.
Here are Baylor coach Guy Morriss' thoughts on yesterday's 66-24 loss at Oklahoma State:
How was quarterback Blake Szymanski's performance against the Cowboys?
"This is only his second ball game to play in. There were some people around him that didn't help him a lot every play. We had some bad routes. Our protection broke down at times, although it was better than the [Texas] Tech game. Some of it was him. He had a couple of poor throws, and he would try to hang onto one receiver too long rather than trying to find the open guy."
Does Szymanski have a firm grasp of the offense?
"I feel like if you sat him down and asked him his progression on almost any route he could tell you, but when you are operating on the field, things are happening a lot faster. There are people coming at you and all that kind of stuff. It's just a process of being in the environment and playing games long enough to feel comfortable with it. I think the more he plays, the more the better he is going to be. Right now he's struggling a little bit."
How was the energy for the rest of the team?
"I thought our energy was good. We just had too many mental mistakes. The trigger guy is counting on the receivers to be where they are supposed to be, and they aren't there. We need to be at our best protecting him because he's a young guy so that he can have that extra half second or second to look things over."
Do you think Oklahoma State tried harder to pressure Szymanski?
"They like to pressure you anyways. We only had two sacks, but there were some hurries where he had to scramble. It disrupted his rhythm, and that's a lot tougher for a young quarterback making only his second start."
What went wrong with the defense?
"I just spent a couple minutes with Bill [Bradley]. It's just more of the same for them: guys are just not getting in the gaps, not getting lined up right, missed tackles, and poor communication...There's no reason for it. I'll just keep beating them over the head with it for another week. Maybe I'll simplify it some more. We've got to do something to help them. As coaches, we have got to find a way to get them lined up right and make sure that we're not asking to much of them or confusing them with too much so that we can communicate and be able to execute."
Is it hard to finish a game that gets out of hand like this one?
"You always try to make plays. You can't worry about the scoreboard. As you're calling the game, you're wondering why we aren't able to execute as well as we would like to either. I always want to get to the office earlier when we lose than when we win to find out what happened or what we did not do correctly to get beat."
Do you know who is going to return punts next week?
"We'll probably put Carl [Sims] back there to handle punts. It depends on whether Queito's [Teasley] ankle is well or not. He and [Mikail] Baker are back there."
Are the players still going to be excited about playing Oklahoma after being eliminated from a bowl?
"We've got a great opponent coming in here. Again, I'm speaking for me, now. I get excited about playing Oklahoma. If I'm a player, I would be excited if it's my last hoorah as a football player here at Baylor as a senior, and my parents are going to be here watching me. It's just something I like to do is play football. I'm hoping that they will take that approach. The challenge for us as coaches is that we obviously need to do something different as far as ball security, execution and details because that's the stuff that's killing us right now."
Baylor Sunday Notes: Senior P Daniel Sepulveda ranks second nationally and in the Big 12 with his 46.466 average, just a fraction behind Oklahoma State's Matt Fodge's 46.472 mark ... In seven Big 12 games, Sepulveda has averaged a league-leading 48.4 yards per punt with a league-best net of 43.2 and just one touchback in 37 punts ... As a team, Baylor ranks sixth nationally and first in the Big 12 in net punting with a 38.70 average (43.2 average in Big 12 play) ... Baylor had a season-low three penalties (for 30 yards) at Oklahoma State ... The Bears have scored 21 or more points in six consecutive conference games for the first time since a seven-game run vs. league foes in 1986 ... 11 different Bears have caught a TD pass this season and 17 players have registered at least one reception overall ... WR Trent Shelton has now recorded at least one reception in 44 consecutive games, the fourth-longest active streak in I-A ... WR Dominique Zeigler moved into second place on Baylor's career receptions list and now has 164 career catches ... Zeigler moved into an eighth-place tie on Baylor's single-season receptions list; he now has 54 on the year and joined Reggie Newhouse, Gerald McNeil and Lawrence Elkins as the only Bears to ever record 50-plus receptions in multiple seasons ... Shelton moved into sole possession of 10th place on Baylor's single-season receptions list; he now has 51 receptions on the year ... Zeigler and Shelton became the first Baylor teammates to both record 50-plus receptions in the same season ... Zeigler has recorded at least one reception in 31 consecutive games. He also has at least two receptions in each of those 31 games ... The Oklahoma game marks the final home game for 32 Baylor seniors ... Baylor is 0-15-0 all-time against Oklahoma, including 0-7-0 in Waco ... The Bears have won nine games since the start of the 2005 season, four in 2006 and five in 2005, which matches the program's combined win total of the 2002, 2003 and 2004 seasons when they recorded three victories each year.
