By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

Having already played more than half of his first recruiting class, starting five of them, Matt Rhule could turn to at least another true freshman this week and start a sixth.

The Bears (0-2), who face Duke (2-0) at 11:30 a.m. CDT Saturday in Durham, N.C., rank fifth nationally with the 15 true freshmen who have played and first with 18 first-time starters.

With quarterback Anu Solomon in concussion protocol, freshman Charlie Brewer will back up sophomore starter Zach Smith and has to be "ready to play" on Saturday, Rhule said.

"If I get a chance to play Charlie, I'm going to play him just for his development," Rhule said. "Charlie's in my office saying, 'Hey, I'm ready to play.' Would I have liked to (redshirt him)? Sure. To have two scholarship quarterbacks ÃÆ'Æ'à € ' ¢ÃƒÆ'Æ' ¢' ¬" we should be at four or five ÃÆ'Æ'à € ' ¢ÃƒÆ'Æ' ¢' ¬" both guys have to be ready to play.

"Obviously in the future, we'll figure things out. But, I just think where we are right now, all the young kids have basically said, 'Hey, Coach, I'm ready to play if you need me.' That's why they came here."

Rhule said there's no specific plan to get Brewer in Saturday's game. "In a perfect world, he wouldn't go in the game unless we've got a lead on somebody. But, he's a competitive guy, so he's fighting to get on the field."

Smith, who was in for just one play in each of the first two games, is making his fifth career start and first since throwing for 375 yards and three touchdowns in a 31-12 win over Boise State in the Cactus Bowl last December.

In Tuesday morning's practice, Rhule saw Smith show some leadership, "yelling at guys where to get lined up."

"If you go out there today, you'll see he's learned a lot from the chance to sit back there," Rhule said. "He had a little intensity and fire in him in everything he did, and I think he's going to ignite his team in any small way that he can."

Rob Saulin, who switched from defensive line to offensive line and finally to tight end, will likely become the sixth true freshman to start. A week after making his first start, former basketball player Ishmail Wainright is "unfortunately ill and will be out for some time," Rhule said before Wednesday's practice.

Listed as the backup behind Wainright in the two-deep that was released Tuesday, Saulin moves into the starting lineup. Senior Jordan Feuerbacher, who broke his left hand and missed the UTSA game, has "the potential of maybe playing this week, but I don't know that he will," Rhule said.

That leaves Saulin, sophomore Kyle Boyd and junior transfer Jayson Clements available at tight end, along with freshman Tyler Henderson and junior offensive tackle Josh Malin, a former tight end.

"I know the offensive staff was trying to quickly regroup before meetings and see if they need to put some other packages in," Rhule said. "We'll go out to practice, then regroup tonight and see if we like what we see. Rob's doing to be a really good tight end, Kyle Boyd's done a nice job, Jayson Clements has done a nice job. So those three guys, when called upon, they'll be ready."

In the first two games against Liberty and UTSA, Rhule said he saw a "tight" team that "feels a lot of pressure to win."

"That's not really the way to do things, you don't want to think about pressure," he said. "You want to have process in your life and know that if you keep doing things right, something good will happen. Especially in the first game, and maybe not as much in the second, I just feel like guys were being really tight. I think that's a mixture of not having won enough and then some of the off-field things. You see a group that's a little bit tight out there. So, we're trying to get them to, 'Let it go, man, let it rip. You lost two games, you're still here, go play.'''

Duke (2-0) ranks in the top 20 nationally in pretty much every defensive statistical category, allowing just 12.0 points, 131.5 yards passing and 43 yards rushing per game. The Blue Devils are coming off a 41-17 win over Northwestern.

"Defensively, they just play really, really hard," Rhule said. "They do a ton of things . . . and then they just don't beat themselves. They've played really well together so far. That's really one of our challenges this week. We don't want to use timeouts because we have too many guys on the field. OK, you got that out of your system, now let's go play the way we were trained to play."