Baylor
1-1Big 12 · Dave Aranda, year 7 (37-38) · McLane Stadium · 45,140 · 38,642 avg in 2026
LastW 44–3 vs Prairie View A&M · Sat Sep 12 · Nate Bennett 301 pass yds, 2 TD, 2 INT
Nextvs Louisiana Tech · Sat Sep 19 · 4 pm ET · McLane Stadium · Baylor by 19.5 · series 5-1, won the last 2 · Game preview
Updated Tue Sep 15 · through week 2
All 92 stats
FBS rankings · 2026 season · all stats vs 136 FBS programs
| Player | # | G | Cmp/Att | Pct | Yds | Y/A | TD | INT | Rate | ZPR | QBR | Adj ANY/A | Sack% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +0.29 EPA/play | 2 | 1 | 27 / 54 | 50 | 333 | 6.2 | 2 | 1 | 110.3 | 49 | — | 5.8 | 1.8 | |
Yards by week → | ||||||||||||||
| +0.43 EPA/play | 12 | 1 | 23 / 35 | 65.7 | 301 | 8.6 | 2 | 2 | 145.4 | — | 29.6 | — | — | |
Yards by week → | ||||||||||||||
| Player | # | G | Car | Yds | Avg | TD | Long | Stuff% | 10+% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workhorse · +0.19 EPA/play | 35 | 2 | 40 | 157 #54 FBS | 3.9 | 0 | 13 | — | — | |
Yards by week → WorkhorseBuilt to take 20+ carries per game. Volume is the value. 5 of 15 RBs we've classified this way this season. Season receipt Weight225 lb 92th percentile · FBS RBs, min. 40 carries Rush TD rate0.0% bottom 11th percentile · FBS RBs, min. 40 carries Plays like View Dawson Pendergrass's full player page | ||||||||||
| +0.18 EPA/play | 11 | 2 | 24 | 99 | 4.1 | 1 | 15 | — | — | |
Yards by week → | ||||||||||
| Player | # | G | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | Long | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slot Technician · +0.66 EPA/play | 6 | 2 | 22 | 258 #7 FBS | 11.7 | 1 | 32 | |
Yards by week → Slot TechnicianRuns precise routes in tight quarters. Volume player who keeps chains moving. 5 of 58 WRs we've classified this way this season. Season receipt Reception volume22 100th percentile · FBS WRs, min. 12 receptions TD rate4.5% bottom 21th percentile · FBS WRs, min. 12 receptions Trait fingerprint Plays like View Gavin Freeman's full player page | ||||||||
| +0.87 EPA/play | 4 | 2 | 6 | 83 | 13.8 | 1 | 21 | |
Yards by week → | ||||||||
| -0.06 EPA/play | 3 | 1 | 5 | 77 | 15.4 | 0 | 27 | |
Yards by week → | ||||||||
| Player | # | G | Tot | Solo | TFL | Sack | Hur |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| 13 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 4 #9 FBS | 2 #26 FBS | 1 | |
| 99 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Player | # | G | Tot | Solo | Ast | TFL | Sack | PD | INT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 2 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 10 | 2 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 56 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Player | # | G | Tot | PD | INT | TFL | Sack |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| 24 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 1 #22 FBS | 0.5 | 0 | |
| 25 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Player | # | G | FG M/A | FG% | XP M/A | Pts | Long |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 98 | 2 | 4/6 | 66.7 | 6/6 | 18 | 46 |
| Player | # | G | No | Yds | Avg | Long | In20 | TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 94 | 2 | 5 | 250 | 50 | 54 | 1 | 1 |
Net average is unavailable — CFBD's punting feed carries gross yards only, with no return-yardage or touchback deduction.
| Player | # | G | No | Yds | Avg | TD | Long |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +1.14 EPA/play | 15 | 2 | 4 | 24 | 6 | 0 | 11 |
2026 stat leaders · Baylor
through 2 games
2026 stat leaders · BaylorGavin Freeman leads Baylor with 258 receiving yards through 2 games.
How They Play · 2025Baylor fields a strong pass-first offense behind a leaky, bend-don't-break defense.
Percentile vs all FBS, based on this season's per-game production. Bar = where this team ranks — right is better.
Baylor reads strongest in explosive plays allowed (top 14%) and success rate (top 27%); the crux lives in success rate allowed, where Baylor sits at the 29th percentile.
offense · strengths lead
defense · higher bar = harder to play against
hidden math · special situations
Home-field advantage · Baylor · 2018–present · FBS opponents
Baylor is worth +1.2 points more at home than on the road.
Bottom tenth of FBS, 7th percentile of 133 programs
55% at home, 46% away against FBS opponents since 2018 (24–20 home, 19–22 away). Interval ±4.0.
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge — per-team modelling was tested and did not survive scrutiny (why) — and the books use about 3. Against the closing line, Baylor has beaten the number by −4.2 more at home than away over 71 games — inside the ±6.9 that many games can resolve. Results here cannot tell the flat number apart from the building, and that is the honest reading of nearly every FBS stadium.
McLane Stadium seats 45,140 and has averaged 94% full (42,444, 28 games reported). Visitors cover a median 522 miles to get here since 2018 — 42nd-longest of 135 FBS venues, inside the ordinary range. For the home side it is genuinely home ground: 28% of the 2026 roster (39 of 139 located players) grew up inside 100 miles of the stadium.
Edge = half the gap between average home margin and average road margin, FBS opponents only, non-neutral games since 2018; the interval is 95%. Market line: closing spread, seasons with lines on file. Trip length is straight-line miles from the visiting team's campus to the venue, measured across all 52 home games since 2018.
More in this tab
Position battles
Positional competition · RB room
The carries are split. The job isn’t.
Dawson Pendergrass and Caden Knighten split the carries (40/63 vs 23/63) -- but the job isn't split the same way.
Scheme claims
Fourth-quarter reliability, corrected
Baylor's 4th-quarter offense, before and after garbage time
Raw Q4 EPA/play ranks 35th percentile in FBS. Strip out snaps taken with a blowout margin and it climbs to the 42nd — the correction is the finding, not a footnote.
Standard downs vs. passing downs
Does Baylor hold up once the down-and-distance turns against them?
40th percentile success on standard downs, 96th on passing downs — a 56-point gap between the two.
View all FBS teams as a table
| Team | Standard-downs percentile | Passing-downs percentile |
|---|---|---|
| App State | 44th | 90th |
| Arizona | 92nd | 86th |
| Arkansas | 60th | 80th |
| Auburn | 75th | 55th |
| Ball State | 12th | 24th |
| Baylor | 40th | 96th |
| Boise State | 58th | 46th |
| Boston College | 27th | 56th |
| Buffalo | 7th | 14th |
| California | 9th | 25th |
| Central Michigan | 16th | 6th |
| Charlotte | 73rd | 83rd |
| Clemson | 1st | 19th |
| Coastal Carolina | 61st | 52nd |
| Colorado | 35th | 77th |
| Colorado State | 82nd | 91st |
| Delaware | 70th | 31st |
| Duke | 20th | 29th |
| Eastern Michigan | 52nd | 10th |
| Florida Atlantic | 43rd | 87th |
| Florida International | 46th | 43rd |
| Florida State | 28th | 65th |
| Georgia Southern | 24th | 45th |
| Georgia Tech | 58th | 44th |
| Hawai'i | 18th | 41st |
| Iowa State | 4th | 23rd |
| Jacksonville State | 65th | 82nd |
| Kansas | 70th | 35th |
| LSU | 33rd | 98th |
| Liberty | 14th | 59th |
| Louisiana | 19th | 92nd |
| Louisville | 96th | 70th |
| Memphis | 69th | 65th |
| Michigan | 2nd | 62nd |
| Michigan State | 62nd | 29th |
| Middle Tennessee | 87th | 68th |
| Missouri | 36th | 85th |
| Navy | 98th | 59th |
| Nevada | 77th | 52nd |
| New Mexico State | 45th | 75th |
| Norfolk State | 16th | 9th |
| North Dakota State | 86th | 27th |
| North Texas | 49th | 68th |
| Ohio | 38th | 17th |
| Ohio State | 90th | 40th |
| Oklahoma State | 41st | 49th |
| Ole Miss | 94th | 50th |
| Oregon | 35th | 33rd |
| Oregon State | 10th | 38th |
| Pittsburgh | 30th | 76th |
| Purdue | 83rd | 88th |
| Rutgers | 30th | 71st |
| Sacramento State | 23rd | 14th |
| Sam Houston | 78th | 61st |
| San Diego State | 4th | 40th |
| San José State | 54th | 22nd |
| South Alabama | 50th | 73rd |
| South Florida | 91st | 52nd |
| Stanford | 76th | 15th |
| Syracuse | 48th | 64th |
| TCU | 93rd | 8th |
| Tennessee | 65th | 78th |
| Texas | 72nd | 94th |
| Texas A&M | 85th | 72nd |
| Texas Tech | 88th | 48th |
| Troy | 22nd | 59th |
| Tulane | 31st | 2nd |
| Tulsa | 56th | 1st |
| UAB | 65th | 81st |
| UNLV | 51st | 7th |
| USC | 97th | 99th |
| UTSA | 99th | 29th |
| Utah State | 4th | 93rd |
| Vanderbilt | 80th | 12th |
| Wake Forest | 56th | 97th |
| Washington | 81st | 4th |
| Washington State | 8th | 3rd |
| Western Kentucky | 25th | 34th |
| Western Michigan | 39th | 20th |
| Wisconsin | 13th | 18th |
| Wyoming | 65th | 36th |
Halftime identity
Baylor by half
1st-half offense ranks 52nd percentile in FBS; 2nd-half, 13th — competitive snaps only, garbage time excluded from both halves.
Tendency drift
Season by season
How Baylor’s current staff calls plays, year over year
Pass defense by zone
Pass-depth identity
What this team throws, and gives up, by depth.
On short throws (≤19 air yards), Baylor’s passing game completes a completion rate below the FBS mean (63.2% vs 68.3% league-wide, shrunk toward the mean for its 79-play sample) — mid-pack, 5 of 41 qualifying offenses.
We won’t show a deep-ball (20+ air yards) leaderboard here, on either side of the ball: even a full season of charted plays gives most teams well under 30 deep attempts — too thin to tell a real tendency from noise, so we won’t guess. Same refusal for yards-after-catch allowed and where a team’s attempts land by zone: both measured and both came back statistically indistinguishable from season-to-season noise.
Ratings
Comparable teams
Most similar programs · Baylor
Most similar programs · BaylorReads like
Matched on how the programs are built — tier, prestige band, kind of fanbase, conference, voice and roster size — not on this season's stats. A calibration, not a prediction.
Conditions
76°F average kickoff temp; 10% of games had measurable precipitation; 9 mph average wind.
Based on 77 home games with weather data.