Grim and a little frustrated, Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel hustled up to the podium Tuesday at the Big 12 Media Days and immediately apologized for a delay at the Dallas airport that left him tardy for his appointed engagement.

Not long after Pinkel settled in, he was quickly peppered with queries about the immense talent – especially on offense – that he lost in the offseason to the NFL. Chase Daniel. Chase Coffman. Jeremy Maclin.

First, replacing Daniel, that love him/hate him quarterback that put Mizzou in the national spotlight and won two straight Big 12 North titles.

Pinkel shot straight: Former prep phenom (and Nebraska commit) Blaine Gabbert is the guy.

“Any time you have a transition quarterback,” Pinkel said, “everybody sits back and goes, ‘Wow, what's going to happen?’ When you lose a high level guy like that, hopefully, we can replace him with a high-level guy.”

Pinkel said he’ll bring along Gabbert, a sophomore, much as he did Daniel in his corresponding season. Daniel was inconsistent in 2006, alternating between excellent and average. He made “the leap” in 2007. Pinkel’s hoping the same for Gabbert.

He’s not so sure Maclin, the receiving and return whiz, can be replaced. But, he added, this version of the Tigers was his fastest.

On replacing two coordinators, Pinkel referenced the “Bill Belichick approach” of training and promoting from within. Pinkel the admitted he hasn’t lost two coaches, much less coordinators, in nine years at Mizzou.

***

Baylor’s Art Briles delighted the media with clever lines and quick answers. Briles kept referring to “turning hope into happen” throughout his interviews, because, at this point, that the Bears’ next step.

Briles talked a lot of about his quarterback, Robert Griffin, the fast, gifted sophomore quarterback. Griffin has helped with TV exposure, with recruiting, with fan recognition, with everything.

But Griffin, and his Bear teammates, won’t be sneaking up on anyone in 2008. Teams that narrowly escaped with wins – like Missouri, Nebraska and Texas Tech – learned their lesson.

“People are going to approach us differently on the other side, in other staff rooms and on other practice fields because they're going to come into Baylor with a different mindset than they did a year ago,” Briles said. “We understand that. We understand we're going to have to rise up and be better in all facets
of the game, not only physically, to deal with the charges that are going to come our way.”


Briles drew laughs for his stories about accompanying Jason Smith to the NFL Draft, and his comments on the wardrobe of some of his questioners. Briles is going to make an interesting push in the Big 12 South. He’s the first with the raw charm to recruit head-to-head with Mack Brown. His program doesn’t have the facilities, it doesn’t have the tradition, and it doesn’t have any recent success. But Baylor does have Briles.


***


There’s a curious, gentlemanly quality to the way Kansas Coach Mark Mangino handles himself in front of media. You tend to see a lot of different sides of the guy. You see the pride, the attention to detail, the self-made aspect. Just about every coach brings that to the table. But with Mangino it’s something a little more – a vulnerability, perhaps? A love for the little guy?


The coach talked with great care about recruiting quarterback Todd Reesing to KU several years ago, about how Reesing, tiny as he was, just had a confidence, a style, a belief that belied his looks. You could see why that might impress a guy like Mangino, who gets more comments about his appearance than he did his coaching.


Yes, Reesing runs around a little too much – and sometimes gets himself in trouble for doing it.


“But that's what makes him unique, you know, the idea that he believes in himself and that
he can make plays when there's not one,” Mangino said. “Kind of really reflects his personality; that he always thinks he can overcome. He always wants to prove the opposition wrong. Those traits have served him well.”


Good coaches tend to know – what’s best for each player is to fulfill their potential…through their own personality.


Also appreciated that Mangino admitted he likes to recruit “tough” players – read, guys a little rough around the edges – and that “sometimes we fail in that area, but we like kids that love to play this
game.”


***


Mr. Heisman and Big Game Bob was last to appear Tuesday, as Oklahoma took the podium.


The big questions for OU, of course, revolved around its offensive line. Everything else about the Sooners – QB Sam Bradford, the running backs, the extraordinary defense – is in place. But the line, which must replace three starters, remains a weakness.


“Mistakes they were making on day one, day two, they weren’t making on day 14 and day 15,” Bradford said. “I think we still need that progress once we’re in camp.”


Bradford also touched upon the “frustration” of never having won a bowl game. Especially when reporters, who have to find something negative about the kid, ask so often.


“It’s not something we like to do – “oh, we had a good season, let’s lose the last game,’” he said. “It’s starting to really to get to everyone.”



At one time, Bradford didn’t much care for the no-huddle offense, either.


“When we first switched to it, I didn’t it like it,” Bradford said. “It just seemed like chaos, it seemed like no one was on the same page. It sucked. If you would have seen us trying to run it the first couple days, you would have thought it was just a disaster.


“But the more time we spent on it, and the better we got, the more I fell love with it.”

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In preparation for Big 12 Media Days, Husker Locker will be counting down and breaking down each of the teams in the conference. We hope you view this series as more interesting, comprehensive and definitive than what you may find elsewhere. Where we can make strong takes – we will.

We rank the teams 12 to 1 in overall strength. Then we’ll provide for you the North/South breakdown – and the preseason All Big 12 team, as well.

Enjoy!

Today: No. 9 Baylor

Coach:Art Briles
2008 Record: 5-7

What’s Changed Since 2008: Expectations! All of the sudden, the national media knows where Waco is. Thank Briles and QB Robert Griffin, who wowed a lot of folks in a lot of losing causes. There’s now talk of the first Baylor bowl since 1994. The Bears have been the doormat of the Big 12 since its inception. Now, for once, there’s tangible hope.

2009 Non-Conference Schedule: It seems harder than it is, and is the key to BU’s bowl hopes. A game at Wake Forest isn’t only winnable – Baylor should win it; Wake’s due for a hard fall in 2009. Similarly, Connecticut lost a ton of talent to the NFL Draft and is starting at a five-win season. Northwestern State and Kent State are pushover wins. But take note: Pundits will be fooled if Baylor starts 4-0.

2009 Conference Schedule: And here’s why: BU still plays in the Big 12 South, and we don’t honestly see Baylor winning more than three league games. The schedule isn’t in the Bears’ favor. Home games vs. Oklahoma State and Texas don’t do Briles much good; Baylor won’t win them. Games at Missouri and Oklahoma don’t look promising either. That boils it down to winning three of these four: vs. Nebraska and Texas Tech (in Dallas) and at Iowa State and Texas A&M.

Offense: Spread/Mulitple
Coordinator:Briles, for intents and purposes. He’s smart, creative and a gambler. He incorporates elements of the old veer offense, Texas Tech’s “Air Raid,” I-formation, option football, and good, old-fashioned single-wing. Unlike some spread offenses, Briles has a package for short yardage situations. His offense is hard to stop, period. An NFL team should hire him.

Strength: Sophomore Griffin, the heir apparent to the Vince Young throne. In fact, Griffin (2,091 passing yards, 843 rushing yards) has more raw tools, if not the surrounding cast and offensive line. Griffin is faster and a smarter passer. But he doesn’t have Young/Tommie Frazier’s “literally impossible to sack” quality, though. Griffin tends to run around – a lot – East-West, and he got sacked 26 times last year. And now he won’t have that the franchise left tackle around to protect him. At running back, Jay Finley is a decent, bruising compliment.
Weakness:The offensive line needs to replace the two best tackles in recent school history, most notable Jason Smith, the first-round NFL Draft Pick who covered Griffin’s backside. The other tackle, Dan Gay, was a three-year starter.
Defense: 4-3
Coordinator: Brian Norwood, a Penn State guy who returned the Bears to some sanity in 2008, with a base scheme that takes advantage of the Bears’ talented safety Jordan Lake and a solid linebacker corps.

Strength: It’s really individual players, but expect Baylor to be pretty tough against the run. It has the 360-pound defensive lineman (Phil Taylor, a transfer from Penn State) to gum up the trenches, the tough-as-nails middle linebacker (Joe Pawelek) headed who reminds so much of Nebraska’s Barrett Ruud, and a free safety (Lake) who plays more like a strong safety against the run. The Bears will stack the box and force teams to beat them over the top

Weakness:Which teams will do. Baylor showed little ability to get to the QB in 2008, and teams completed 67.4 percent of their passes against the Bears. BU got a lot of turnovers, but 10 of them came in two games vs. Washington State (the worst major conference team we’ve ever seen) and Texas A&M. Always beware of the small sample size.

Special TeamsThe league’s best punter in Derek Epperson (38.8 yard average), and an up-and-coming kicker in Ben Parks, who made 6-of-9 tries last year. As a kick returner last year Mikail Baker average 25.3 yards per return and scored a touchdown. We expect receiver Kendall Wright to take over as the punt returner.

Intangibles: Casey Stadium is a morgue to play in, often half full of dispassionate, reasonably wealthy fans looking for a suntan. It’s simply no kind of home field advantage. It might be in 2009. But we’ll see. Usually, it’s home for the opposing team’s getaway day.

But BU has some intangibles in its favor. One of them is Briles, who is, right now, a smarter football coach than a lot of the guys in the Big 12. And he had the guts to put Griffin out there right away. Against all logical odds, Griffin rarely turned the ball over. And that’s because Briles put him in plays to succeed. It helped Baylor stay in a lot of games last year. A lot of coaches are just too stubborn to limit their playbook.

Best-Case Scenario: Baylor goes 4-0 in the non-conference and wins all four of those swing games, including beating Nebraska. We see at least four losses on Baylor’s slate no matter what.

Worst-Case Scenario: Griffin falls into a sophomore slump, and that defense is forced to bear too much of the burden of winning. Trust us: The defense can’t do it. The line isn’t good enough yet.

Our Take: It’ll come down to the last two games – A&M and Tech – as to whether Baylor makes a bowl. We think they do – at 6-6.

See other Big 12 Breakdowns: No. 12 ISU, No. 11 A&M, No. 10 CU, No. 9 BU, No. 8 KU, No. 7 KSU, No. 6 Texas Tech

Agree? Disagree?Tell us about it.

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Following a game when Baylor couldn’t collect even one first-down conversion, one miscue in particular haunted quarterback Robert Griffin.

With the Bears leading Nebraska 20-17 midway through the third quarter, the freshman stood just a yard away from the Husker goal line and a potential 10-point cushion. On the third down play, Baylor ran a quick option to the left, with Griffin searching for a hole.

The Husker line stuffed him for a loss. Then Baylor kicker Ben Parks missed a 19-yard field goal.

Nebraska scored on its ensuing possession en route to a 32-20 Baylor loss, the team’s fourth in the last five games.

BU coach Art Briles said the empty drive was a crucial point in the game – and part of a 0-for-10 effort on third down tries. Upon reflection, he said some of his play calls were worthy of a little criticism.

“We felt like we were executing pretty well, making some plays,” Briles said. “And to get down there and stalemate, it stings you a little bit.”

Griffin refused to make any excuses as the Bears dropped to 3-5, including 1-3 in the Big 12 Conference.

“The coaches can say they made bad calls, but what makes a bad call a good call is when players make plays,” Griffin said. “So it’s up to us to go out there and execute, and we can’t just keep falling back on the coaches’ play calling. We got to be football players out there and do the job.”

Griffin finished with 121 rushing yards on 16 attempts and passed for 134 yards, completing nine of 20 throws. The freshman’s rushing output was among his finest of the season behind only a 225-yard, two-touchdown effort against Washington State.

Saturday, Griffin ran for 99 in the first quarter. The Copperas Cove, Texas, native broke loose for a 40-yard scamper and 47-yard touchdown run during a first-quarter drive that led to a 14-7 advantage for the visitors.

“(The Huskers) are a good, tough defense – solid – but when it comes to running (laterally) and up and down the field, they couldn’t stick with us,” Griffin said. “That just shows you that when it gets down the field, nobody can run with us.”

Unfortunately for the Bears, they didn’t get many chances to prove it. BU ran 53 offensive plays to Nebraska’s 83, and the Huskers held the edge in time of possession by more than 17 minutes.

Unlike Baylor’s offense, the Huskers flourished on third down tries, converting 11 of 17. Trailing 30-20, the Bears put Nebraska into a third-and-16 situation with more than seven minutes left in the game.

They failed – again – in collecting a stop, blitzing one way while Nebraska ran a screen play in the opposite direction for 69 yards.

“It’s pretty frustrating,” said BU linebacker Joe Pawelek. “It’s showtime. Third and 16 – get off the field.”

It was one of a bevy of regrets downtrodden players expressed following the loss. Griffin said the Huskers were focusing on stopping the quick slant passes he had found success with earlier in the season.

He found it frustrating that Baylor failed to counter with a strong rushing attack.

“We spread them out and they went with us,” Griffin said. “We should have been able to run the ball all day on them and we didn’t do that.”

Among the silver linings for Baylor was Griffin establishing a program record for pass attempts without an interception (175). The freshman also became the first Bear quarterback with three career 100-yard games on the ground.

“(The Huskers) are not as fast as we are,” Griffin said. “The speed that we have on the field is an asset for us, so we try to utilize that. It just didn’t work out that good.”

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Seemed like old times around the Nebraska football team this week. After a 35-7 win over Iowa State, NU coaches were in the mood to joke and chat and players were trying to crack each other up as they were interviewed. Even the weather was comfortably crappy and familiar.



It felt like an October from eight years ago, when a speed bump like Baylor rolled into Memorial Stadium for its election-year pounding and rolled out by supper time as Husker fans tucked into a hot beef sandwich and a beer. It can be deceiving like that around Lincoln; easy to forget that NU is 4-3 and in the midst of its second major overhaul in five years.



We’re halfway through year one of the Bo Pelini Project, and the Big Red Nation has reason to be cautiously optimistic. After Nebraska looked undisciplined and disheveled in consecutive losses to Virginia Tech and Missouri, Pelini and Co. reshaped practices. Players responded. Two road games came at the right time for bonding purposes, and the Huskers enter the final stretch looking for three, possibly four wins.



“Now they are starting to have a better understanding of what we’re asking, how we game plan, how we adjust week-to-week,” Pelini said. “As that happens and they become more confident with it, that breeds confidence and it’s going to lend toward, as you’re together longer, less mistakes.”



But Nebraska is hardly polished. A “ho-hum” can turn into an “uh-oh” in the time it takes Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin to bust contain and scramble 60 yards to the house.



The Cornhuskers do not want to let this true freshman, or this team, linger around. A loss Saturday would be a tsunami to the team’s emboldened psyche.



On to the keys.



Trap Game: Here’s how I define a “trap” team: An opponent you should beat - but might overlook because of circumstances – that still has enough talented players to put a stake in your heart.



Baylor fits the bill. Not merely because of Griffin, either. The Bears have a better-than-average offensive line, and two defensive players – safety Jordan Lake and Joe Pawelek – who are NFL prospects. BU has a good punter, a dangerous freshman receiver in Kendall Wright, a shifty running back in sophomore Jay Finley, and some other decent pieces. Baylor doesn’t necessarily play a Big 12 team on television, but it has some guys who would belong on any team in the league,



And these Bears are believers. They crapped out on the road against Oklahoma State, but gave Connecticut – a team that’s about equal with Nebraska – a run for its money. After a disastrous first quarter, BU played Oklahoma evenly for the last three.



The Art Briles Factor:You’re going to know this guy’s name a lot better in four years when Baylor makes its next trip to Lincoln. By then, the Bears could very well have visited the San Antonio’s River Walk in preparation for an Alamo Bowl.



If Pelini is a good match for the Midwestern mentality of Nebraska football, Briles is the same for “who us?” mindset in Waco. Briles’ answer since he stepped on campus has been simple: “Yes, you.”



“He’s not going to let anything get us down,” Lake said. “He’s always in high spirits, talking about how we can do this. It rubs off on the coaching staff and it rubs off on the players. It all kind of trickles down.”



It helps that Briles has cultivated his own, quite successful version of the spread offense. It incorporates the option, bubble screens, wide-open stuff, even some I-formation power football. Like Houston under Briles, Baylor likes plays to “hit” quickly and overwhelm a defense. Briles will often spread a team out, then attack a softened middle. Plays are rarely drawn out unless Griffin does the drawing. It’ll be a tough adjustment for Nebraska’s defense, especially a secondary that, as of two weeks ago, still struggled with alignments and assignments.



Third verse, same at the first two: Nebraska will be facing its third consecutive bend-but-don’t-break 4-3 defense that’s going to give NU the short passing lanes take away the big play and the running game. Lake, the Bears’ best safety, is very good in run support, so Nebraska’s running backs will need to stick to their holes and not try to look for chances to bounce. Quarterback Joe Ganz, meanwhile, just has to do more of the same. Manage the offense, avoid the occasional blitz and find the holes in Baylor’s zone.



One thing to watch: NU’s offense seemed more effective on the road than at Memorial Stadium. Could it have anything to do with wanting to impress the home crowd, and tightening up as a result?



The Specials: Gotta keep harping on it, and now we’ve got a reason: Nebraska is 118th in net punting with 27.4 yards per punt. NU might as well just go for it fourth downs, if that’s all the Huskers are going to get out of a punt.



Baylor, meanwhile, has a solid punting game – 7th nationally. And a good kickoff and punt coverage unit, too. May mean nothing – what’s a couple punts in a blowout game? – and it may mean a lot. You figure the Huskers’ horse has to come in one of these weeks, and Dan Titchener or Jake Wesch has to punt well. You would think.



The New Kid on the Block: We’ve talked a lot about Robert Griffin already. For a true freshman, yeah, he’s special. But Oklahoma State contained him, and Nebraska can, too. The front four has to stay smart, keep their rush lanes and force Griffin to step up inside of out – keep funneling down the middle of the field. At least then he’s less of a threat to throw on the run and beat Nebraska’s safeties down the field.



Then, Pelini has to pick his blitzes well. Briles has Griffin trained not to make dumb throws, and Griffin is such a good runner that he can step backward from pressure and run all the way around it.



Finally, the Huskers really have to shut down the zone read play that gave them such fits last year. Baylor will run it and run it if it can, Griffin has already become deft at pulling the ball out and getting to the perimeter quickly. It’s a staple of what the Bears do on the ground, where they average 182.7 yards per game. If Griffin can make hay here, it opens up the rest of the playbook. If he doesn’t, Baylor is likely to stay conservative and try not to lose.

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The first time I saw Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin, it was in garbage time during a loss in the Bears’ season opener against Wake Forest. Flushed from the pocket, Griffin made a full stop, started running again, juked a Wake defender, accelerated, and was finally taken down for a short gain.



Like a jazz man on the sax, Griffin seemed to have no idea what note he was going to play next. He moved as if he were on an invisible track that could slide him back and forth in the field of play.



My goodness, would Barry Switzer have loved this kid in his wishbone offense. You could just see Griffin flying down that giant crown OU used to have at Owen Field and flipping the ball to Billy Sims, Marcus Dupree, Spencer Tillman, Patrick Collins, you name it. A Sooner magician to haunt Husker dreams.



Good thing he’s a Bear, eh? Still - he’s the most exciting freshman I’ve seen this year, even more so for his ability to take care of the ball, which he does beautifully, considering he hasn’t thrown an interception.



Barring something unforeseen, Griffin will make exactly one trip to Memorial Stadium – this Saturday. You never really got to see Vince Young in Lincoln. But you can see the second coming of him.



“You can’t compare this guy to anybody we’ve played yet,” Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini said. “He’s more athletic than anybody we’ve seen. This guy’s pretty special with his feet. He’s fun to watch to play. It’s fun to watch him on film. He’ll cause some sleepless nights for a coach, I’ll tell you that much.”



That ought to be endorsement enough.



Thing is, Baylor Coach Art Briles is being smart with his wunderkind. He is not throwing Griffin to the wolves of the Big 12 by letting him freelance and flit around like some young NBA star. Hardly. Yeah, Griffin makes some crazy moves in the open field, and his speed – he’s the Big 12 champion in the 400-meter hurdles – gets him out of jams.



But mostly, Griffin operates within the structure of the offense. He runs the zone read. He’ll roll with the option out of the shotgun. He throws screen passes and designed rollouts. And if it isn’t there, he tucks and runs.



Because Griffin enrolled early for spring football (and track), he grasped enough of Briles’ offense to be in a three-man race in the fall with returning starter Blake Szymanski and Miami (Fla.) transfer Kirby Freeman. Freeman got the nod against Wake Forest – for a half. Griffin iced the competition with a few nifty plays in the second half, and the rest is quite likely Baylor history.



“Robert is a great leader in the huddle,” Baylor left tackle Dan Gay said. “He’s got a look in his eye, he’s very confident. Robert has a keen sense of how to be a leader. He’s so young, but in the huddle, he doesn’t seem like a true freshman. To me he seems like a junior or a senior…he just stood out to us as being so young and having so much knowledge.”



Not an easy challenge for Pelini, whose defense struggled to stop Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor when it counted. Taylor burned the Huskers on a number of second-half runs in the Hokies’ 35-30 win over the Huskers, as designed QB sweep plays picked up just enough yards to keep a crucial touchdown drive going.



The best way to stop Griffin, Pelini said, is to “create a wall that he has to go through.” Whether that meant using a specific player to spy on him, like Nebraska did against Chase Daniel in 2006, Pelini would not say. Either way, it’s one of those games where the Huskers’ ends will have to color inside the lines.



“We have to be assignment sound,” defensive ends coach John Papuchis said. “We’ll always have somebody who’s responsible for playing him and we just have to carry out our assignments.”



Easier said than done.

One thing about scrambling quarterbacks, Pelini said, is that if they really want to break containment, they will – it’s whether doing such a thing will gain them any yards. More than once during a 34-6 loss to Oklahoma State, Griffin quickly pulled out of his downfield reads to run, only to find no room, or a sideline waiting as a comfortable harbor. He carried the ball 12 times for 12 yards.

“As long as we play our technique,” sophomore defensive end Pierre Allen, “we shouldn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary.”

But then Allen added: “I won’t know until I actually see him.”

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Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin poses a stiff challenge for Nebraska’s defense, head coach Bo Pelini said Monday during the Big 12 Coaches Teleconference.

A true freshman who has accounted for more than 1,700 yards and 17 touchdowns, Griffin has yet to throw an interception this year, Pelini said, because the Bears are designed around his talents.

“They do a good job of protecting him,” Pelini said. “Their offense kinda sets up well for him. They throw a lot of short things, a lot of screens, a lot of quick rhythm stuff.”

Pelini said BU Coach Art Briles “knows what he’s doing.”

“They’ve thought it out well,” said Pelini, referring Baylor’s offense, which is third in the Big 12 in rushing, averaging 182.7 yards per game.

Briles runs a spread offense, but it tends to place more emphasis on the ground game. Some fans might mistakenly believe that Briles’ old team, Houston, was a pass-happy bunch along the lines of Texas Tech or Tulsa; on the contrary, UH averaged more than 160 rushing yards per game in Briles’ last three seasons there, including 223.9 yards in 2007.

“I’ve always been kind of a run guy growing up,” Briles said Monday, referring to his own playing days at Houston in the mid-1970s, when the Cougars ran the famed “Houston Veer” option offense.

An improved Nebraska running game, Pelini said, has helped NU’s defense over the last two weeks, limiting the number of possessions for opponents Texas Tech and Iowa State.

“The best defense is not being out there for a ton of plays,” Pelini said.

NU’s linebacker corps – Phillip Dillard, Cody Glenn and Tyler Wortman – all played significant snaps together for the first time since the Virginia Tech game. Pelini termed their play “better.”

“Still too many mistakes,” he said.

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Baylor Coach Art Briles had the low, introspective tone Sunday of a coach whose team just slapped around pretty good in a 34-6 loss to Oklahoma State.


But he did talk a little Nebraska football in his Sunday teleconference, specifically about NU fans, whom he witnessed in 2001 when he was a part of a Texas Tech staff that came to Lincoln and lost to the Cornhuskers 41-31.



“They were rolling pretty good back then,” Briles said of NU’s 2001 squad, which featured Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch and finished 11-2. “I really the environment was a great college atmosphere. The fans, albeit solid Nebraska, were very respectful to the game of college football. That stuck in my mind.”


Briles left tech shortly thereafter to coach at Houston, where his spread offense won acclaim and converts. Now he’ trying to turn around the Bears, who haven’t sniffed a bowl in years, much less had a winning season.



The early returns have been positive. True freshman
quarterback Robert Griffin looks like the next Vince Young, having already accounted for 1,704 total yards, 17 touchdowns and zero – yes, zippo – interceptions despite 155 attempts. That’s a Division I record for freshmen.



“It’s been good so far,” Briles said. “He’s very intelligent with the football, very conscious. I think all that adds up to having a chance to minimize turnovers.”



Although the Bears were badly beaten by OSU and Oklahoma (49-17), Briles said “there’s not that big of a discrepancy” between those top ten teams and his own. Having Griffin helps, of course, but Briles, ever confident, isn’t conceding anything after years of surrender in Waco.



“We feel like we’re not that far off,” Briles said. “But we understand that we have to play almost error free to have opportunities to win games of that nature, but that’s the way it should be each week anyway. We feel like we should be a good enough football team to play error free and capitalize on opportunities.



“We’ve got a team of guys who believe in each other and fight hard in each other.”

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