#12 Oklahoma Sooners vs. #5 Baylor Bears NCAA Football Preview: The Battle for Big 12 Leadership
As far as NCAA conference rivalries go, there are not many that can match up to rivalries in the Big 12. And within the Big 12, the Oklahoma-Baylor match-up is especially fierce, with a history of tightly contested games that go back to even before the Big 12 was founded.
In 2013, the rivalry game has even bigger implications. The Baylor Bears, at #5, have a berth in the BCS Championship Game in their sights. While they are unbeaten, their #5 ranking has been put into question as they have not faced a ranked team in 2013. However, rising from being unranked to suddenly being in the conversation for the national championship game is one amazing feat in itself. In addition, all but two of their games were at home. After the game against the Sooners, they go on a three-weekend road trip against Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Texas Christian, before facing off against Texas to end their season.
Baylor has one of the most exciting offenses in the NCAA, averaging 54 points a game. They have scored 70 or more four times in the season, and scored below 50 only once -- a grudge match at Kansas State, which they shocked in 2012 when the Wildcats were the #1 ranked team in the country. They also held their opponents below 20 points four times out of seven.
The Sooners are still not over that loss to Texas on Oct 12, two weeks after beating #22 Notre Dame on the road. Since then, they have beaten Kansas and #10 Texas Tech, the latter game attracting 84,734 Sooner fans as it was OU's Homecoming Weekend.
Oklahoma would like nothing more than to spoil the Bear run and to deal the Dallas-based team their first ever loss of the season, relegating them to just one of the other bowl games. In doing so, they in turn will burnish their BCS championship resume that includes two teams ranked in the AP Polls. Unlike the Bears, who employ an Air Raid offense involving a lot of passing, the Sooners run a rushing offense that doesn't exactly rack up the points, but is effective anyway.