Baylor's defensive line piled up five sacks and 13 tackles for loss in a 23-13 win over Colorado in Waco. The Buffaloes handed the ball off 39 times and got 83 yards out of it, 2.1 per carry, their first game of the season under 180 yards rushing. Baylor is 3-1, 1-0 in the Big 12, and the unit that spent last season getting run over looks like a different group.
That matters more than a single box score usually would, because the defense was the whole point of the offseason. Baylor gave up 32.6 points and 392.1 yards per game in 2025, and the program sold Joe Klanderman's replacement scheme as aggressive and attacking. It then spent most of its portal capital on the line, bringing in Hosea Wheeler, Kamren Washington, Garrick Ponder and four others to stock a room with almost nothing returning. The front flashed in the opener too, when Aranda praised the repeated one-on-one wins and said the rotation could roll bodies without a drop-off. Then Devonte Tezino, the starting defensive tackle, went down with a severe leg injury less than a minute into that Auburn game, was carted off and was lost for the season. Nobody has taken over his exact job.
Arizona State's line is big, green and banged up
Saturday night in Tempe, 9:30 p.m. Central on ESPN, Baylor gets a line it can attack. Arizona State's offensive line averages nearly 6-foot-5 and 317 pounds but came into the season with only 25 combined Division I starts across the group, 14 of those belonging to Stanford transfer Luke Baklenko. And it is short-handed. During ASU's bye, coaches said starting right guard Wade Helton is in danger of missing both this game and the Hawai'i trip with the lower-leg injury he suffered at Texas A&M, with backup Rob Lapuaho expected back after the bye.
So watch the interior. If Arizona State patches the guard spot and Baylor's pressure only shows up in third-and-long, the Colorado numbers stay filed as one good night against one struggling offense.
The parts that haven't been fixed
Baylor still wins ugly. The Colorado game was tied 13-13 into the fourth quarter until Rhett Armstrong's 54-yard field goal made it a two-score game with about 4:30 left and Kyland Reed recovered a fumble to end it. Three straight wins, and the streak has run through kickers and loose balls more than through anything resembling control.
The penalties haven't gone anywhere either. Baylor was flagged nine times for 85 yards against Prairie View A&M, with Aranda saying he wanted the "mental mistakes and the Baylor beating Baylor stuff" cleaned up before conference play. Aranda said after the win that the offense still needs to avoid penalties to get into a rhythm, citing continued issues with penalties and a stalled run game.
And DJ Lagway is available but not all the way back. He sprained his right ankle on Baylor's opening possession of the season, and Aranda said at the time that the injury wiped out a chunk of the designed quarterback runs and forced a different third-and-short package. Lagway threw two touchdowns against Colorado, including the go-ahead score with 9:02 left, but went 19-of-39. That's a second straight uneven start; in his Baylor debut he completed 27 of 54 for 333 yards with two touchdowns, an interception and a lost fumble. A designed keeper on third-and-2 in Tempe would tell you the offense has its full menu back.
Baylor is about a 39% pick on the road, and the conference-title math stays small either way. Roughly 4% with a win, well under 1% with a loss. That is not what this trip is about. It's the last game of the opening stretch, and Wheeler, Washington and Ponder will line up 1,000 miles from Waco across from a guard spot Arizona State may have to fill with a backup. Get into that gap on early downs and Arizona State spends the night throwing on third-and-long.
Full matchup details are in the interactive guide, and the simulation approach is explained in the methodology.