DJ Lagway hit four different receivers for touchdowns, ran one in himself from 11 yards, and Ryelan Morris and Caden Knighten each broke a long touchdown run as Baylor beat Arizona State 55-19 on the road Saturday. Lagway went 25 of 40 for 306 yards and four touchdowns and added an 11-yard rushing score for five total touchdowns. Arizona State had been a home favorite of 3.5 points, so Baylor won by 36 more than the market expected. The Bears are 4-1, 2-0 in the Big 12, and they do not play in Week 6.
What the Arizona State game actually settled
Lagway's legs are back in the offense. He kept one himself for a touchdown in Tempe, the kind of designed-run look Baylor had set aside.
The run game did its half. Baylor piled up 244 rushing yards behind Morris's 63-yard touchdown and Knighten's 75-yarder, the program's first game with two 60-plus-yard rushing scores since 2010, even though PFF's bottom-five offensive players included three offensive linemen graded between 53.5 and 56.2, while other starting linemen graded considerably higher. That gap is the honest caveat. Two explosive runs can carry a rushing total that the blocking, play by play, did not fully earn.
Discipline is the other real change. At Arizona State, Baylor committed zero turnovers and three penalties for 37 yards. Aranda called the night proof of where the program is going. "This is it. This is us right here," he said, adding, "What you saw was development. Guys are getting better." But it's the first time this season the trend has pointed the right way.
What it didn't settle
The pass rush. Against Arizona State the Bears recorded three sacks and allowed 409 total yards, even while holding ASU to 19 points, forcing three turnovers and limiting the Sun Devils to 4-of-15 on third down. That combination has held up against Colorado and Arizona State. It is a harder bet against BYU and Texas Tech in November, with the closer at Houston, the team that ended Baylor's 2025 season.
TCU comes to Waco next week, and Baylor is about a 66% favorite. That is the game that gives Lagway's case its fourth data point. This week there's only the scoreboard watching.
Kansas at Utah: root for Kansas
Kansas wins about 11% of the time at No. 12 Utah, so treat this as a long shot rather than a plan. It matters because Utah is a direct competitor in the Big 12 standings. Baylor enters the week with a 9% shot at reaching the conference title game; a Kansas upset branches that to roughly 13%, while a Utah win leaves it near 9%. Those are two alternative futures, not a number moving in sequence, and that 3.7-point swing in title-game odds is as much as any single Saturday without a Baylor game can give you. Kansas also hosts Baylor in Week 8, so you get a free look at the team the Bears visit in two weeks.
Ball State at Northwestern: root for Ball State
The model gives Ball State a 2% chance to win. This result carries a 2.0 percentage-point impact on Baylor's playoff probability.
Ball State's chance is about 1.6%. This is pure national-playoff arithmetic. A loss here dents a Big Ten team's at-large profile, and Baylor's own playoff number sits at 3.4%, branching to about 5.4% with a Ball State win versus 3.4% without. An upset that unlikely is a bonus Baylor cannot count on, which leaves TCU in Waco as the next result that actually moves these numbers.
Full probabilities and matchup detail are in the interactive guide, and the model behind them is explained on the methodology page.