Thee Bears

This year has been quite interesting from a human behavior standpoint. Alumni from other schools have literally disappeared when the discussion of Baylor comes about. Baylor, with a couple more wins, will become the winningest school in NCAA history for a single season in the four major sports, eclipsing what Texas accomplished in 2002-2003.

If you can get someone from another school to talk sports with you, they generally try to turn the conversation to how anyone can get lucky one year. Of course, when you mention that they’ve likely been at it the same 120 years or so that Baylor has and never been able to do it, the conversation quickly goes silent.

Regardless, as much as I am proud of Baylor’s top to bottom accomplishments this year, football is the bell cow. That is the foundation your entire sports program has to be built on. President Sloan and former Athletic Director Tom Stanton had no clue about this and destroyed a once proud football program in no less than a couple of years.

The 20 years prior to the Big 12 being created in 1994 (and then starting in 1996), Baylor had the 28th winningest “BCS” (if you will, since BCS didn’t exist then) football program in the nation. Put that in your pipe and smoke it all you Ann Richards conspiracy theorists. By the way, for perspective, Texas Tech had the 45th winningest program and Baylor, over more than half a century, had won 67% of the games played between Baylor and Texas Tech. However, in this age of propaganda, we all know you can’t let facts get in the way of anything. It’s all about who speaks the loudest.

All that said, one measure of a football program and it’s ability to develop and produce talent is NFL first round draft picks. Certainly this isn’t the only measure, but it’s a pretty telling one. Just wait until you see the numbers below. For those that want to argue, well, next year Baylor is going to suck because RG3 is gone, don’t realize that, apparently in the dark of night, Baylor is starting to become a talent producing machine. This is no one hit wonder. The following numbers don’t lie.

Baylor and Alabama are the only 2 schools in the nation to produce multiple 1st round draft picks in each of the last two NFL drafts.

Also, there are only 2 schools, yes all of TWO schools, in the nation that have produced more NFL 1st round draft picks than Baylor has in the Art Briles era (drafts 2009 – 2012).

Here’s the data in all it’s glory. Congratulations Baylor administration for finally realizing, in 2008, that you have to putthe money into the one program that can make or break your entire university. This investment has helped build a national brand that silences the critics. Baylor Nation should be proud:

In case you missed some of these details:

Oklahoma – 4 (all in 1 year, 2010)
Texas – 2 (all those top 5 recruiting classes produced 2 1st rounders)
Texas A&M – 2 (all those top 25 recruiting classes produced the exact same record as Baylor since Briles arrived and only 2 1st rounders)
Texas Tech – 1 (we always knew they had quite a bit of smoke and mirrors going on out there, but still had a solid program given the talent they could get to come out to Lubbock. The hot seat for Tubbs is white hot this season)
TCU – 1 (Definitely a solid program where you must respect what they accomplished. However, they haven’t had a single Strength of Schedule < 80 in the past decade. Will be interesting to see what the next decade looks like for them)
KState – 1

Baylor is not going to be a flash in the pan and, not\w that we’ve kicked the door in, the power shift in the Big 12 is going to be interesting to watch over the next many years. Coaches can no longer negative recruit against Baylor saying tings like, you’ll never be on national tv, you’ll never be a 1st round pick or you’ll never win a Heisman by going to Baylor.

In fact, you may be more likely to do that at Baylor than by going to 95% of the other schools you can choose to take your talents.

Finally, the SEC has produced 32 1st rounders the last 4 years while the Big 12 has produced 24. If the SEC were willing to play the Big 12 a little more, there’s another myth that could be brought a little closer to reality regarding the strength, top to bottom, of the two best football conferences in America.