Something I haven’t seen brought up or perhaps missed this last week is Matt Rhule’s Year 3 at Baylor. Everyone points to that 11-3 record, but if you look at the scores and the opponents, half of Baylor's 14 games came down to one-score outcomes. They were 5-2 in those games. That would be progress to me given our ineptitude at one-score games, but the rub is some of those games were also against teams with eventual losing records.
Rice (3-9), West Virginia (5-7), Texas Tech (4-8), and TCU (5-7) all came within a score of tying or beating Baylor. TTech forced double overtime. TCU forced triple overtime. Cockeye State (7-6) and Oklahoma (12-2) were the two winning teams Baylor fought within a score, and those results were 1-2.
On the flipside, Baylor's 14+ point wins against 8-5 Texas (3 one-score losses, 2 one-score wins), 8-5 Okie State (2 one-score losses, 3 one-score wins) 8-5 K-State (3 one-score losses, 3 one score wins) were pretty nice wins on paper. They also spanked KU, along with UTSA and Stephen F Austin, all three being putrid.
Close games are ok. Especially early in the season. A Baylor team that was a score away from tying or losing to Rice was also incredibly close to winning the Big 12 Championship. You could argue they were also flirting with a much worse record than they had, but scoreboard is scoreboard in the end, and that team also accomplished over and over and over what Nebraska has failed to do since Mike Riley and win a damn close game. And it's hard to base a season based on a single game. I'm glad we have the win against Cincy, and if we want to recklessly, and truly carelessly extrapolate 2025 Nebraska patterns that align with 2019 Baylor, no other Big 12 team had a better record in one-score games than Baylor that year.
For those hoping that Matt Rhule's Year Three Leap™ still comes to fruition, it is still in play. And it will remain in play, even if some games get a little closer than they "should be".