WACO, Texas - Baylor football is a divisive thing these days, and people will assemble in crowds on either side of the line to argue for or against what the Bears have done and how they've done it. But they can agree on this: There's no defending Baylor.
The No. 2-ranked team in the country is playing offense at a level rarely ever imagined, never mind attained.
"Name the last time," West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said, "you've ever seen an offense, because I've never prepared for one, averaging 725 yards and 63 points."
The cosmic success cannot be ignored, but the competition has to be considered. The non-conference schedule was a work of art, if Warhols and soup cans are your thing.
There are 128 Football Bowl Subdivision teams. SMU and Rice are Nos. 127 and 110, respectively, in total defense. Baylor (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) put a dent in those defensive rankings, but both have had five other games to repair the damage. Neither has.
The annual Football Championship Subdivision doormat Lamar has as many wins as Rice (three) and more two more than SMU. Lamar played, never mind beat, a team called Bacone but actually ranks higher (139) than Kansas (149), one of Baylor's two Big 12 victims, in Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings.
Baylor's scheduling strategy has been a laughingstock and a launching point. This is the team that hasn't played a single team from one of the five major conferences in the regular season since 2009, but did split a 2010-11 series with TCU when the Mountain West's best was ranked Nos. 2 and 14.
Still, every other Big 12 team has scheduled a major conference team at least twice in that time. Many do it once a year. The SMU-Northwestern State-Buffalo lineup last season, coupled, of course, with a loss to the Mountaineers (3-2, 0-2), conspired to keep the Bears out of the inaugural College Football Playoff.
The Bears and others in hibernation around the country got the hint and have scheduled more aggressively. Baylor, which previously scheduled a series with Duke, has since added a series with Utah of the Pac-12 but also Louisiana Tech of Conference USA. The Bears have one spot open from 2019-23 and two open in 2024, and there's reason to believe the Bears will be as bold as their chrome helmets.
And if they aren't, coaches like WVU's Dana Holgorsen can stand simultaneously behind his schedule and his podium, chastise teams playing two FCS teams a year or one of those and a pair of pretenders from outside the five big FBS conferences and say, "You can figure out who I'm talking about."
Yet there remains an inconsistency in critiquing Baylor's success because of its schedule or its conference affiliation. The Bears are built to do this in any league. They're supposed to overwhelm overmatched foes. They're going to ring up numbers like they have against Texas Tech and Kansas inside the Big 12 season with as much ease as they would against like teams inside the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC.
What they do against the top teams in the Big 12 would be about the same as it would against top teams in other conferences.
Point to bowl losses the past two years, but last year's was a 42-41 loss to Michigan State, which, like Baylor, pursued a playoff spot and will again this season. The loss two years ago was 52-42 to UCF, which has completely fallen apart since then. Baylor has not. It's no stretch to say no one has reached this height on offense, because going as far back as 1937, no team has scored more points through five games.
The blame then ought to go to the people who haven't been able to catch up since coach Art Briles arrived in 2008 and started turning out record-breaking offenses. College football goes through phases, and Baylor's time might be coming, but pick up the product and try to find an expiration date. Today, one doesn't exist, and that's as hard to believe as the consistently gaudy numbers.
"They believe in what they do, and they just keep doing it," Holgorsen said. "When you're at a place for a long time, things continue to get better. Your recruiting continues to get better. When you do the same thing over and over again with better players, it typically works out pretty good for you."
Baylor has the offense that targets talent, cultivates potential, rewards dedication and produces stars. The uniforms, the stadium and the swagger help, but results matter, and prospects can no longer ignore what's happening.
"There's a completely different attitude and perception," Briles said. "We're getting calls from really, really good guys. They wouldn't even answer the phone five years ago."
The only way to catch up to that is to knock the Bears off their perch. Again, that time might be coming, but this prolific mix of offensive designs and recruiting triumphs make that difficult to forecast.
"They're doing something no one else is doing," WVU cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell said. "They're willing to go away from conventional football and do the extraordinary."
Baylor puts receivers close to the sidelines to create space that running backs, receivers and even quarterbacks exploit and defenses can't adequately cover. There's the modern spread offense and there's Baylor's very spread offense. It wins games and recruiting battles, and that's the real problem people should have with Baylor.