Baylor football opens camp with renewed optimism, focus on defensive improvement

The first day of football camp is like the first day of school. Everyone is healthy, refreshed, motivated and ready to attack all obstacles that might come their way.
The challenge is keeping that intensity at a high level for five months.
“The first team meeting yesterday, (we were) bouncing off the top of the roof and everything, excited,” Baylor coach Dave Aranda said. “To see some of that carry over into the last period today after being in the sun was way cool. There’s a strong connection with each other, and there's a good friendship that is pushing each other to be better.”
The Bears officially kicked off their fall training camp on Thursday with less than a month until the regular season opener at home against Texas State on Sept. 2.
“I’ve really just been missing it,” sophomore receiver Josh Cameron said. “Going through the summer, you kind of just starting getting that itch. I was just working on my own, and I was like, ‘This is just not the same,’ but (getting back out there) was really awesome.”
Defense has always been a key part of the Baylor mindset.
When the Bears won the 2021 Big 12 title, they had the 10th-best overall defense in the country, allowing less than 19 points per game. Last year, that dipped to 68th in the nation as they gave up over 26 points per game.
Ron Roberts was fired after two years as defensive coordinator at Baylor and has since landed in the same position at Auburn.
Enter Matt Powledge, who spent two seasons as the special teams/safeties coach at Baylor before leaving to become the co-defensive coordinator at Oregon last year.
“When we get hit in the mouth … how do we respond?” Aranda said. “Our best players on that side of the ball have to be our best teammates. If we have those two things, they're going to be great. This is where we lay the groundwork for that. I'm excited about that, I think we're going to rise to the challenge.”
Perhaps a new set of eyes on the defensive unit has rejuvenated the group.
“Once we got the news that Coach Powledge was coming here, everybody was fired up about it,” senior Bryson Jackson said. “You get a new defense, you get somebody that’s fired up about being a part of setting the standard of what a defense should be like and every guy wants to play for him.”
Of all the positions on the defensive unit, linebacker is far and away the most experienced.
Fifth-year senior Matt Jones is once again expected to play a key role, while fellow super senior Garmon Randolph brought some extra energy after missing the spring due to suspension.
Aranda said senior linebacker Mike Smith “asserted himself in the spring” since transferring to Baylor after four years at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and Liberty.
Jackson, who will be playing his seventh year of college football, joins that group as he continues to transition from safety to star linebacker.
"I feel like I’ve been prepared, changing positions and being put in different roles,” he said. “Having Coach Powledge, with his energy and his critique and his detail and level of coaching, it’s amazing. I just feel like everything we did previously this year has got us to this point, and I really feel confident in my position.”
Among the many clips that Aranda showed his team before the first practice of the season was the final play of Super Bowl XXXIV between the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans.
Rams linebacker Mike Jones brought down Titans receiver Kevin Dyson at the 1-inch line on the final play of the game to clinch the win.
Not only was it similar to the Bears’ 2021 win over Oklahoma State in the Big 12 championship game, but it was a prime example of a team that wanted to be on the field when it mattered most, and it’s one that Aranda thinks this year’s defensive unit can achieve.
“Here's a team that, when there is momentum on the other side, we're going to be firemen and go put it out,” Aranda said. “We want that stage. To execute something as simple as possible on the biggest stage with the brightest lights, that's what we need to be.
“I know that our guys want that, too, and I'm excited at what it can be.”