The 2013 Baylor Bears football team represented Baylor University in the 2013 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Bears, coached by Art Briles, were playing their 115th football season; this year was the team's 64th and final season at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco, Texas. The Bears were members of the Big 12 Conference. The conference slate began with a home game against the West Virginia Mountaineers, and concluded at home against the Texas Longhorns.
The 2013 season was arguably the best in Baylor's history. After being ranked as high as third in the nation, the Bears went on to a school-record 11 wins and their first Big 12 title—their first outright conference title since winning their last outright Southwest Conference title in 1980. They represented the Big 12 in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl—their first appearance in the Bowl Championship Series, and their first major bowl game since the 1981 Cotton Bowl Classic. It was also their fourth straight bowl appearance, a school record.
The Baylor Bears football team drew an average home attendance of 45,948 in the final year of Floyd Casey Stadium. Baylor finished with an undefeated record at home.
Recruiting
Schedule
Game summaries Wofford
Baylor opened its final season in Floyd Casey Stadium at home against the Wofford Terriers, a late addition to the 2013 schedule after SMU canceled their 2013 matchup against the Bears. In keeping with the Bears' fast-paced reputation, Baylor dashed out to a 28–0 lead in the first quarter with touchdown rushes by Lache Seastrunk and Glasco Martin IV, an Antwan Goodley touchdown reception from Bryce Petty, and an interception returned for a score by defensive lineman Chris McAllister. Seastrunk would add a second touchdown rush in the second quarter and finished the night with 111 rushing yards. Petty also added another passing touchdown, this time to Tevin Reese, and finished with 290 passing yards in his first career start. In backup duty, running back Shock Linwood rushed for a 19-yard score, and quarterback Seth Russell accounted for two more touchdowns, one passing and one rushing. Baylor's defense shut down the Terrier's triple-option attack, limiting Wofford to 173 rushing yards on the night, forcing three turnovers, allowing no touchdowns, and giving up only a field goal in the 3rd quarter.
Baylor's 69 points surpassed the school's modern-era single-game scoring record, a 68–13 victory over Northwestern State in 2009, and were the most points scored since an 88–0 victory in 1929 over Stephen F. Austin.
Buffalo
One week after playing creditably against #2 Ohio State in Columbus, the Buffalo Bulls traveled to Waco to take on the #23 Baylor Bears. Buffalo drew first blood, capitalizing on a 54-yard completion from Joe Licata to Alex Neutz on the first play from scrimmage and subsequently scoring on a 1-yard Branden Oliver rush. Later in the 1st quarter, Buffalo would score once more, while Baylor would score 4 touchdowns in 4 drives, the lengthiest of which took 1:16 of gametime. The Baylor defense would not allow another Buffalo score the rest of the game, forcing two turnovers and accounting for 7 of Baylor's 56 first-half points when linebacker Bryce Hager returned a fumble 91 yards for a touchdown. Lache Seastrunk added to his resume with 150 rushing yards and 3 rushing touchdowns, while Bryce Petty rushed for a touchdown and passed for 338 yards and 2 touchdowns to Tevin Reese and Antwan Goodley. The barrage of Baylor points subsided in the 2nd half: in the 3rd quarter Shock Linwood posted his second rushing touchdown of the day, and in backup duty Seth Russell completed a touchdown pass to Jay Lee in the 4th quarter.
After having set a modern-era school scoring record the previous week against Wofford, the Bears topped that record by 1 point, scoring 70 against the Buffalo Bulls. The game also saw Baylor post a school-record 781 total yards of offense and score a modern-era school-record 56 points in the first half. The Bears have not posted less than 400 yards of offense in a game since the 2011 season and have scored 40+ points in 16 of their last 19 games. Individually, Lache Seastrunk extended his streak of consecutive games with 100+ rushing yards to 6, both a school record and the nation's longest active streak.
Louisiana-Monroe
Baylor continued its torrid offensive pace against Louisiana-Monroe. After winning a hard-fought game in Monroe the year before, the Bears put the game out of reach quickly, racking up 21 offensive and 14 defensive points (interceptions returned by cornerback Joe Williams and safety Terrell Burt) in the first quarter to become the first FBS or FCS team in the BCS era to score 28+ points in the first quarters of three consecutive games. Bryce Petty contributed to all of the offensive points in the 1st quarter with two touchdown passes (to Antwan Goodley and Tevin Reese) and a 2-yard touchdown rush. Goodley would catch his second touchdown pass of the day from Petty in the 2nd quarter before ULM scored their only points of the day, a 9-yard touchdown pass from Kolton Browning that made the score 42–7. Thereafter the scoreboard belonged to the Bears: Clay Fuller caught Petty's 4th touchdown pass of the day late in the 2nd quarter, and early in the 3rd Lache Seastrunk picked up 75 of his 156 rushing yards on the day with a touchdown rush. Shock Linwood added a 10-yard rushing touchdown, and backup quarterback Seth Russell found Levi Norwood for a 65-yard touchdown midway through the 3rd for the final points of the game.
With the win, Baylor became the first team since LSU in 1930 to score 60+ points in its first three games of the season. After breaking school records for points scored and yards gained in their previous game against Buffalo, the Bears matched those records exactly with another 70 points and 781 total offensive yards. The victory extended Baylor's streak of games with more than 400 yards of total offense to 30, the longest current streak in the nation. Individually, Bryce Petty finished with a career-high 351 yards passing and has thrown for 300+ yards and at least 2 touchdowns in all three career starts. Before Petty exited in the 3rd quarter with the game well in hand, the Bears scored touchdowns on 7 of 10 offensive drives; those scoring drives combined took a total of 6 minutes. Lache Seastrunk extended his streak of games with 100+ rushing yards to 7, the nation's current longest streak.
West Virginia
One year after the high-scoring first meeting of the two programs in Morgantown, the Bears and Mountaineers renewed their incipient rivalry in Waco. The superlative performance of the Baylor offense continued in record-setting fashion as the Bears yet again scored 28 points in the first quarter and then added another 4 touchdowns in the second. QB Bryce Petty accounted for 3 of the 1st quarter touchdowns, 2 passing (to Antwan Goodley and Tevin Reese) and 1 rushing; Lache Seastrunk posted the other touchdown of the 1st quarter on an 80-yard rush. All four Baylor touchdowns in the 2nd quarter came on the ground: Seastrunk added a second touchdown on a 19-yard rush, Shock Linwood added a scoring rush to his season totals, and Glasco Martin IV returned from an ankle injury in fine fashion, punching in two scores from the 2 yard line. In the first half Baylor's defense allowed only one WVU touchdown, a Clint Trickett pass to Kevin White; WVU's other touchdown of the first half came when the Mountaineers recovered a muffed punt in the endzone. In the second half Baylor went to its backups on offense and defense, with RB Devin Chafin and QB Seth Russell posting rushing touchdowns and Aaron Jones kicking a field goal to bring the final Baylor score to 73. The Mountaineers scored one touchdown early in the 3rd quarter on a rush by RB Charles Sims, West Virginia QB Paul Millard passed for two touchdowns in the 4th quarter, and the WVU defense accounted for one final touchdown, returning one of Russell's two interceptions on the day for a score.
In advancing to 4–0 for the first time since 1991, Baylor finished the day with 864 yards of total offense, breaking the Big 12 record (807 yards) held by WVU (set by the Mountaineers against the Bears in their previous meeting). Of that yardage, 369 came in the first quarter, and 617 came in the first half; both totals represent the most by a team in a single quarter and in a first half, respectively, in the last decade. The 73 points scored by Baylor set a Big 12 record for a head-to-head Big 12 matchup and again broke the school's modern-era scoring record. Baylor became the only team to score at least 66 points in 4 consecutive games based on data kept since 1980 and posted at least 28 points in the first quarter of their fourth straight game; no FBS or FCS team had scored 28 points or more in the first quarter of three consecutive games since 1996. With their 4th consecutive game of 60+ points, the Bears closed to within 1 game of the streak set by Oklahoma in 2008 of five such consecutive games.
Individually, Bryce Petty completed 17 of 25 attempts for 347 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception. Petty has thrown for at least 300 yards and 2 touchdowns in all four of his career starts, and he added 23 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown to finish with 370 total yards and 3 touchdowns. Lache Seastrunk assured his 8th consecutive game of more than 100 yards rushing in the first quarter; he finished with 172 yards on 15 carries. Through the first 4 games of the season, Seastrunk has averaged 11.1 yards per carry. Tevin Reese's 61 yard touchdown reception represented his 18th 40+ yard touchdown reception, the most in the BCS era for an FBS receiver.
@ Kansas State
In their first road game of the season, the Baylor Bears traveled to Manhattan, KS to take on the Kansas State Wildcats. Prior to the game, Baylor had never won at Kansas State, and once again Kansas State proved a tough test for the Bears, holding Baylor to its lowest offensive output of the season.
Baylor received the ball to open the game and scored on a 12-play, 59 yard drive that was kept alive by a crucial penalty on KSU defender Randall Evans, who hit QB Bryce Petty out of bounds on a 3rd and 11 play. The Wildcats drove deep into Baylor territory on their ensuing drive but turned the ball over on downs inside the Bears' 10-yard line. After then forcing a Baylor punt, Kansas State embarked upon a drive that left them on the Baylor 1 yard line at the close of the 1st quarter. Wildcat QB Daniel Sams then punched the ball in for a touchdown on the first play of the 2nd quarter to tie the game at 7–7. After the next Baylor and KSU possessions stalled, the Wildcats pinned Baylor on the Bears' 5 yard line with a Mark Krause punt. Two plays later Bryce Petty found Tevin Reese for a 93-yard touchdown reception to put the Bears back in the lead. After Kansas State settled for a field goal on their next possession, Petty hit Antwan Goodley for a 72-yard touchdown and the teams entered the half with Baylor leading 21–10.