Texas Tech football: The Red Raiders must neutralize these Baylor Bears this weekend

Texas Tech must make life difficult on gutsy Baylor QB Blake Shapen

Over the past few years, Baylor has featured a series of QBs that have been gutsy gamers while not necessarily being elite talents.  Former BU QBs such as Gerry Bohannon and Charlie Brewer certainly fit that description and so too does this year’s Baylor starter, Blake Shapen.

The junior from Shreveport, Louisiana has played in only two games this year after sustaining an MCL injury in the opener.  However, he did return to action last week to help lead his team to its emotional win over the Knights in Orlando.

This year, Shapen is completing 64.6% of his passes (which is right in line with his career average) a number that is decent but not elite for a college QB.  He’s also yet to throw a pick on 65 passes thus far while tossing 3 TDs in the process.

Shapen is not a huge threat to run with only 13 carries for -26 yards this year.  That means that most of his rushes have likely been sacks.  That’s good news for a Tech defense that has struggled to defend mobile QBs for years.

Baylor is close to being a 50/50 team in terms of its run/pass splits.  That means that Shapen isn’t asked to do it all for his team the way Houston’s Donovan Smith, who Tech played last week, is.

In two games against the Red Raiders, Shapen has been just good enough to help his team win.  Two years ago, while making his first career start, he was 20-34 for 254 yards and two TDs with no picks.  That day, his second TD pass of the day gave his team a 10-point lead in the middle of the 4th quarter and Baylor would hang on for a 27-24 win.

Last year, he didn’t need to do much in a 45-17 Baylor win in Lubbock.  Going 19-30 for 211 yards and a TD with no picks, he was merely a bus driver as the Bears churned out 231 yards on the ground to dominate the Red Raiders.

This year, Tech needs to put the game on Shapen in a way that we didn’t see in the two previous matchups in this series.  Making Shapen win the game by being a gunslinger is a recipe that Tech should feel great about.  In 18 career starts, he’s only topped 300 yards three times.  Plus, he’s only thrown for more than two TD passes in a game once.

So it remains to be seen if he can win a game when the offense relies solely on him.  Of course, for that situation to come to fruition, Tech will have to keep a lid on a player that ran wild in last year’s meeting.