New faces, returning production have Baylor offensive line feeling confident (2024)

A common refrain is that football games are won or lost in the trenches.

That rang particularly true last season when poor offensive line play often forced Baylor quarterbacks to run for their lives or the Bears play from behind, stifling the potential offense.

The Baylor offensive line is fully aware of the weight they carry.

“I think the whole game depends on us,” senior right tackle Campbell Barrington said. “So, if we’re not doing our job and we’re not encouraging others to do their job, then the offense as a whole is going to struggle to succeed. It relies a lot on us.”

Baylor allowed the most sacks in the Big 12 last season and tied for 23rd most in the country.

It’s easy to point to why that might have happened, as the Bears had 10 different linemen play in a game last season while featuring up to four first-time starters on the line for most of the season.

The Bears also had the second-worst rushing offense in the Big 12 a year ago, averaging under 115 yards per game.

Richard Reese was the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year after rushing for nearly 1,000 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2022 behind a dominant offensive line. He saw his numbers dip to 306 yards and two touchdowns last year.

This group is determined to help Reese get closer to those numbers in the first season of Jake Spavital’s new up-tempo offense.

“I can’t lie, Rich is a dawg,” sophom*ore left tackle Alvin Ebosele said. “With this (scheme), I know he’s going to take advantage of it. We’re going to make holes up front for him. Once he sees it, it’s off to the races.”

First-year offensive line coach Mason Miller said during the spring that he wasn’t looking at any of the videos of last season to avoid making any lingering judgments about the viability of the players.

The offensive linemen aren’t deaf to the negativity surrounding their position. Instead of getting lost in what could be a never-ending pit of negativity, they’re pushing the outside noises away and focusing on themselves.

“The people in the room, we’re the ones putting in all that hard work every day,” Ebosele said. “We’re the ones who’ve been seeing the fruits of the labor. Once we’re able to go out and show our product on the field, the narrative is going to flip completely.”

How might the offensive line up this season?

The group is feeling confident in part because so many returners got in-game playing time last season.

Barrington started all 12 games at right tackle or right guard, while Ebosele started the final 11 games of the season at tackle and had the sixth-highest offensive line grade in the Big 12 by a freshman, according to PFF.

Center Coleton Price, then a redshirt freshman, got his first-ever start in the road win at Cincinnati and started the final five games of the season.

“I didn’t have any playing time going into the halfway point of the season,” Price said. “After that, I was able to grow. From the spring until now… understanding the whole game itself, not just only my position, but the five positions along with the whole offense, that slows things down so much.”

Fifth-year senior Gavin Byers started 11 games at right tackle and right guard, while redshirt sophom*ore Kaden Sieracki played in all 12 games and made seven starts for the Bears last season.

Head coach Dave Aranda said in the spring that redshirt junior Ryan Lengyel, who saw limited time in five games last season, was turning some heads.

This fall, he’s been working with the starters at left guard.

“He’s been able to take the left guard (position) and grow with it,” Price said. “He understands the whole scheme of things. It’s slowing down so much for him right now, so I think he’s going to be great at that position.”

Baylor hit the transfer portal hard to address the offense line, bringing in Ohio’s Kurt Danneker and Montana State’s Omar Aigbedion in the fall and Colton Thomasson from Texas A&M, Sydney Fugar from South Carolina and Colin Truett from Chattanooga in the spring.

Danneker had to medically retire due to a knee injury, but the other four players have continued to push the group.

Aigbedion, who started all 12 games at guard for Montana State last year and graded out as the top-rated guard in FCS, has been getting most of the first-team snaps at right guard for Baylor this fall.

“The guys who came in saw what happened last year and refuse to let that happen again,” Ebosele said. “The guys who were here don’t want that to happen again. That kind of thing has been elevating our level.

“Because of that, we’ve all been performing way better than anyone could expect.”