WACO -- At a program used to scoring at the highest level, Baylor’s 2020 season was a nightmare offensively. 

The Bears ranked bottom-two in the Big 12 in virtually every offensive metric, in the neighborhood of only Kansas. Specifically, the Bears dropped from 6.2 to 4.4 yards per play to rank ahead of only the lowly Jayhawks among Power Five teams. 

Rather than chalk it up to being a weird pandemic year, Baylor coach Dave Aranda cleared the deck. He cut offensive coordinator Larry Fedora, passing game coordinator Jorge Munoz and offensive line coach Joe Wickline. Quarterback Charlie Brewer transferred to Utah. Running back John Lovett went to Penn State. Aranda sat down and rethought his entire philosophy. 

“I think two of the hardest things to do in college football right now is to run inside zone and dropback pass,” Baylor coach Dave Aranda told Texas Football. “We did a lot of those two things last year, which I take responsibility for.” 

To be fair, it makes sense why he tried that out. Aranda won a national championship in 2019 behind Joe Burrow’s dropback passing at LSU. But by Aranda’s estimation, the Big 12 is different. Baylor is different. And so rather than run back a failing strategy, Aranda looked to the market for something new. 

In wide zone aficionado Jeff Grimes, he believes he has found it. 

Picking a direction

When you ask Baylor offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes what characterizes his offenses, he has a simple answer. 

“We’re an attacking, multiple formation offense that runs a few plays a lot of ways with as much misdirection as anyone in the country,” Grimes told Texas Football. “I can write that down for you. All our offensive players know that and they can recite it.” 

What Grimes’ statement means in practice is that Baylor doesn’t have many plays. Virtually every single blocking scheme will be built out of a wide zone look. But Baylor can line up with different numbers of receivers, tight ends, running backs, put them in different alignments – and still run wide zone.

Last season, the lack of identity played a significant role in Baylor’s offensive woes. Brewer was asked to step up in a drop back passing game, but the running game and blocking schemes didn’t always line up philosophically. Separating pass game and run game responsibilities between Munoz and Fedora – an attempt to replicate the LSU model of Joe Brady and Steve Ensminger – simply did not work at Baylor. 

With Grimes leading the way, the offense will have nothing if not a central identity.