SAN ANTONIO -- The Baylor Bears came into Saturday’s game at the Alamodome high off a big win over Abilene Christian, while UTSA was looking to rebound from a nasty loss against Arizona State.

Last season, UTSA stunned Baylor in Waco by a score of 17-10, but the Roadrunner’s could not pull off the upset two years in a row. Baylor came into the Alamodome and took care of business, quieting the second-largest home crowd in UTSA football’s short history (42,071). Although UTSA looked much improved from last week, here are the three biggest factors that contributed to the loss.

Secondary Struggles

The UTSA’s run defense was extremely impressive all game long. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the secondary. It didn’t matter that UTSA’s front seven was playing great, because Charlie Brewer and the Baylor offense picked apart the secondary and moved the ball through the air at will.

Brewer finished the game 22-34 with 328 passing yards and three touchdowns. Wide Receivers Jalen Hurd and Denzel Mims torched the UTSA secondary, combining for 16 catches and 269 yards while each finding the end-zone once. The secondary seemed to give up the big play too much as well, as Baylor averaged 14.9 yards per completion. The UTSA secondary proved to be the weak spot in the defense, and they’ll have to improve moving forward.

Sluggish Start

Once again, just like at Arizona State, the Roadrunner’s got off to a terrible start. After a quick three-and-out on their first offensive drive, they allowed Baylor to score on their first possession. Shortly after, on UTSA’s second offensive possession, quarterback Cordale Grundy threw an interception on his second pass attempt of the game to give Baylor the ball in UTSA territory.

With 7:05 left in the first quarter, the score was already 10-0 in favor of Baylor. Going down early is deflating to a team, and it’s always tough to bounce back from such a quick deficit. The Roadrunner’s exhibited mental toughness and were able to recover and settle in before it got out of control, but it was still not the start to a game any team wants to have.

Third Down defense

Aside from the secondary and their big play vulnerability, the defense held up fairly well against Baylor’s dangerous offense. The defense was pretty good…just not on third down. The UTSA defense forced 14 third downs, and Baylor converted on eight of them. It seemed as if every time Baylor was faced with a third down and the UTSA crowd got on their feet, Brewer and company managed to quiet the crowd and keep the drive alive.

Poor third down defense led to the UTSA defense being on the field too long, as Baylor won the time of possession battle by quite a wide margin. Baylor had possession of the ball for 35:08 as opposed to UTSA who possessed the ball for 24:52.

All-In-All

Although UTSA lost, there were some positive takeaways from the game. After Baylor rushed for 295 yards last week against Abilene Christian, they were unable to get much on the ground against UTSA. UTSA’s run defense held steady and kept Baylor to under 100 rushing yards for the game.

UTSA also did better running the football, picking up 98 yards on the ground. 98 yards isn’t fantastic, but it sure is a step up after totaling just two rushing yards last week. UTSA looked like a better team than they were a week ago, so we’ll see if they can continue to improve as they travel to Kansas next week to take on Kansas State.