Baylor week one defensive report card

The Baylor Bears suffered their first loss of the season to the Auburn Tigers on opening weekend. Offensively, they played pretty well. It was the defense that really hurt them, allowing over 300 rushing yards and 38 points in the loss.

Today, we're going to go position by position and give out grades to the Baylor defense.

Defensive Line: D+

The Bears' defensive line took a big hit early in the game when Jackie Marshall went down with an ankle sprain. He played just eight plays before missing the rest of the game, and his absence was noticed.

Baylor gave up 307 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns in the loss. Their inability to contain Jackson Arnold and Co. was pretty much the sole reason they lost this game. They played well in the secondary, and their offense did enough to win, the defense just could not stop the run, which is why the defensive line gets a D+.

Linebackers: C

Outside of Keaton Thomas, Baylor's linebackers were virtually a non-factor in this game. Thomas had a solid stat line, posting 15 total tackles while only missing one and earning a 64.8 defense grade, but outside of him, the rest of the group was subpar at best.

Phoenix Jackson was the Bears' second-highest rated linebacker in the opener, and he could only manage a 57.4 defensive grade. I know PFF isn't the only thing that determines how a player plays, but the other three linebackers who played outside of Thomas combined for nine tackles while missing three.

It wasn't a great day for the linebackers not named Keaton Thomas, but his performance pulls their grade up a bit.