Both teams sit at 4-2 in the Big 12. With Utah still unbeaten and alone at the top of the league, neither one can afford to drop another conference game. BYU at 7-2 is ranked and still talking about the Playoff. Baylor at 6-3 is unranked, and a win in Provo is the kind of result that gets you noticed.
Look at the 3 opponents both teams have played and it gets interesting. Both beat Iowa State: BYU 24-10 at home, Baylor 42-31 at home. Both beat Arizona State: Baylor won 55-19 in Tempe, while BYU needed a fight to win 27-20 in Provo. Then there's UCF. Baylor went to Orlando and won 41-9. BYU went to the same stadium and lost 39-31. Comparing scores across common opponents only tells you so much, but those 3 games make Baylor look closer to BYU than a ranked-vs-unranked label suggests.
Baylor has also been all over the place. The same offense that put up 55, 41 and 42 managed only 6 points at home against TCU in a 17-6 loss, then lost 25-24 at Kansas the next week. When the Bears struggle on offense, they really struggle, and a road game against a desperate home team in Provo is a tough place to find out which version shows up.
The early forecast for Provo says around 60 degrees, mostly sunny and nearly no wind, which would be ideal for mid-November, though it's a week out and can change. If it holds, neither offense gets to blame the weather. For BYU, it comes down to Bachmeier protecting the ball. For Baylor, it's whether the team that scored 28 straight on Iowa State travels.
