DJ Lagway and Baylor await Iowa State as the Cyclones face another elite Big 12 quarterback test
AMES — Baylor quarterback DJ Lagway has spent his college career chasing high expectations, and the former five-star recruit has finally matched those long-held projections with his on-field production. Standing at 6-3 and 237 pounds, the signal-caller now sets his sights on Iowa State.
“He was recruited out of high school to go to Florida for a reason,” said the Cyclones’ first-year head coach Jimmy Rogers, whose team carries a 4-4 overall record and a 2-3 mark in Big 12 play into Saturday’s matchup. “I think he’s coming into his own. I think you could see the growth in his game over the years. Really strong arm. Big athletic player.”
The 11 a.m. contest at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas, airing on FS1, marks just another Saturday of elite quarterback play for Rogers’ squad. Iowa State has already faced the conference’s premier running threat in West Virginia’s Michael Hawkins Jr. and its most prolific passer in Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, though it managed only a narrow victory against the latter in a thrilling 51-49 home win last week.
The defensive challenge in Waco
Against top all-around conference signal-callers like Arizona’s Noah Fifita, Utah’s Devon Dampier, and BYU’s Bear Bachmeier, the Cyclones found far less success, dropping those contests by an average of 21.3 points. Now comes Lagway, who ranks third in the Big 12 with 278.5 passing yards per game.
“They’ve got a good offense,” said Cyclone linebacker Beau Goodwin, who recorded his second career interception during the shootout win against Oklahoma State. “I’ll just say that. They’ve got good speed, the tailbacks (and) receivers, so we’ve gotta do our best to match up and just do our job.”
While Lagway is completing 53.3 percent of his passes this season, he has protected the football effectively with 13 touchdown passes against just four interceptions. That represents a major change from his previous campaign, where he threw 16 passes to 14 interceptions before transferring to Baylor—the same institution where his father, Derek, starred at running back from 1997 to 2001.
ISU cornerback/nickel Seth Johnson said that going against the best of the best is only going to make the team better, adding that the team does not want to go against lower-tier quarterbacks.
That caliber of competition defines the Big 12, which features five of the top 21 passers in the entire FBS by aerial yardage. Lagway operates at the center of that firepower, heavily utilizing wide receiver Gavin Freeman. Freeman, who previously spent two seasons each at Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, has caught 35.4 percent of the Bears’ passes and accounted for 34.9 percent of their aerial yardage.
Baylor fields stout defense against run game
Baylor counters with a defense allowing just 15.3 points per contest—good for second-best in the Big 12—alongside a run defense giving up 99.4 yards per game, which also ranks second in the league.
“They’ve got a really stout front,” said first-year ISU offensive coordinator Tyler Roehl, who previously coached alongside Baylor interim head coach Joe Klanderman for five seasons at North Dakota State. “So for us, it’s leverage, it’s pad level, it’s simplicity equals velocity, and lets our guys cut loose and play fast.”
On the injury front, Rogers announced that backup quarterback Connor Moberly will be out for “four weeks or so” after sustaining an injury during the loss at Arizona two weeks ago. Meanwhile, linebacker and leading tackler Sullivan Schlimgen, who suffered a lower-body injury against Oklahoma State, could potentially be available at Baylor.
