Baylor QB Shapen out 2-3 weeks with MCL injury, Robertson to start

It’s Sawyer Robertson time at Baylor, at least for the next few weeks.

Head coach Dave Aranda said Monday at his weekly press conference that quarterback Blake Shapen will miss 2-3 weeks as he recovers from an injury to his MCL suffered in Saturday’s loss to Texas State.

“Blake really played well on Saturday. He was a warrior,” Aranda said. “Some of those throws he was making, the ball was coming out in different arm angles, and (it) was on the money. We’re still going to have him with us, and he’s still going to be a motivator for us and a leader.”

Shapen finished the season-opening loss to the Bobcats 21-of-31 for 304 yards and two touchdowns. He scrambled for a touchdown in the first half, the only rushing score of the game for the Bears.

Robertson, in his first year at Baylor since transferring from Mississippi State, completed 6 of 12 passes for 113 yards and one interception on Saturday.

People are also reading…

He’s in line for his first-ever college start Saturday at 11 a.m. against No. 14 Utah.

“He’s a confident kid,” Aranda said. “He’s going to bring energy in meetings and walkthroughs. He’s going to motivate those guys around him. There’s a contagious spirit about him. We’re going to need that, especially early in the week, to kind of pick ourselves up off the mat.”

Shapen was electric as a redshirt freshman in 2021, helping Baylor win the Big 12 championship game and make it to the Sugar Bowl. He was far less consistent last year as the Bears limped to a 6-7 record.

The Baylor offensive line did Shapen no favors against Texas State.

“He (comes) out, he gets taped up, he (goes) back in, we can’t protect him and he gets injured again,” Aranda said. “At that point, my conversation with him was, ‘We can’t protect you, we need to get you out.’ He didn’t want to come out.

“You talk about all the struggles and everything he went through last year, he’s playing with all that kind of as a motivator. It was very emotional.”

Six of the eight penalties committed by the Bears against the Bobcats on Saturday were false-start flags, and five of the six came in the first half. Senior Gavin Byers was the only player on the offensive line who had any starting experience (eight games) in Waco.

Byers started at right guard, in between center Clark Barrington and left tackle Campbell Barrington, brothers who have significant starting experience at BYU.

Redshirt freshman Kaden Sieracki and redshirt sophomore Tate Williams made their first career starts at right guard and right tackle, respectively. Aranda said they might have been a little shell-shocked on Saturday.

“A lot of the issue was, ‘This is a college football game, this is really happening, these are bright lights,’ and all that. I think for a couple of guys, especially on our right side of the line, that was definitely the case,” Aranda said.

Aranda said he did see incremental improvements from the offensive line as the game went on, but there is much more room for improvement. He hopes the group gets better fast — Utah had five sacks in its season-opening win against Florida last Thursday night.

“It’s going to be demanded that we improve,” he said. “I feel like from that hard lesson that we had Saturday, moving forward throughout the week, that we’ll see some good improvement.”

Aranda also hinted that changing quarterbacks to Robertson — much more of a pocket passer — might be a good thing for the offensive line’s development.

As far as Robertson goes, the redshirt sophomore from Lubbock can sling it.

The former four-star prospect played in five games in his two years at Mississippi State.

At Lubbock Coronado, he was named Texas Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior and ranks eighth all-time in Texas high school football history in career completions (813), 10th in career TD passes (135) and 13th in career passing yards (11,302).

“There’s a great amount of belief in him with the team,” Aranda said. “They know that with him, we’ve got a great chance. They feel comfortable with him in situations where a ball has to be thrown, and a play has to be made. There’s that type of confidence, and I think that gives everybody else confidence.”

Injury bug comes to bite

Shapen wasn’t the only player to get injured in Saturday’s opener.

Redshirt sophomore safety Devin Lemear dislocated his elbow and will miss 2-3 weeks. Aranda said sophomore Alfonzo Allen will get the “first crack” at the spot with redshirt sophomore Romario Noel also listed atop the depth chart.

Redshirt senior linebacker Garmon Randolph will be sidelined for 1-2 weeks with a high ankle sprain.

“We’re working through those injuries, and we’ll be with those guys as they rehab and get back into playing shape and all of it,” Aranda said. “(I’m) excited about the guys we’ve got and looking forward to their efforts this week.”

‘); var s = document.createElement(‘script’); s.setAttribute(‘src’, ‘https://assets.revcontent.com/master/delivery.js’); document.body.appendChild(s); window.removeEventListener(‘scroll’, throttledRevContent); __tnt.log(‘Load Rev Content’); } } }, 100); window.addEventListener(‘scroll’, throttledRevContent);

Get local news delivered to your inbox!