This is the Depth Dossier: the Baylor Bears, Week 9.

Baylor's new coach made his debut look nothing like the team that stumbled to Kansas, and the Bears went on the road and ran UCF out of the building, 41 to 9.

Interim head coach Joe Klanderman couldn't have scripted a better first game. Baylor shut UCF out in the first half and had piled up 272 yards to the Knights' 77 by the break. The margin never got interesting.

Quarterback DJ Lagway was the whole story. He threw for 319 yards and four touchdowns without an interception, hitting wide receiver Tony Livingston twice and wide receiver Gavin Freeman once on a 77-yard catch and run that turned a comfortable lead into a laugher. UCF lost starting quarterback Keyone Jenkins to a lower-leg injury in the third quarter, and a defense that had just upset Brigham Young had no answer for a Baylor offense averaging seven and a half yards per play. Baylor's skid is over at two games.

Here's what the final score doesn't tell you. This was Baylor's third first-half shutout in eight games this season, and it came just three days after a head coaching change. The Bears played with an edge from the opening snap, turning a 20 to 3 halftime lead into a 34 to 6 margin heading into the fourth quarter.

The efficiency gap was almost comical. Baylor averaged seven and a half yards per play on 67 snaps. UCF managed just four and two tenths, even though both teams controlled the ball for close to the same amount of time. Seven sacks for 35 yards buried UCF in obvious passing situations all night, and the Knights converted just two of 15 third downs because of it. Baylor didn't turn the ball over once, while UCF gave it away twice, including an interception off Jenkins before he left with the injury.

That Freeman touchdown deserves its own mention. Seventy-seven yards, gone in 25 seconds, and it pushed the lead to 34 to 6. It's the kind of explosive play Baylor hadn't shown much of this season, and Lagway's near-13 yards per attempt shows this wasn't just checkdowns piling up yardage.

A couple more notes worth keeping. Livingston caught only two passes all night, and both went for touchdowns. And Lagway added a career-high 11 rushing attempts, including a 10-yard scramble, showing a dimension that had been missing while his ankle limited him earlier in the year.

Now, on to the depth chart, because there's a lot to track here. No injuries to report for Baylor, so everything that happened was earned. Running back Ryelan Morris announced himself with 82 yards on 11 carries, giving the Bears a complementary back behind the passing game as they try to balance the offense going forward.

The offensive line saw real change. Cooper Lovelace moves into the starting lineup with Asher Hale sliding down, worth tracking given how well the offense moved the ball behind this group.

On the defensive line, Traevon Mitchell's workload keeps climbing toward about two-thirds of the snaps, while Kyler Jordan and Kamren Washington both slide into rotational roles as Trent Thomas and Zavion Hardy push into the mix at around a quarter of the snaps apiece. Baylor is clearly spreading out its line reps even as the pressure production stays elite.

In the secondary, Daniel Cobbs climbs to roughly three-quarters of the snaps while Reggie Bush the second drops to spot duty.

Looking ahead, UCF is now dealing with Jenkins's injury status, while cornerback Alonza Barnett the third is stepping back in after missing five games. So next week's opponent has its own depth chart questions to sort out. For Baylor, the task is simple: see if this version of the offense and defensive line carries over now that the bounce-back week is behind them.

This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.