WACO, Texas — The reigning Big 12 Defensive Player of the year: gone.
A finalist for assistant coach of the year at defensive coordinator: gone.
In 2020, the Baylor defense will look slightly different.
"That's probably the biggest overall philosophy is the soft zone stuff, we haven't played a lot of it," defensive coordinator Ron Roberts said.
With Dave Aranda, fresh off a national title as LSU's defensive coordinator, taking the reigns as head coach this year, the schemes may not be noticeably different to fans. Aranda brought Roberts in from Louisiana to be his DC in Waco.
Roberts said he feels like most of his job in Waco is building on what's already started.
"Toughness, discipline and effort," Roberts said. "Those are the three things that, any time you in to a program usually, if they're not very good, those are the hardest things to change and create that changes the culture in the program like that. The beautify of it, here, is we don't have to."
In 2019, Baylor led the Big 12 in sacks with 46 and were third in the conference in passing defense at 217.6 yards per game. The key for that squad was a three-down front led by three defensive linemen now playing in the NFL.
That front will be one noticeable difference in 2020.
"We're going to be multiple," Roberts said. "We're going to be pressure, we want to contest everything. Pass, run, don't matter, we want to contest it all, we want to play an aggressive style of defense."
So, while they work to fill the holes left by three pro's, Roberts said there's not much to rebuild.
Just things to build on from a year ago under a new regime.
"When you flip the film on from last year and saw how hard they played, we don't want to lose that," Roberts said. "We've got to keep that. That's the base, the foundation for success, defensively."