Title/Alt Text Texas will face Baylor in Waco on Saturday morning during championship week, but there isn’t much on the line for either team.

Baylor suffered its second defeat of the season last weekend to TCU, eliminating it from Big 12 title contention. Texas, for its part, has dropped seven games in consecutive seasons for the first time in program history. In doing so, Charlie Strong is the first Texas head coach to lose seven games or more in multiple seasons.

With no postseason prospects, Texas hopes to avoid becoming the program’s first team since 1956 to drop eight or more games in a season.

Texas’ 14 losses over the past two seasons are tied for the most over a two consecutive campaigns in program history (1955-1956 and 1937-1938). Though, it should be noted, the Longhorns played 12 or 13 games each of the last two seasons. In previous years, the Horns played as few as 10 games.

An eighth loss this season would mean the 2014 and 2015 teams have combined for the most losses in a two-year stretch in program history.

Comparisons to 1997

The Longhorns enter the season finale with a 4-7 record. Before this year, the most recent time Texas entered a game three games below .500 occurred in 1997 when it faced Kansas with a 3-6 record.

Through 11 games, Texas’ opponents are scoring 31.5 points on average against the Longhorns, the second most in program history behind only the 1997 squad that surrendered 33.3 points per game.

Before the loss this Thanksgiving, 1997 was also the most recent season in which Texas Tech had defeated the Longhorns in Austin.

If the Longhorns fail to throw multiple touchdowns against Baylor (they have not thrown more than one in the three most recent meetings), they will finish with single-digit touchdown passes on the season for the first time since 1997.

Texas has been outscored by its opponents by 53 points thus far, the team’s worst margin since being outscored by 83 points in 1997. Opposing offenses are picking up 5.69 yards per play this season, fifth-most in program history right behind 5.74 yards gained per play on the 1997 defense.

If the Longhorns fall to Baylor, Strong’s second loss to the Bears would have occurred in 2015 while John Mackovic’s second loss to them while at Texas happened in 1997. With a loss this weekend, Texas would finish the season with just four wins, its fewest since a 4-7 campaign in 1997.

Texas' losing skid against Baylor

If the Longhorns lose this weekend they will have dropped three straight to the Bears, the school’s longest skid in this matchup. In fact before 2013, only four Longhorn senior classes fell to Baylor three times (1939,1989,1991,1992) while a loss this weekend will ensure four straight senior classes dropping at least three games to Baylor.

If Texas is to avoid doing so, it’ll have to start by stopping Baylor’s high-powered rushing attack that averages 291.5 yards per game. If the Bears run for 697 yards over their final two games, they will become the first Big 12 team since the 2001 Nebraska Cornhuskers to average at least 300 rushing yards per game for a season.

Baylor has surpassed 200 yards on the ground in nine of its first 11 games, while Texas is 7-19 since 2010 when its opponents reaches the 200-yard rushing plateau.

The Longhorn defense enters as the worst statistical defense in program history, surrendering an average of 450.2 yards of total offense to its opponents. This includes 203.4 yards per game on the ground; its most since allowing 241.5 rushing yards per game in, you guessed it, 1997.

After 28 points or more seven times in the first 99 meetings of this series, Baylor has reached that total in each of its games with Texas this decade.

Over that time, the Longhorns have been outscored by 67 points, which is 20 points more than they were outscored from 1988-1992, the only other time in the series history in which Baylor won four times in five tries.

If the Longhorns fall to Baylor by at least three scores as expected (Baylor opened as 21 point favorite), they will join the 2002 and 2004 Baylor teams as the only Big 12 teams since 2000 to lose each of their road games by at least three scores. Texas would also be just the fourth Power-Five team since 2010 to lose every road game in a season by at least 17 points (2012 Kentucky, 2012 Illinois, 2013 California).