Nixon joined the Panthers after a three-year stint as Baylor's co-Offensive Coordinator and play caller. In 2019, the Bears finished with an 11-win season, an appearance in the Big XII Championship game and Allstate Sugar Bowl. While running the offense, the unit averaged 431.2 yards per game and ranked 17th nationally in scoring offense (35.2 points per game).
The prior season, Baylor finished 22nd in the FBS in total offense (459.1 yards per game). His first season in Waco saw Baylor finish in the top-25 in passing offense, averaging 280 yards per game. Quarterback Charlie Brewer earned Big XII Freshman Offensive Player of the Year under Nixon's guidance, starting a career that saw him finish second all-time at Baylor in career passing yards.
Some more on how Baylor did under Nixon...
These are Charlie Brewer's stats in college. Note how well he did in his first 3 seasons and the drop off after the years with Coach Nixon.
I think it is a good sign that Charlie was able to be successful immediately as a frosh, continued to be really productive while under Jeff and did not enjoy the same success once Jeff left Baylor.
Also note Charlie ran for 7 TDs as a soph and 11 as a junior. He didn't run for a ton of yards at Baylor but he was a factor near the goal line.
Check out Charlie Brewer's College Stats, School, Draft, Gamelog, Splits and More College Stats at Sports-Reference.com
www.sports-reference.com
Baylor went from 1-11 in 2017, to 7-6 in 2018 to 11-3 in 2019.
Baylor offensive performance (Nixon called plays from 2017-2019)
| Year | PPG | Avg Yards Rushing per Game | Avg Yards Passing per Game | Rushing TDs | Passing TDs | Yards/Carry | Yards/Pass Attempt |
| 2016 | 34.62 | 241.8 | 280.92 | 25 | 33 | 5.0 | 7.61 |
| 2017 | 24.33 | 117.3 | 287.67 | 10 | 23 | 3.4 | 7.47 |
| 2018 | 29.54 | 169.1 | 290.00 | 25 | 22 | 4.4 | 7.76 |
| 2019 | 33.64 | 166.4 | 255.07 | 35 | 24 | 4.4 | 8.04 |
| 2020 | 23.33 | 90.3 | 219.89 | 8 | 14 | 2.7 | 5.98 |
My takeaways...
Remember, Nixon called the plays from 2017 to 2019. I am including the year before he took over and the year after he left for comparison purposes.
Baylor had a very good offense in 2016. They lost their QB (hence Nixon had to start a frosh QB who had never played before). The rushing attack regressed badly. My guess is that they lost some of their best OL and RBs.
But some of the decline in rushing success might be attributable to the Nixon system. They never ran the ball under Jeff like they did in 2016. The OC for Baylor in 2016 was Kendal Briles and guess what? He ran the Baylor offense Dino Babers tried to also run at Syracuse.
So Jeff is actually going to install his offense in place of essentially the same offense at Syracuse that he did at Baylor, which if nothing else will be interesting to watch.
At Baylor, the Nixon offense really struggled to run the ball effectively in year one. But they were effective passing the ball right away. And remember, this was with a freshman QB running the offense, one who had never played before.
The running attack improved over time under Nixon, as did the overall performance of the offense. But the passing numbers remained fairly even.
With an experienced QB running the show and some proven talent to throw to, I think it is reasonable to expect Syracuse to be successful throwing the ball. I would expect a vast improvement in our passing numbers from 2023, when Garrett was hurt so much and we didn't have a strong WR group or TEs to throw to.
Rushing numbers might stay flat or even go done a bit. I doubt we will run the ball as much as we did last season, when we had a number of games we played essentially without a QB, and a number of others where Shrader played but was limited in the throws he could make.
It really is going to be interesting to see what happens with the Syracuse offense. If the OL can be decent, and McCord and OG can stay healthy, I would expect a major improvement overall in the Syracuse offense for 2024.
