If you remember my season prediction for the last weekend of August, I mentioned that Baylor’s a Charlie Brewer injury away from watching a promising turn upside down.

These were my words on Aug. 25:

Keys to the season

>No. 1: Brewer’s health. There’s no one behind him with any experience. There were 79 negative plays (sacks and hurries) that Baylor allowed to its QBs in 2018. Brewer’s chances of injury are reduced if that number finishes into the 40s. If he goes down and is lost for an extended period of time or the balance of 2019, the season takes a nosedive. Every game plan will have to change. And you could see a revolving door at QB between Gerry Bohanon and Jacob Zeno. It’s going to be like starting over.

After watching that replay several times when Brewer took that hit from Kansas State defensive tackle Trey Dishon in the fourth quarter, my first reaction was collar bone. I have no way of knowing that. But that’s what my eyes told my brain. That’s why this is called an analysis.

We’re going to have to wait for final word from Matt Rhule about what the severity is. It’s going to be a long wait from after this dominant 31-12 victory at Kansas to either late Sunday or Monday when the news is revealed.

Then it is helped when his blind side in Connor Galvin is also going to have an MRI to determine what his lower body injury. If that isn’t good, then you’re going to see Baylor’s offensive line completely shift like it for the end of the game.

Basically, the Baylor community is holding its breath.

The shame of this is that this is the best it has been under Rhule. The Bears mastered the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Even when they fell behind 3-0, they were the better team. When they led 10-3, for whatever reason, I thought they were in really good shape to win this because Kansas State’s offense just doesn’t have any kind of explosiveness to become a factor. It wasn’t. And you may not have known this, but this is the second straight Big 12 game where the Wildcats didn’t score a touchdown for the first three quarters, had kicked two field goals and scored an oh-by-the-way touchdown in the fourth quarter when it was pretty well decided.

They had six sacks of Wildcats quarterback Skyler Thompson including three by James Lynch. They had nine other tackles for loss. They forced three fumbles (covered one). They made a pedestrian offense look like it couldn’t even move that fast.

Offensively, I thought they were going to have to rush for about 175 yards. They didn’t but close enough with 158. It was actually 194 before the lost yardage. More impressively, they averaged 5.1 yards per carry. That’s going to go a long way toward winning a lot of games. JaMycal Hasty looked the best he’s looked in probably two years. John Lovett was smart with the football. He also protected it, which has been his problem.

And before he got hurt, Brewer was excellent. Look no further than the 98-yard scoring drive that put the Bears up for good at 10-3. The way he was moving in the pocket to extend plays was from someone who was confident in who he was and what he wanted to do.

I had this tweet halftime.

Indeed, this is the kind of football that Rhule wants to play. He wants to bloody your nose and out tough you for four quarters. While the spread it out, air it out big pass plays are fun, I’m just a believer that if you play really good defense week in and week out, you’re going to win, especially on nights when your offense struggles.

You know that saying: defense travels.

So back to the uncertainty surrounding Brewer. If Baylor dodges a huge bullet and has him available for Texas Tech or Oklahoma State, this program can manage that.

If he’s out for any extended period of time, the whole game plan for Gerry Bohanon is going to change. It has to. It’s a good thing that he’s seen so many live reps as this potential moment arrives. But QB coach Glenn Thomas and Rhule will put Bohanan on safe leverage situations and then pick spots. Bohanon has great skill players around him. They’ll help him.

Bohanon also has a defense that’s going to do its part to keep Baylor in every game.

Knowing what we know about this team, the season won’t go upside down like I wrote six weeks ago. It will change.

Baylor can handle it. Just keep your fingers crossed.