EA Sports College Football 27 has been out for seven weeks, which means enough time has passed for the initial ratings arguments to give way to the real question: How much fun is Baylor in Dynasty mode?
The answer is more intriguing than the Bears’ baseline rating suggests.
And because the people at Baylor on SI are dedicated to YOU, we decided to go through a full season simulation to see what EA thinks could be the most realistic outcomes for the Bears this season.
Top four players to build around
Baylor opens as a 79-overall team in EA’s public ratings, but its roster contains four legitimate building blocks at the top. Defensive tackle Hosea Wheeler and receiver Jayden McGowan are the Bears’ highest-rated players at 84 overall, followed by running back Dawson Pendergrass and quarterback DJ Lagway at 83. Lagway also brings 88 speed, 91 acceleration and 99 throw power, giving Baylor the sort of user-controlled quarterback who can outperform the roster around him.
For the Bears, simulating taking over Dave Aranda’s seat is a multilayered task that comes with inherent advantages and disadvantages
Baylor enters as a 2.5-star program in CFB 27 Dynasty tracking data, and possesses 3,385 total Dynasty Points, with 1,155 initially available. Those points are not literal NIL dollars; College Football 27 uses Dynasty Points as the annual resource pool for NIL, coaching staff and facilities.
Final record
The Bears do have one considerable recruiting weapon: The Lone Star state.
Baylor owns a Tier 5 East Texas pipeline, Tier 3 North Texas pipeline and Tier 2 Southwest Texas pipeline, giving users legitimate access to one of the most fertile recruiting territories in the game.
That combination makes Baylor a fascinating middle-class rebuild — not a powerhouse, but nowhere near a blank slate.
Using Baylor’s 2026 schedule, current in-game personnel and All-American difficulty as the framework, Baylor on SI’s season produced a 9-4 finish, a 6-3 Big 12 record, good for fourth in the Big 12, and an AP top-25 finish to conclude the season, coming in at 19th. The Bears went 8-4 during the regular season before beating Clemson 34-30 in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
The offensive ceiling was exactly where you might expect it to be: Lagway.
Some stats to know
The Baylor quarterback finished 283-of-425 passing for 3,766 yards, 30 touchdowns and 12 interceptions while adding 802 rushing yards and nine scores. That gave Lagway 4,568 yards of total offense and 39 touchdowns responsible for. His play earned first-team All-Big 12 honors, Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, a Davey O’Brien Award finalist selection, and a Heisman ceremony invitation.
Dawson Pendergrass rebounded from last year’s season-ending injury to supply 1,284 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns, while McGowan emerged as WR1 with 70 catches for 1,026 yards and nine scores. Defensively, Travion Barnes led Baylor with 118 tackles, Wheeler finished with 10 sacks and 15 tackles for loss, and LeVar Thornton Jr. intercepted four passes.
The season itself was volatile enough to feel believable.
Baylor opened with a 27-24 loss to Auburn, rebounded to win three straight, fell at Arizona State, then ripped off four consecutive Big 12 wins. Losses to BYU and Texas Tech kept the Bears out of the conference championship game, but a 38-27 win at Houston stabilized the season before the bowl victory.
For recruiting, Baylor on SI extended the simulation through the end of the season and through the transfer portal recruiting cycle. Baylor finished with the 27th-best recruiting class nationally and fifth in the Big 12, with a 22-man class headlined by seven four-star prospects, built largely through its Texas pipelines.
Objectively speaking, a 9-4 campaign would cool Dave Aranda’s theoretical hot seat, and would surely meet the threshold previously set out by new incumbent athletic director Doug McNamee. In real life, turning Lagway’s development, stronger recruiting, and increased program momentum into a legitimate Year 2 Big 12 championship run would be the kind of result you would like to see building off the momentum and season that EA believes that Baylor could reasonably produce.
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