Last weekend’s 55-7 blowout over Kansas by Baylor heightened the talk, but attendance figures and the Bears’ only recent emergence as a worthy Big 12 contender suggest it’s way too early to be discussing a new, expansive football stadium on campus.

Yes, we’re excited about the idea, but first things first. Last Saturday’s victory — one for the record books — was nothing less than stunning, let alone invigorating. But attendance — about 35,400 — proved smaller than the first couple of home games this season, each topping 40,000.

Go figure: The first Big 12 matchup of the season saw lots fewer fans, even though the team showed prowess aplenty and the cool, sunny temperatures made for absolutely perfect football weather.

Yet, as veteran Tribune-Herald staff writers J.B. Smith, John Werner and Mike Copeland noted in their three-part series last weekend, some dream of a grand, on-campus stadium for Baylor, and sooner rather than later. Floyd Casey Stadium is about four miles from campus, across busy Interstate 35.

Many of us were excited at developer Rick Sheldon’s plans a few years ago. We still are. It showed, among other significant development along Lake Brazos, a domed stadium seemingly ideal for showcasing Baylor football of the future. Certainly it would boost recruitment efforts and nicely show off the Baylor campus.

But is this not getting the cart ahead of the proverbial horse? While the near-implosion of the Big 12 last summer has drawn more attention to Baylor’s football program, its TV contract potential and the team’s ability to attract fans, the idea of a $200 million stadium in the near future strikes us as wildly premature.

Other major goals loom for the moment, including a $100 million scholarship drive to ensure students can attend Baylor even as tuition and costs continue to rise — a goal announced just three weeks ago — plus focus on the formation of the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative, a high-tech research and training center just across the Brazos. Both of these are huge challenges.

As for Coach Art Briles, quarterback Robert Griffin and the rest of the team, we hope and strongly suspect they’re the dawn of an exciting new era for Baylor athletics. Certainly Briles more than kept his word weeks ago when he said we would be surprised at the team’s potential and impact this season.

But until the secret to success is proved to endure for more than a season or two — and until fans like you and us in this stretch of Central Texas can show we’re consistently supportive and interested, any talk of trading one stadium in for another must wait for more victories, more fans and the fulfillment of other crucial and equally relevant goals.