By Brice Cherry

Tribune-Herald staff writer

The best news for Baylor safety Jordan Lake this season?

No Kansas State on the schedule.

As a redshirt freshman in 2006, Lake broke his collarbone while corralling his first career interception against K-State and missed the rest of the season. Then in last year’s game against the Wildcats, Lake suffered another injury, this time to his shoulder.

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Baylor football: fall camp

The Bears continue their preparations for the season opener Aug. 28 under new ball coach Art Briles.

Though he managed to play through the pain and complete the season, the injury required offseason surgery and forced Lake to miss spring drills.

“I’m kind of jinxed with (Kansas State),” Lake said.

Even if K-State were on Baylor’s schedule again in 2008, it would be hard to imagine Lake playing at anything less than full speed. The junior free safety, a preseason all-Big 12 selection and one of just 40 players nationally on the Thorpe Award watch list, is the Bears’ wild man of the secondary, fearless and fierce and flat-out competitive.

Baylor junior tight end Justin Akers, who has lived with Lake throughout his time in Waco, said his roommate carries that intensity over to everything, not just football.

“When you play video games with him, it’s wild,” Akers said. “I’ve gotten to the point now where if he wants to play a video game, sometimes I don’t do it because when I do beat him, then I’ve got to live with him for the next couple of days. He stomps around the house and mopes like a little boy, so I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s not worth (losing) a friendship over a video game.”

Asked about Akers’ assessment of his PlayStation demeanor, Lake offered up a retort as vicious as any of his bruising hits.

“He doesn’t beat me often, so he doesn’t really have to worry about that,” he said.

Lake believes his competitive fire was first ignited in his backyard, in pickup football and basketball games against his brother.

“My brother’s 21/2 years older than me, so he always had the edge on me,” Lake said. “That said, I was always fighting to try to win. I always lost a lot when I was young, and that taught me to hate losing and really want to be competitive in everything I do.”

It’s a mentality that has worked for Lake, who led Baylor with 120 tackles last year to go along with two interceptions and two fumble recoveries. From what new BU coach Art Briles has seen of Lake through the first five fall practices, it’s clear that the other defensive players naturally gravitate to him.

“Jordan’s a leader,” Briles said. “He’s an intelligent guy and he’s a responder. People respond to him.”

With the new 4-3 defensive scheme, Lake’s overall tackle numbers could decrease this season. That’s the hope anyway, Briles said.

“You don’t want your free safety being your leading tackler, I can promise you that,” the coach said.

“I’m really working on getting more interceptions, working on roaming around in the secondary, getting our pass coverage tightened up,” Lake said.

After missing the spring, Lake entered fall workouts last week energized. He said he believes his shoulder is fully rehabilitated, though he admitted to needing to test it out with some full-contact drills, given that the Bears strapped on full pads for the first time Wednesday.

“I’m kind of forgetting about (the shoulder),” Lake said. “I haven’t really had that one big hit yet. I’ve had a couple of tests for it so far, and I’ve passed with flying colors, so I’m all right with it.”

Lake has revived one tradition from last season, breaking out a Mohawk haircut a couple of days into practice.

It’s a look that hasn’t exactly earned rave reviews from his teammates.

“I think he needs a new haircut,” Akers said. “Two years in a row? He needs something new. Personally, if my hair was that long, I would have gone with a mullet.”

No doubt Lake’s teammates are going to get their share of playful jabs in at the safety, be they related to his hairstyle, his video-game prowess or his ultra-competitive nature.

But at the end of the day, they’re glad he’s one of them.

“You know he’s always going to go out there and give 100 percent, do everything he can,” Akers said. “You always want to have 11 guys hustling down the field, but if you can’t have 11, you want to have at least one. We’re definitely going to have at least one, that’s for sure.”

Bear Facts

Baylor practiced inside Floyd Casey Stadium on Wednesday rather than risk tearing up the practice fields after Tuesday night’s rains. . . . Crawford product Andrew Judy came out with a white offensive jersey rather than a green defensive one, as he makes the shift from defensive end to fullback. Briles praised Judy’s “burst for the first two to five yards” and said that he probably has a quicker route to the field at fullback. . . . Ex-Marlin standout Jeremy Sanders saw a significant amount of action at running back Wednesday, but Briles wouldn’t specify if a position change may be in order for the transfer from Navarro. “There’s a potential he could help us win,” the coach said. “Really, that’s all we’re looking at right now.” . . . Baylor will take today off and resume practice at 3:30 p.m. Friday. The team has an intrasquad scrimmage planned for 10 Saturday morning.