By Brice Cherry

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Being a cornerback in the Big 12 is a little like being an outlaw in the Old West.

Every week you’re a marked man. You’re liable to get targeted, picked on and chased at every turn. It can be a pressure-packed, even frightening, existence.

But as they prepare to face another firing squad in Missouri this weekend, Baylor’s cornerbacks say they’re not about to duck and run.

“I don’t think it puts any more pressure on us,” said sophomore Antareis Bryan of the Big 12’s potent passing attacks. “I believe it motivates us to come out with a passion to play football. It drives us more than it puts pressure on us. I see teams like Tech and Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas and Kansas State — they all have great quarterbacks and great receivers, and we look forward to covering them each and every week.”

If cornerbacks truly crave challenges, then Baylor’s bunch should be fully satisfied. The Bears opened the year with a pair of starters new to the position, as senior Dwain Crawford shifted over from safety in the spring while sophomore Krys Buerck converted from wide receiver.

Bryan supplanted Buerck in the starting lineup four weeks ago against Oklahoma. But recent injuries to both Bryan and Crawford have further drained an already shallow pool of talent at the position.

Then there’s the daunting prospect of standing squarely in the line of fire of the Big 12’s aerial assaults. Seven of the nation’s top 15 passing offenses call the conference home.

“You’re going to have good players in the Big 12,” Buerck said. “They come here to play. So do we. You’re basically going against a good opponent every week. It’s a challenge every week, and you’ve just got to live up to the challenge and play your best. The Big 12 is always going to have the athletes, the big receivers, and that’s how you get noticed anyway.”

Baylor coach Art Briles is careful not to saddle his cornerbacks with too much burden, saying “every position defensively is vital to stopping a great passing offense.”

Yet there remain moments where the ball is suspended in space, and it’s just the cornerback and the receiver doing battle, mano a mano.

“You can single your cornerback out and say this guy needs to be a lock-down corner on his receiver, but very seldom in the game do you put a guy in that situation,” Briles said. “Now when you get caught in that situation, they’ve got to be able to shut somebody down and make plays.”

“In a zone defense, you kind of depend on the other guys around you to be in the spots they need to be,” Crawford said. “But if we’re playing man-to-man, it’s you against him. So you can kind of match him up and not worry about anything else on the field but him.”

In the parlance of the gridiron, it’s called being “on an island” — with the cornerback out by himself, defending against a receiver in man coverage. Baylor’s defensive backs claim they welcome that solitary responsibility.

“As a cornerback, of course you live for the challenge,” Bryan said. “You want to rise up and make a play, rather than let the receiver make a play. It’s never really one-on-one. The only times it’s one-on-one is when there’s no safety help. But you’re always going to have your defensive line making a push, so it’s always going to be five-on-one rather than one-on-one.”

But the D-linemen obviously can’t help much once the ball is in the air heading for a receiver. For the cornerback, it’s those moments, all alone against a phenomenal athlete the likes of Texas Tech’s Michael Crabtree, Oklahoma State’s Dez Bryant or Missouri’s Jeremy Maclin, that can get a little frantic.

“It can be (nerve-wracking), but you’ve just got to take a deep breath, get ready and just play,” Buerck said. “That’s what football is about, being a player and dominating the person in front of you.”

“You get nervous when you’re tired, and you know they’re going to throw it,” said freshman Trentson Hill. “But you’ve still got to make the play.”

Baylor’s corners should find plenty of chances to make a play against a Mizzou team that passes the ball about twice as often as it runs. The good news for the Bears is that Bryan has deemed himself “nearly 100 percent” recovered from his strained quadriceps, while Crawford said he feels “great” after missing last week’s Nebraska game with an ankle injury, and expects to play against the Tigers.

It’s another chance for Baylor’s DBs to make a name for themselves against some of the bigger-named wideouts in the conference.

“It’s a challenge and it’s an opportunity,” Bryan said. “I believe once I take advantage of my opportunity, I’ll be known as a great cornerback, and then it’ll be an opportunity for them to go against me.”

bcherry@wacotrib.com

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