For the longest time, Travon Blanchard was pretty sure he was going to be “the next LeBron.”
“I tried to do my little LeBron (James) impersonation,” said Blanchard, a 6-2, 205-pound sophomore from Orange, Texas, who starts at the “Bear” or nickel back position on the Baylor defense. “I played power forward, and my first step was always faster than everybody else’s.”
Six inches shorter than the NBA superstar, Blanchard does sport a copycat beard and has a very LeBron-like smile that he constantly flashes.
“He keeps a smile on his face,” said junior cornerback Ryan Reid, “but he’s always ready to go. He’s electrifying, to me. He’s always strapped up and ready to go. I love that about him. I love being out there with him.”
Football became front and center for Blanchard in 2011 when he was named MVP at a National Underclassmen Camp in Norman, Okla.
“There were a lot of the top prospects there, and I was able to win the MVP,” he said. “That’s when I recognized that this was going to be my future.”
As a three-year starter at West Orange Stark High School, a traditional football powerhouse, Blanchard earned second-team all-state honors as a junior linebacker and was first-team all-state as a safety for a 13-1 state quarterfinalist as a senior in 2012.
“Being there, of course, you want to continue that tradition,” he said. “West Orange is a great place to be, a really good school for football.”
While most of his scholarship offers came from in-state schools, it got down to Kansas State, Baylor and TCU.
“When Kansas State recruited me, they were No. 1 in the nation,” Blanchard said. “They came here and Baylor beat them (52-24 in 2012). That was the game that made me want to be a part of that. When (Baylor) started recruiting me, they were coming off their Heisman year with RG3. And, of course, Coach (Art) Briles is an amazing coach. I wanted to come here and be a part of the change. I wanted to help turn the program around.”
After sitting on the sidelines as a redshirt when Baylor won its first Big 12 championship in 2013, Blanchard backed up Collin Brence at the “Bear” position for last year’s 11-2 conference champions and made 31 tackles, 2.5 stops behind the line and one interception.
“We’ve always known that Blanch would be a really good player,” Briles said. “He just had to go through the bad and get to the good and understand his role in the system and be disciplined and know what he’s doing. Then you back that up with ability, and that’s where he’s at now. The guy’s a playmaker. The guy’s long, he can run and he can make plays.”
In what is still a fairly small sample size – he’s started four games for the Bears – Blanchard has lived up the playmaker label. He’s third on the team with 22 tackles, has made three stops behind the line, forced two fumbles, recovered one and got his second career pick in the Bears 63-35 win over Texas Tech.
“The coaches preach to us every day that turnovers kill the other team’s momentum,” he said. “Against a team like Tech that plays off tempo, if they drive the ball down the field, a turnover just shuts all of that down. . . . The faster we can get the ball back in our offense’s hands, the more points we’ll score.”
The week before, in a 70-17 blowout of Rice, Blanchard flipped the game around when he chased down quarterback Driphus Jackson, punched the ball out and recovered near midfield with the Bears only leading 14-10. Baylor scored three plays later and never looked back.
“If you’re looking for somebody that’s always going to be around the ball and loves just flying to it, that’s Travon Blanchard,” Reid said.
Defensive coordinator Phil Bennett, the ultimate judge and jury, says Blanchard just needs to become more consistent.
“Getting consistent and being football savvy in place,” Bennett said. “What I do like is I know it’s important to him. He practices hard and he’s excited to play.”
Against Tech, he forced a fumble late in the first half that Chance Waz recovered, dropped receiver Jakeem Grant for a three-yard loss on an option run and picked off a Patrick Mahomes pass on a fourth-down play late in the third quarter.
“We actually lost 23 yards on that one, but we’re not going to tell the guy not to catch it,” Briles said, “because he may catch it and run it back for a touchdown. . . . If you can get the ball, get it. If it’s up in the air, it’s ours.”
As soon as he hit the turf at AT&T Stadium, Blanchard said he “realized what was going on . . . I should have batted it down.”
“But in that situation, no matter what, I’m not going to give up the pass. You just go up and get it. The coaches tell us that as soon as the ball’s in the air, you turn into a receiver.”
At the high school level, Blanchard could just turn it loose and play. But since coming to Baylor nearly three years ago, “I’ve got a way better knowledge of defense.”
“Coach Bennett always says that power is knowledge,” Blanchard said. “Our coaches keep it simple, but the ‘Bear’ is asked to do a lot. We can be asked to blitz off the edge, man up (in pass coverage) or play zone. . . . I feel like I’ve always had the instincts, but now I have a better understanding of what the offense is trying to do. I’m so much smarter now with my football IQ because of Coach Bennett.”
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
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