2023 Baylor Bears football team

The 2023 Baylor Bears football team represented Baylor University in the Big 12 Conference during the 2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Bears were led by Dave Aranda in his fourth season as their head coach.

Baylor was picked sixth out of 14 teams in the preseason media poll of the conference. It was not ranked in the national top 25 polls of media or coaches, though the team did receive some votes.

The Bears played eight of their 12 regular season games at home, the largest number in school history and the most home games in the NCAA FBS this year, along with Penn State, Arizona State and Mississippi State.

This was the first season with Big 12 membership at 14 teams, after the realignment upheaval of the preceding years, which saw the league add four teams (BYU, UCF, Houston and Cincinnati). Consequently, the football schedule was no longer a "round robin" in which every team plays every other team, as was the practice when the league had 10 teams. The league continued to play nine intra-conference games; therefore, the Bears in 2023 did not play BYU, Kansas, Oklahoma State or Oklahoma, which (along with Texas) was in its final year with the league before moving to the SEC. The Bears played three of the four newcomers.

Five Baylor players were named to national preseason watch lists for the following awards:


 * Richard Reese, Maxwell Award, Doak Walker Award and Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award
 * Gabe Hall, Bronko Nagurski Trophy
 * Clark Barrington, Rimington Trophy
 * Blake Shapen, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award
 * Alonzo Allen, Wuerffel Trophy

The Bears played their home games at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas, its 10th year of hosting play.

The Bears failed to qualify for a bowl game and suffered their first losing season since 2020 following their loss to Kansas State.