When Dave Aranda took over at Baylor back in January of 2020, he inherited a program that was coming off an 11-win season, including a trip to the Big 12 championship game under Matt Rhule.
Things were certainly trending in the right direction for Baylor as a whole, but little did we know at the time that a worldwide pandemic would take over just a few months after his arrival in Waco.
The COVID year (aka 2020) was one of the wildest in college football history. Games were canceled, week in and week out; you never knew who was playing, and it ended up being a complete mess. In Aranda’s first season, he ended up going 2-7.
However, things looked up the following year. The Bears shocked everyone by winning ten games, followed by a Big 12 championship win and a Sugar Bowl win over Ole Miss. It was Baylor’s first conference championship since 2014 and the first-ever 12-win season in program history.
Unfortunately, Aranda was never able to build off that miraculous 2021 season. The next year, Baylor went 6-6, and he followed that up with an abysmal 3-9 finish in 2023. Last season, Aranda was very close to getting canned after a 2-4 start, but somehow the Bears ended the regular season on a six-game winning streak to help save his job.
The crazy part about the last few years has been the decline of Baylor’s defense. In 2023, the Bears had the worst defense in the Big 12, giving up 33.3 points per game, and had the second-worst run defense that season as well. Last year, the defense was a little better but not by much being finishing eleventh in scoring defense. Now here we are in 2025, eight games into the season, and the Bears have the second-worst scoring defense in the Big 12 (32.6) and the second-worst run defense (190.5).
Those numbers are flat-out unacceptable, especially under a so-called defensive-minded head coach. If he were a defensive coordinator anywhere in the country, he would have been fired. This is a man who has made staff changes multiple times over the years, and yet it still hasn’t worked.
This year was supposed to be the last stand for Dave Aranda. A great quarterback in Sawyer Roberston, plenty of weapons around him, and a solid offensive line. The defense was supposed to be improved, and instead, it got worse, and the Bears are sitting at 4-4 after being a popular dark horse pick to win the Big 12.
On Saturday, the Bears will host a struggling UCF team at 11 a.m. in front of yet another sparse crowd. A win would give Baylor a record above .500 for the first time in a month, but with games against Utah, Arizona, and Houston coming up, it’s looking like another 6-6 or 7-5 season at best.
Baylor has given Dave Aranda plenty of chances and resources to get the program back on track, and he has let them down time and time again. Now, in one of the biggest open coaching markets of all time, the school will have a decision to make. To keep beating their heads against the same wall over and over, and hope it works, or to go in a different direction.
When I look back at that memorable goal line stand back in 2021, it makes me wonder. If that didn’t happen, would Dave Aranda still be in Waco today? Probably not. All that did was buy him more time, and if there’s one thing that Dave Aranda is running out of once again, it’s time.
