Baylor’s 6-7 season may have seemed like a throwaway year, but for a team that’s set to compete in a weakened Big 12, it’s sink or swim for Dave Aranda and the Bears
About 87 miles north of Baylor University on December 23rd, Dave Aranda looked up at a foggy scoreboard at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. The Baylor Bears were supposed to be preseason favorites to wrangle the Big 12 and compete for a championship just around 30 minutes away in AT&T Stadium. Instead, they were shot down 30-15 in an embarrassing loss to Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl, a far cry from the high horse they were riding on in entering fall camp.
Nearly immediately, the realization set in for fans, pundits, Big 12 bigwigs, ESPN’s SportsCenter, and every person who has some association to the Bears’ football program… Baylor is in trouble.
“I was really disappointed on a whole offensively. In previous games, there was probably more juice and excitement to play,” Aranda said after the game. “I’m just way disappointed in just the lack of that. It really starts with the run game. You know, that is really the identity of our offense and you could argue our team. A lot of credit goes to Air Force, always being where they need to be, the effort and all that. But yeah, we did not hold up to our side of the bargain… it was just a really bad ending. There is a lot to improve.”
The Baylor head coach has been in Waco for just over three years, trudging through a COVID-infested season, to a resoundingly encouraging sophomore campaign, to a bummer in 2022. Now, the team has some deep soul searching to do as the questions around Aranda and the rest of the Bears begin to swirl.
Aranda’s hiring in 2020 came after Baylor was in the struggle zone. Head coach Matt Rhule had left to take a head coaching position with the Carolina Panthers. In college ball, nothing spells out culture change like a new head coach, and Aranda was starting from scratch. High expectations loomed after the Bears’ 11-3 2019 season, one that was highlighted by the likes of quarterback Charlie Brewer and a high-powered offense that topped the Big 12 in everything from rushing yards to passing attempts. ‘Twas a sight to see in Waco, then Aranda, an assistant coach for his entire career, was brought on to lead the Bears with the bar in the stratosphere.
A tough break for any coach.
The 2020 Baylor Bears were despondent at best, going 2-7 in a season marred by the stain of COVID and an embarrassing start to a young head coach’s career. Aranda often found himself dealing with himself and managing a team on the brink of implosion, whether from COVID issues or from simply being a bad football team. Overall, the culture shift was minimal, and with a fledgling head coach– sometimes change is necessary.
“Dave was more about, ‘If I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of listening and maybe keeping things more of the same,’ rather than making some change that he truly believed in,” said Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades. The team had to find its new identity, and find its way amongst a group of 100 plus individuals who now had to become one.
In 2020, the Bears were one of the worst teams offensively. That had to change. Aranda quit the nice guy act and the program as a whole made decisive changes to start shaping the Bears back into competitive form.
The team got rid of offensive coordinator Larry Fedora and passing game coordinator Jorge Munoz, turning a new, blank page in a saga that was for lack of foreshadowing– short-lived. The 2021 Bears were a synchronous unit, impressing through the air and on the ground. The chemistry was there and a swift moving offense made quick work of most of the Big 12. The Baylor Bears had finally found some resemblance of the inner workings of a successful football team. Jeff Grimes was brought on as the new offensive coordinator, bringing a rejuvenated sense of life to a team that looked morose only a season ago.
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Then sooner or later, the inevitable had to happen. The grim reality of college football came crashing down all at once. After winning the Big 12 and landing themselves ranked No. 6 in the AP Poll by years end, Aranda and company reaped the rewards. Headlines all over Texas ran something like this, “Baylor’s Back, and Ready to Start a Dynasty for the Ages“. If only that were true.
The Bears lost six players to the NFL Draft, with quarterback Charlie Brewer making the decision to transfer to Utah before spring ball even started. Running back John Lovett grad transferred to Penn State, leaving his legacy in Waco which included the single season rushing record for the Bears. Now, sans a passer, six crucial players gone, and a once-in-a-career power rusher gone and not looking back– Baylor found themselves right back where they started.
Without an identity.
The preseason troubles carried on into the next year, where we land today. The 2022 Baylor Bears were noything more than an utter letdown in 2022. Pundits and media all over the country had them as dead to right favorites over everyone else in the Big 12, in a conference laced with uncertainty. Oklahoma had suffered serious losses in terms of roster and personnel, Texas had indecision and injury issues in Hudson Card and Quinn Ewers, leaving Baylor to take it all. Yet, Baylor was young, inexperienced, and resembled more of the COVID team than it did the fun, exciting aura of the ’21 group.
Aranda made the convicted decision to start young phenom Blake Shapen in the spring of 2022, over returning starter Gerry Bohanan, a move that was criticized and questioned by fans at the time. Whether it worked out or not, it was bold, a step in the right direction for a team that was just starting to build its culture via a strong introspection campaign.
Shapen was young, only seeing limited playing time the year prior. Yet, he showed flashes, doing enough for Aranda to bestow him with the keys to the offense. Shapen was mediocre at best, still showing spurts of a starting caliber quarterback, but not doing enough for a team that had a lot to overcome to win games. The Bears finished 6-7 with weak chemistry all over the team.
The offensive line couldn’t communicate with one another, the receiver room showed early signs of depth issues, and the defense struggled to get off the field. What’s crazy however, is that despite all this, Baylor was still in the running for the Big 12 Championship until a three game losing streak to Kansas State, TCU, and Texas at the end of the season squashed any dreams of making it to Dallas again. The team had once again lost its way, and now with an even bigger crisis than before.
Aranda might be on the hot seat, while a little far fetched, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Disappointments are common in college football, but so is coaching turnover. Outside the scope of the Nick Sabans and Pat Fitzgeralds of the world, nobody is safe– and that’s a simple fact.
Aranda made more decisive decisions in order to continue to change the culture. The third year coach made the decision to utilize the portal to a greater extent than he had in the past– a sign of a leader learning with the program. Aranda brought in Sawyer Robertson from Mississippi State and RJ Martinez from Northern Arizona, both ready to put heavy pressure on Blake Shapen’s starting gig.
“I think I’ve been in a quarterback battle almost every year I’ve been here,” Shapen said after Thursday’s second spring practice, “so I don’t think anything’s really new with that. I don’t look at it differently. I look at it as an opportunity to grow and get better and have that mindset to keep growing and have someone just pushing me and making me better every single day.”
“I think it all starts with fit,” Baylor quarterbacks coach Shawn Bell said. “As you’re looking to bring somebody in, it isn’t all about how many yards they threw for, how many wins they had, it’s really a fit for the program. And I think Sawyer matched that.”
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Pushing for a quarterback improvement is one thing, but fixing the offense as a whole is another. The Bears haven’t had the greatest wide receiver play for the past year. Since their number one receiver in Tyquan Thornton got drafted by New England in 2022, that has since left Baylor’s WR1 as 5’9″ Monaray Baldwin, a speedy, twitchy receiver that would benefit greatly from an outside receiver.
Once again, the Bears looked towards the portal, adding Arkansas receiver Ketron Jackson Jr., who in 2022 caught 16 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns. The kicker? He’s 6’2″, and a former four-star recruit– just what the doctor ordered for a Baylor team in desperate need of wide receiver production.
Baylor has found itself once again, after a year of turmoil and playing loosy-goosey. Aranda is still a young head coach, with much to learn, but his flexibility and eagerness to adapt makes him a perfect fit for helming a team without a nametag. As Aranda continues on his time in Waco, the Bears enter into unprecedented territory.
Both Texas and Oklahoma are set to leave in 2024, leaving just one more year for the Big 12 to look how it does now, but down the line they’ll have more foes to contend with. The Big 12 added BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston– poaching them from the AAC and the Independents. While not exactly the caliber of teams the Bears have been used to facing, it certainly does play an interesting dynamic in predicting the future of the team.
Expectations have been rapidly on the rise, for Aranda and the Bears to start to take over a somewhat bludgeoned Big 12. The expansion of the conference to start including teams that are relatively inferior to the Bears only brings with it great responsibility. Another season without a solid win format, and Aranda might as well see the writing on the wall. Patience runs thin in the state of Texas and college football as a whole, an unfledged coach isn’t immune to the ebbs and flows of the sport.
The defense has much to improve over a year, however, the team has started to focus on stopping the run game altogether. Even in the Big 12, where offense reigns supreme and defenses are nearly unheard of, Dave Aranda has made it a priority to beef up the trenches after a season of getting pummeled. This is the same team that let up 30 points to a triple-option heavy Air Force, it’d be comical to say that there aren’t improvements to be made in that sector.
In a world where run defense is becoming uncouth, Baylor fired defensive coordinator Ron Roberts on December 1st, and now has sent a message out to the rest of the team that defense is a big part of their new MO.
Aranda has just about 4 months to figure it out before the team reports for fall camp. Aranda and company will use the spring to figure out who gets to start at quarterback, who becomes the face of their newly found identity, and what they’re going to do going forward to exceed expectations instead of faltering to them.
“The class we just signed, which we is so impressive and we are so excited about, we have to get them settled in and set standards expectations about how [spring] is going to go so we can get started off on the right spot,” Aranda said. “I think all of that is aided with a team that has been through some tough lessons and has seen one way to do it and then another way to do it. We all have to get aligned to do it the right way.”
