Dave Aranda has now fully embraced the transfer portal and paying players in the NIL era. On the field, and on the hot seat after consecutive losing seasons, he is also getting back to what he was doing before he became Baylor’s head coach.
Aranda will take over as the primary defensive play-caller for the Bears, like he was for LSU’s national championship five seasons ago just before becoming a head coach for the first time.
“I think the biggest change is just being involved with football. With myself, I just think I am at my best when I am all the way through a technique or all the way about a scheme, all the way to the depths of it,” said Aranda, who is 23-25 at Baylor. “And then when I come back up, I can speak really strongly about it and I can own it. And then if it don’t look right, I can get mad at it and get it so it’s right. And that’s a big change.”
The Bears set a school record with 12 wins in 2021, when they were Big 12 champions and won the Sugar Bowl in Aranda’s second season. They have gone 9-16 since, including a five-game losing streak to end last season, when their 33 points a game allowed were the most in the Big 12, and 10 points a game more than they scored.
New on offense
The Bears also have a new play-caller on offense with new coordinator Jake Spavital, the Cal OC last year and former Texas State head coach who has installed a much more up-tempo scheme. Among his expected playmakers are two transfers, dual threat quarterback Dequan Finn and Texas State career receiving leader Ashtyn Hawkins, whose first two seasons there were with Spavital.
Finn, a three-year starter at Toledo, threw for 2,657 yards with 22 touchdowns, and ran for 563 yards and seven scores last year. Along with returning top receivers Monaray Baldwin, Ketron Jackson and Hal Presley, who missed the last half of 2023 because of an injury, the Bears added Nevada speedster Jamaal Ball and Hawkins.
Up front
The offensive line added four Division I transfers after the Bears ranked 13th in the Big 12 with only 114.8 yards rushing per game and 13 TDs on the ground. They allowed a league-high 34 sacks.
“We had a bunch of young guys playing (last season) … because I failed to hit the portal the previous year,” Aranda said.
Jones keeps going
Matt Jones led the Bears with 82 tackles and 11 1/2 tackles for loss last season, his fifth in Waco. The 6-foot-4, 246-pound linebacker decided to come back, instead of transferring or maybe making himself available for the NFL draft, after Aranda became more involved with the defense.
“I’ve been here so long, I’ve seen the good and the (bad),” Jones said. “This season hasn’t even started and you can feel the momentum.”
Jones was a freshman during coach Matt Rhule’s final season in 2019, when the Bears made the Big 12 title game. He became a primary starter during their 2021 championship season.
The schedule
Baylor opens at home against FCS team Tarleton on Aug. 31, then goes to Big 12 newcomer and No. 12 Utah the next week for a game that won’t count in the conference standings since it was part of a home-and-home series scheduled nearly a decade ago ( the Utes won in Waco last September ). The Bears were 1-7 at home last year, losing all five Big 12 home games. They have four conference home games this year, including No. 17 Oklahoma State and No. 22 Kansas.
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