This is a long post, so bear with me. I know some on this board will automatically dismiss what I have to say because this is only my second post. They will call me a "troll." This is far from the truth, as I try to stay out of the toxic vitriol that appears semi-regularly on this board (and all message boards). I am also a historian by trade, so these observations are based (mostly) on an analysis of facts.
My "credentials:"
I am a 1997 Baylor graduate, and a follower of Baylorfans since the original board was created. I grew up during the Grant Teaff era. My four years at Baylor were the four Chuck Reedy years. I then went to Texas Tech for my MA and Ph.D. in history. I was at Tech for the end of the Spike Dykes era and the start of the Mike Leach era. As a Baylor fan watching the Dave Roberts and Kevin Steele teams in this environment, football was not fun to say the least. I had to listen to my students, professor, and fellow grad students talk crap about Baylor sports all the time (men's and women's basketball and baseball were also not very good during this era, either). Baylorfans allowed me to stay connected to, and knowledgeable about, Baylor. On a side note, I also cherished receiving my "Dave Campbell's Baylor Bear Insider" newsletter in my mailbox (a physical mailbox) each week. Even in all of this, I never wavered in my support for Baylor. My son is at Baylor, now, and when he graduates, he will be a third generation Baylor grad, and the 9th person in our family to graduate from Baylor.
Dave Aranda:
I like Dave. I think he is very knowledgeable about football and a good person. With that said, I think tonight's game against TCU is a "tent pole" for his tenure. Since we haven't beaten the Frogs but once in a decade, if we lose this should (probably) be his last season at Baylor. If we wins, and keep up the winning, then Aranda should get another season.
He has entered his fifth season. He did lead the successful second year in 2021, the greatest season in Baylor history. While many discount this success because it was with Rhule's players, this isn't the NFL and coaches still play a major role in a team's success. Since the bowl game against Air Force in 2022, though, our team struggled to improve. We are better this year than last year, but not where we should be. The issue is making changes and adapting. Aranda's first year, he refused to play anyone at QB but Charlie Brewer, and it hurt us. The next year, Gerry was rolling till he got hurt, so Aranda's philosophy of loyalty was fine, but Aranda still refused to get anyone else playing time. This philosophy hurt us in 2022 when he went with Blake Shappen, and refused to play any backups, thus causing good QBs to leave (I am not saying they were better than Shappen, but we did not prepare for/devlope for the future). The same practice involved Aranda's commitment to Jeff Grimes (and Grimes refusal to adapt to the game in Texas and Big XII). It wasn't till the fans revolted, and probably the AD told Aranda we needed a change that Aranda fired Grimes.
After last year, I felt there were two markers coming into this season. The first four games were a marker for me. Had Aranda finally learned to adapt as a head coach? If we lost to Tarleton or Air Force, Aranda should have been fired at that point. We showed improvement in all four games over last season, so I felt he could finish the year, but the new marker was, could we make a bowl by the end of the season? Without a bowl, he is gone. If we make a bowl, then he can maybe get another year. The administration needs to take a look at the whole picture.
I also think strength and conditioning is a major issue. Too many times this season our players stop a ball carrier, stand them up, and then are pushed back after contact for a few more yards.
New Coach:
When we hire a new coach, they need to have significant head coaching experience at the G5 level. They must also have some form of sustained success at the G5 level. Baylor should not hire a position coach. This has never worked out well for us. Bill Beall, Chuck Reedy, Dave Roberts, and Kevin Steele all were assistant coaches with no head coaching experience. Teaff, Morriss, Briles, and Rhule all had head coaching experience (while Morriss had little success at Baylor, he set up the foundational transition to Briles). The role of a head coach is to manage the team, and you must practice that. Things like clock management, strategy, substitutions, etc. are different for a head coach and you can't learn that on the job at the P4 level.
I think we should hire from the head coaches at Liberty, Boise State, Tulsa, and Tulane. I am still open to UTSA's coach, but the struggles this year make me cautious. I would consider Kinne at Texas State (I know his handling of the legal stuff is a big red flag). The thing is the new coach must know recruiting in the current environment, and also Texas.
The new coach must also create a culture and identity that lasts. Other than the fact that there is a racist element still at Baylor, I think someone like Deion would do well at Baylor, combining a swagger identity with a strong Christian identity. Baylor has never been able to recruit just on "come to Baylor." It takes a unique identity to attract national support.
That said, the tenure for most coaches is 4-5 years at any school. Talking about how we want another "Teaff" who will be here for 20 years does not fit with the current state of football. You want a coach who will win, and if they leave, you find a new coach to pick up where they left off.
Rhodes:
The people who deride Rhodes over football are taking a myopic view of the role of an AD. I believe Rhodes already has feelers out about a new coach. I also think the reason we waited so long last season to officially announce Aranda was coming back was because we sent out feelers to Tedford, and he turned us down. I don't have evidence on this, but just a "feeling" based on rumors that circulated. Also, ADs are not the same as GMs in the NFL. ADs do not get fired much, outside of scandals. Their role is bigger than just football.
Fan bias
The fan views of Baylor football history, the team, etc. is colored by the fans' own experiences, feelings and emotions. For example, I have read posts where people have argued, "Dave has lost the team." This is not true. Coaches only really "lose their team" when the coach is either abusive (verbally or emotionally), or the coach does stuff like blame the players in media. Even when Chuck Reedy got fired at Baylor, the players on the team at the time were angry. We, the fans, were calling for his firing, but to the players he recruited, he was "their coach."
Another concept people throw around a lot on here is how Baylor is traditional powerhouse and we have fallen away from Baylor's history of dominance. My guess is a lot of these posters only started following Baylor around 2011. Baylor won the SWC in 1924, and did not win again until 1974. We then won the SWC in 1981, and tied in the 5-way tie of 1994 (because A&M who beat everyone was ineligible). During that 70-year span, every other SWC school except Tech won more conference title than we did. We need to establish a culture of winning and an identity, not get obsessed with false delusions of grandeur (if you want to see what we don't want to sound like as a fan base, read some Tech posts where they are convinced that at any moment the B1G or SEC will swoop in and take them).
Another statement, "The Board of regents, President, administration, etc. are actively trying to destroy Baylor football." One, this is just a stupid comment. Two, these groups deal with a lot more than just football, but since we as fans don't care about academic programs, etc., we only focus on the one aspect.
I keep reading that "the big money donors have abandoned Baylor." Then why do we have all the new buildings for sports?
"This is the worst ever Baylor team/coach." You clearly didn't pay attention during the Steele years where we were everyone's homecoming game, knew we had no shot in every game, including non-conference games, and programs trying to make a name for themselves regularly attempted to hang 100 points on us.
We should have hired Joey McGuire. No. He had only four and a half years as a college position coach. While he had a lot of high school coaching experience, that just isn't the same. Also, while his Tech team is doing well this year, Tech fans aren't totally sold on him, either and he has made some coaching errors at Tech. The fact that he refused to go to a G5 program first and work his way up says a lot to me. Also, he has argued with fans in social media and sports talk radio when criticized.
Baylor's Historic football problem:
We have historically failed to adapt to changing football landscape. In the 1920s and 1930s, SWC football became recognized nationally as being of a good caliber of play. Until then, the East coast and Big Ten saw themselves as superior to everyone else. The identity of the SWC until the invention of the Wishbone was that of a pass happy, wide-open offense. Baylor tried to throw the ball, but never took on the offensive strategy of SMU, TCU, A&M or Texas, and thus struggled. The SWC did not give scholarships, but did allow students to get jobs to offset the cost of enrollment. In the 1920s and 1930s, the state schools and Baylor did not do this, but SMU and TCU did, and they recruited. Also, recruiting was based on regions. TCU had West Texas, SMU had Dallas and East Texas, Rice recruit Houston/Beaumont and some Louisiana. A&M had South Texas and some East Texas, UT had a lot of the state, but a big circle around the middle, and Baylor had its surrounding area. Baylor's team was made up of who showed up to campus at the start of the year.
During WWII, when Freshmen were allowed to play for a little bit, the SWC recognized the importance of actively recruiting football players, and began the modern style of football recruiting. This is when, and how, Texas got Bobby Layne and SMU got Doak Walker. Baylor, meanwhile, chose not to field teams in 1943 and 1944 because it was too hard and too much work to recruit athletes.
Even with the switch to scholarships, etc., Baylor still operated with a mentality of "the players should be happy to be at Baylor and we don't need to entice them to come/play." As many who played in the 1970s, 1980s and even the 1990s have pointed out, Baylor's facilities always lagged behind our conference mates.
Grant Teaff did well and deserves his statue, but he also lost a lot of games he should have won. Also, on failing to adapt, his teams dropped significantly after the passage of Proposition 48 in 1986. For example, John Randle (HOF lineman for the Vikings) had signed with Baylor but couldn't come when Prop 48 passed. Randle went to a junior college, then tried Baylor, again, and still couldn't get in so he went to Texas A&I (A&M Kingsville). At the end of Teaff's career, Baylor people were selling shirts calling for his firing in 1992. Even with the exciting win over UT in 1992 and the victory over Arizona in the Sun Bowl, he was not universally loved by Baylor fans that season. Furthermore, he continued to run a Nebraska style option offense as everyone else shifted to a pro-style or West coast offense.
Also, Baylor's slow adaption to transfer portal and NIL. The approach of "it isn't Christian to pay players" and "they should be happy to be here and want to stay here without us paying them" cost us at least two years of recruiting. Dave's slow acceptance of NIL also set us back with his "everyone gets the same so no one gets their feelings hurt" approach before this year.
Even when we hired Art Briles, the rest of the Big XII had already moved years before to a spread offense. We tried it under Guy Morris, but did so by bringing in an offensive coordinator whose game plan was to watch recordings of Tech games and try to copy their plays.
Art Briles:
This will be controversial, but I will address Briles. One, he had great success, but he never changed his system either, and his record in big bowl games was 0-2. Also, when discussing the end of his tenure at Baylor, a lot of emotions are used and not a lot of examining of the facts. The court testimony last year shed a lot of light onto the situation. Football was used as a scapegoat for a larger problem at Baylor. About Baptist higher education, I was once told, "Watch out for those preachers, they will slit your throat so the blood doesn't show." I think the stories about how certain former players who are now preachers told Briles they had his back and then went with the majority supports this statement. At the same time, the testimony did not say nothing happened under Briles' watch and everything was perfect. His testimony, and the court ruling in regards to Briles, said he was not liable as part of a coverup. His testimony can be summed up as, he remembered a lot of little details about games, football, etc., but did not remember any of the conversations about the rape and assault cases. This, to me as a historian means one of three things: 1. He did know and remembered, but lied on the stand. (which I don't think happened). 2. He truly doesn't remember any of it and has memory issues based off of getting older (this doesn't seem possible because of the other stuff he did remember and that he worked in Italy and East Texas since then). 3. He really didn't know about it at the time because he ran a loose ship and his assistant coaches were the ones who dealt with the issues/ "covered up" stuff. (This is what I think was the case). So, if we take scenario number three as what probably happened, that leads me to the question of why did he take the buyout from Baylor and has never fought Baylor in the courts (Mike Leech's ghost is probably still trying to sue Texas Tech)? I assume there is a NDA in the buyout, and Briles has been incredibly quiet on the whole situation. My conclusion is, the assistants did do what came out in court testimony. Since Briles' son and son-in-law are two of the people mentioned in the court testimonies, I believe Briles took the full blame for the program and the buyout to protect the careers of the assistants, who were able to stay at Baylor for a year and continue on in their careers. Therefore, let it go and move on. None of the three scenarios make him a viable coach at Baylor, again.
My Conclusion:
Based on the reasons stated above, we have two points remaining why we should move on from Dave when the season ends. If he loses to TCU and/or does not make a bowl game, then this is his last season. Our new coach needs to have an exciting offense and be conscious of a brand image and culture for his program. The new coach should also understand and excel at the current recruiting model, transfer portal, and NIL.
Baylor (fans especially) need to quit worrying about "can we get into the SEC or Big Ten." No one in the current Big XII is going to the Big Two. We have all been passed over more than once. We need to focus on making our conference an awesome product and not worry about stuff we can't control.
The new Big XII is competitive and equal top to bottom and we should have a shot to win every game we play. This needs to be the focus for the next coach. The SWC and original Big XII were never balanced and that is why they were not viable in the modern football landscape. Baylor's goal should be conference championships. After that, anything else is gravy.
My "credentials:"
I am a 1997 Baylor graduate, and a follower of Baylorfans since the original board was created. I grew up during the Grant Teaff era. My four years at Baylor were the four Chuck Reedy years. I then went to Texas Tech for my MA and Ph.D. in history. I was at Tech for the end of the Spike Dykes era and the start of the Mike Leach era. As a Baylor fan watching the Dave Roberts and Kevin Steele teams in this environment, football was not fun to say the least. I had to listen to my students, professor, and fellow grad students talk crap about Baylor sports all the time (men's and women's basketball and baseball were also not very good during this era, either). Baylorfans allowed me to stay connected to, and knowledgeable about, Baylor. On a side note, I also cherished receiving my "Dave Campbell's Baylor Bear Insider" newsletter in my mailbox (a physical mailbox) each week. Even in all of this, I never wavered in my support for Baylor. My son is at Baylor, now, and when he graduates, he will be a third generation Baylor grad, and the 9th person in our family to graduate from Baylor.
Dave Aranda:
I like Dave. I think he is very knowledgeable about football and a good person. With that said, I think tonight's game against TCU is a "tent pole" for his tenure. Since we haven't beaten the Frogs but once in a decade, if we lose this should (probably) be his last season at Baylor. If we wins, and keep up the winning, then Aranda should get another season.
He has entered his fifth season. He did lead the successful second year in 2021, the greatest season in Baylor history. While many discount this success because it was with Rhule's players, this isn't the NFL and coaches still play a major role in a team's success. Since the bowl game against Air Force in 2022, though, our team struggled to improve. We are better this year than last year, but not where we should be. The issue is making changes and adapting. Aranda's first year, he refused to play anyone at QB but Charlie Brewer, and it hurt us. The next year, Gerry was rolling till he got hurt, so Aranda's philosophy of loyalty was fine, but Aranda still refused to get anyone else playing time. This philosophy hurt us in 2022 when he went with Blake Shappen, and refused to play any backups, thus causing good QBs to leave (I am not saying they were better than Shappen, but we did not prepare for/devlope for the future). The same practice involved Aranda's commitment to Jeff Grimes (and Grimes refusal to adapt to the game in Texas and Big XII). It wasn't till the fans revolted, and probably the AD told Aranda we needed a change that Aranda fired Grimes.
After last year, I felt there were two markers coming into this season. The first four games were a marker for me. Had Aranda finally learned to adapt as a head coach? If we lost to Tarleton or Air Force, Aranda should have been fired at that point. We showed improvement in all four games over last season, so I felt he could finish the year, but the new marker was, could we make a bowl by the end of the season? Without a bowl, he is gone. If we make a bowl, then he can maybe get another year. The administration needs to take a look at the whole picture.
I also think strength and conditioning is a major issue. Too many times this season our players stop a ball carrier, stand them up, and then are pushed back after contact for a few more yards.
New Coach:
When we hire a new coach, they need to have significant head coaching experience at the G5 level. They must also have some form of sustained success at the G5 level. Baylor should not hire a position coach. This has never worked out well for us. Bill Beall, Chuck Reedy, Dave Roberts, and Kevin Steele all were assistant coaches with no head coaching experience. Teaff, Morriss, Briles, and Rhule all had head coaching experience (while Morriss had little success at Baylor, he set up the foundational transition to Briles). The role of a head coach is to manage the team, and you must practice that. Things like clock management, strategy, substitutions, etc. are different for a head coach and you can't learn that on the job at the P4 level.
I think we should hire from the head coaches at Liberty, Boise State, Tulsa, and Tulane. I am still open to UTSA's coach, but the struggles this year make me cautious. I would consider Kinne at Texas State (I know his handling of the legal stuff is a big red flag). The thing is the new coach must know recruiting in the current environment, and also Texas.
The new coach must also create a culture and identity that lasts. Other than the fact that there is a racist element still at Baylor, I think someone like Deion would do well at Baylor, combining a swagger identity with a strong Christian identity. Baylor has never been able to recruit just on "come to Baylor." It takes a unique identity to attract national support.
That said, the tenure for most coaches is 4-5 years at any school. Talking about how we want another "Teaff" who will be here for 20 years does not fit with the current state of football. You want a coach who will win, and if they leave, you find a new coach to pick up where they left off.
Rhodes:
The people who deride Rhodes over football are taking a myopic view of the role of an AD. I believe Rhodes already has feelers out about a new coach. I also think the reason we waited so long last season to officially announce Aranda was coming back was because we sent out feelers to Tedford, and he turned us down. I don't have evidence on this, but just a "feeling" based on rumors that circulated. Also, ADs are not the same as GMs in the NFL. ADs do not get fired much, outside of scandals. Their role is bigger than just football.
Fan bias
The fan views of Baylor football history, the team, etc. is colored by the fans' own experiences, feelings and emotions. For example, I have read posts where people have argued, "Dave has lost the team." This is not true. Coaches only really "lose their team" when the coach is either abusive (verbally or emotionally), or the coach does stuff like blame the players in media. Even when Chuck Reedy got fired at Baylor, the players on the team at the time were angry. We, the fans, were calling for his firing, but to the players he recruited, he was "their coach."
Another concept people throw around a lot on here is how Baylor is traditional powerhouse and we have fallen away from Baylor's history of dominance. My guess is a lot of these posters only started following Baylor around 2011. Baylor won the SWC in 1924, and did not win again until 1974. We then won the SWC in 1981, and tied in the 5-way tie of 1994 (because A&M who beat everyone was ineligible). During that 70-year span, every other SWC school except Tech won more conference title than we did. We need to establish a culture of winning and an identity, not get obsessed with false delusions of grandeur (if you want to see what we don't want to sound like as a fan base, read some Tech posts where they are convinced that at any moment the B1G or SEC will swoop in and take them).
Another statement, "The Board of regents, President, administration, etc. are actively trying to destroy Baylor football." One, this is just a stupid comment. Two, these groups deal with a lot more than just football, but since we as fans don't care about academic programs, etc., we only focus on the one aspect.
I keep reading that "the big money donors have abandoned Baylor." Then why do we have all the new buildings for sports?
"This is the worst ever Baylor team/coach." You clearly didn't pay attention during the Steele years where we were everyone's homecoming game, knew we had no shot in every game, including non-conference games, and programs trying to make a name for themselves regularly attempted to hang 100 points on us.
We should have hired Joey McGuire. No. He had only four and a half years as a college position coach. While he had a lot of high school coaching experience, that just isn't the same. Also, while his Tech team is doing well this year, Tech fans aren't totally sold on him, either and he has made some coaching errors at Tech. The fact that he refused to go to a G5 program first and work his way up says a lot to me. Also, he has argued with fans in social media and sports talk radio when criticized.
Baylor's Historic football problem:
We have historically failed to adapt to changing football landscape. In the 1920s and 1930s, SWC football became recognized nationally as being of a good caliber of play. Until then, the East coast and Big Ten saw themselves as superior to everyone else. The identity of the SWC until the invention of the Wishbone was that of a pass happy, wide-open offense. Baylor tried to throw the ball, but never took on the offensive strategy of SMU, TCU, A&M or Texas, and thus struggled. The SWC did not give scholarships, but did allow students to get jobs to offset the cost of enrollment. In the 1920s and 1930s, the state schools and Baylor did not do this, but SMU and TCU did, and they recruited. Also, recruiting was based on regions. TCU had West Texas, SMU had Dallas and East Texas, Rice recruit Houston/Beaumont and some Louisiana. A&M had South Texas and some East Texas, UT had a lot of the state, but a big circle around the middle, and Baylor had its surrounding area. Baylor's team was made up of who showed up to campus at the start of the year.
During WWII, when Freshmen were allowed to play for a little bit, the SWC recognized the importance of actively recruiting football players, and began the modern style of football recruiting. This is when, and how, Texas got Bobby Layne and SMU got Doak Walker. Baylor, meanwhile, chose not to field teams in 1943 and 1944 because it was too hard and too much work to recruit athletes.
Even with the switch to scholarships, etc., Baylor still operated with a mentality of "the players should be happy to be at Baylor and we don't need to entice them to come/play." As many who played in the 1970s, 1980s and even the 1990s have pointed out, Baylor's facilities always lagged behind our conference mates.
Grant Teaff did well and deserves his statue, but he also lost a lot of games he should have won. Also, on failing to adapt, his teams dropped significantly after the passage of Proposition 48 in 1986. For example, John Randle (HOF lineman for the Vikings) had signed with Baylor but couldn't come when Prop 48 passed. Randle went to a junior college, then tried Baylor, again, and still couldn't get in so he went to Texas A&I (A&M Kingsville). At the end of Teaff's career, Baylor people were selling shirts calling for his firing in 1992. Even with the exciting win over UT in 1992 and the victory over Arizona in the Sun Bowl, he was not universally loved by Baylor fans that season. Furthermore, he continued to run a Nebraska style option offense as everyone else shifted to a pro-style or West coast offense.
Also, Baylor's slow adaption to transfer portal and NIL. The approach of "it isn't Christian to pay players" and "they should be happy to be here and want to stay here without us paying them" cost us at least two years of recruiting. Dave's slow acceptance of NIL also set us back with his "everyone gets the same so no one gets their feelings hurt" approach before this year.
Even when we hired Art Briles, the rest of the Big XII had already moved years before to a spread offense. We tried it under Guy Morris, but did so by bringing in an offensive coordinator whose game plan was to watch recordings of Tech games and try to copy their plays.
Art Briles:
This will be controversial, but I will address Briles. One, he had great success, but he never changed his system either, and his record in big bowl games was 0-2. Also, when discussing the end of his tenure at Baylor, a lot of emotions are used and not a lot of examining of the facts. The court testimony last year shed a lot of light onto the situation. Football was used as a scapegoat for a larger problem at Baylor. About Baptist higher education, I was once told, "Watch out for those preachers, they will slit your throat so the blood doesn't show." I think the stories about how certain former players who are now preachers told Briles they had his back and then went with the majority supports this statement. At the same time, the testimony did not say nothing happened under Briles' watch and everything was perfect. His testimony, and the court ruling in regards to Briles, said he was not liable as part of a coverup. His testimony can be summed up as, he remembered a lot of little details about games, football, etc., but did not remember any of the conversations about the rape and assault cases. This, to me as a historian means one of three things: 1. He did know and remembered, but lied on the stand. (which I don't think happened). 2. He truly doesn't remember any of it and has memory issues based off of getting older (this doesn't seem possible because of the other stuff he did remember and that he worked in Italy and East Texas since then). 3. He really didn't know about it at the time because he ran a loose ship and his assistant coaches were the ones who dealt with the issues/ "covered up" stuff. (This is what I think was the case). So, if we take scenario number three as what probably happened, that leads me to the question of why did he take the buyout from Baylor and has never fought Baylor in the courts (Mike Leech's ghost is probably still trying to sue Texas Tech)? I assume there is a NDA in the buyout, and Briles has been incredibly quiet on the whole situation. My conclusion is, the assistants did do what came out in court testimony. Since Briles' son and son-in-law are two of the people mentioned in the court testimonies, I believe Briles took the full blame for the program and the buyout to protect the careers of the assistants, who were able to stay at Baylor for a year and continue on in their careers. Therefore, let it go and move on. None of the three scenarios make him a viable coach at Baylor, again.
My Conclusion:
Based on the reasons stated above, we have two points remaining why we should move on from Dave when the season ends. If he loses to TCU and/or does not make a bowl game, then this is his last season. Our new coach needs to have an exciting offense and be conscious of a brand image and culture for his program. The new coach should also understand and excel at the current recruiting model, transfer portal, and NIL.
Baylor (fans especially) need to quit worrying about "can we get into the SEC or Big Ten." No one in the current Big XII is going to the Big Two. We have all been passed over more than once. We need to focus on making our conference an awesome product and not worry about stuff we can't control.
The new Big XII is competitive and equal top to bottom and we should have a shot to win every game we play. This needs to be the focus for the next coach. The SWC and original Big XII were never balanced and that is why they were not viable in the modern football landscape. Baylor's goal should be conference championships. After that, anything else is gravy.