Aranda, Baylor Finds Itself in an Incredibly Familiar Position to 2023
After a 32-29 road victory over Cincinnati in the seventh game of the 2023 season, Baylor football stood with a 3-4 overall record. Although small, there was a flickering light at the end of the five-game tunnel that the Bears could potentially reach a bowl game with a wiggle and a squeeze and make their way back to a competitive season despite a horrific start.
Baylor had won two of three contests and was returning to Waco for a homecoming game against a 4-3 Iowa State team that was a slight 3.5-point favorite on Oct. 28.
Any hope or momentum the Bears had came crashing down on the turf of McLane Stadium as Iowa State raced off to a 17-0 lead in the first half. Though there was a valiant second-half effort, the Bears never made it closer than the final score of 30-18.
The wheels would come quickly, as Baylor fell again the following week at home in overtime to Houston. They would eventually finish the season with the same three wins they entered the game against Iowa State with.
The 0-5 close to the season set up many changes for the football program in the offseason. Head coach Dave Aranda knew well that another season like 2023 would see him looking for a new home.
Fast forward to almost exactly 365 after that loss to the Cyclones, and Aranda finds himself in a familiar position—almost too familiar of a position. His Bears, coming off a road victory over rival Texas Tech, return to Waco with a 3-4 record, with Oklahoma State up next.
Like 2023, it’s another homecoming game. The game will be played on October 26.
A little bit of déjà vu.
After 2023, most Baylor fans believed it was time to move on from Aranda. But in a collegiate athletic landscape turned on its head, athletic director Mack Rhoades hit the pause button instead of the eject button. He provided Aranda with a war chest of NIL resources and one last chance to make appropriate changes. Those changes have been well documented.
For Aranda, maybe this isn’t déjà vu.
Maybe the football gods are giving Aranda, who is undeniably one of the good guys in college football, a mulligan for his reluctance to embrace the transfer portal and NIL world when he had the chance to do so after a 12-2 Big 12 Championship season in 2021 and didn’t.
Aranda leaned into the new landscape of college football, relaxed the standards for his team that he self-described as military-esque, got back in the play-calling game and changed a number of other items about his approach to the game that he had employed through his first four years as a head coach.
To be fair, his original approach did bring Baylor its best season ever. But the landscape changed dramatically since the final whistle of the Sugar Bowl win over Ole Miss in January of 2022. Aranda did not entirely change until the offseason of 2023.
And it all leads us back here. Another 3-4 record. Another homecoming game. Another chance to win over the home crowd. Five winnable games remain on the schedule to return to a bowl game and possibly even exceed preseason expectations.
Do all of those changes, which were mixed together and brought to a boil beginning late last November, give us something different than another home game flop and a 0-5 finish? There are many things different about the paths to 3-4 in 2023 and 2024, but none of that means anything now.
It’s not now or never, but the now is definitely coming.