Baylor Safety DJ Coleman To Enter Transfer Portal

The players love this coaching staff!

Total dumpster fire…

Maybe our new AD and LL can tell him how much the game day experience will be improved.

Who cares…..let's not act like we just lost Thomas Everett back there

Dude was straight cheeks

Coleman was our defensive Sawyer - had lots of great plays that made you see the promise especially in coverage, then just totally inexplicable brain farts especially on run fits: IIRC he was the guy who made the misread on a bunch of those long TDs.

Best of luck to him on his journey.

Probably one of our worst positions, so some turnover can't hurt us much. I can't recall how many times the linebackers and safeties took horrible angles last season and gave up a huge run up the middle. It was an issue from the very first game to the last, so I'd say it's mainly CDA's fault.

You're describing 90% of the defense..

OurOurs said:

---

Probably one of our worst positions, so some turnover can't hurt us much. I can't recall how many times the linebackers and safeties took horrible angles last season and gave up a huge run up the middle. It was an issue from the very first game to the last, so I'd say it's mainly CDA's fault.

---

our depth at Safety took a massive hit when two starters (D. Turner at STAR and C. Williams at FS) were lost for the year in Spring & Fall Camps*, but FWIW that position had already been underperforming during Powledge's second stint.

If the rumor that we've hired Maurice Linguist to become DC or co-DC is true, then I'd expect Linguist to handle CBs and Paul Gonzales to move to Safeties where he was with TCU. We're also clearly going to churn a lot of the roster as we're seeing with Coleman...

...there's a whole cluster of folks who will howl when they read this, but if the Mo hire is real, there's a great chance we take a significant leap forward on Defense next season between an overall coaching upgrade and a presumed successful roster churn/portal haul.



*when Devin was lost for the season, Carl moved from FS to STAR and Turner became the presumptive starter at FS. When Carl couldn't get healthy (12 snaps vs SMU was all he logged on the season), Coleman became the starting STAR. The guys that should have been getting 2nd string snaps at Safety were instead starters for the whole season and our backups were guys that had been slated for garbage time snaps this year.

bUt InJuRiEs DoN't MaTtEr!

Coal in Coleman's stocking this year.

But good luck, man.

IowaBear said:

---

You're describing 90% of the defense..

---

Okay then why is everyone acting like people we are losing on defense are difference makers

The only people acting like the defense had playmakers are those that keep making excuses for why the defense has sucked for 3 plus years.

IowaBear said:

---

The only people acting like the defense had playmakers are those that keep making excuses for why the defense has sucked for 3 plus years.

---

I mean... I'll miss Keaton Thomas. I might have said the same for Jackie Marshall if he hadn't been injured the entire season.

IowaBear said:

---

The only people acting like the defense had playmakers are those that keep making excuses for why the defense has sucked for 3 plus years.

---

Overall, our D was obviously not up to the task this year...but I think the Big 12 disagrees with you that we had no playmakers - at least if All-Conference Team membership is a measure of that (and I think it's pretty fair to say so...).

The Baylor Defense had an All-Big12 2nd Team LB (K. Thomas) and four honorable mentions (Bobby, Marshall, Redding, and Thornton). Safety Micah Gifford was 1st Team defensive ST (punt/kick return).
https://big12sports.com/documents/2025/12/5//FINAL_2025_All_Big_12_Release_12_5_25.pdf

Sorry if giving credit to guys who deserve it doesn't serve the "Fire Aranda Now!" narrative, but I'm going to give them their due.

How many guys get honorable mention? Honest question. On the B10 team last year it was like 100. Ice stated multiple times I think KT is good. I think Marshall is incredibly overrated. But that's just my opinion. Redding played his butt off. But obviously has deficiencies against elite skill players.
The statistics paint the real picture. Stats don't lie. The defense was ****ing horrendous by virtually every metric. That's not even debatable

KT has another year if he wants it

IowaBear said:

---

How many guys get honorable mention? Honest question. On the B10 team last year it was like 100. Ice stated multiple times I think KT is good. I think Marshall is incredibly overrated. But that's just my opinion. Redding played his butt off. But obviously has deficiencies against elite skill players.
The statistics paint the real picture. Stats don't lie. The defense was ****ing horrendous by virtually every metric. That's not even debatable

---

It's there on the link...but BYU had 13, Tech had 9, TCU had 2, and OSU had 1. So it wasn't purely a "check X number of boxes per team" participation trophy.

EDIT(add): and those are their totals. Baylor had 9 total.

IowaBear said:

---

The only people acting like the defense had playmakers are those that keep making excuses for why the defense has sucked for 3 plus years.

---

Nah I think people are just miserable they complain about the defense being ass but then when people hit the portal everybody's quick to say " I thought players loved aranda" "what's going on everyone's jumping ship" people just hating to hate lame af

There's plenty to hate right now. A player transferring isn't one imo

Mitch Henessey said:

---

IowaBear said:

---

The only people acting like the defense had playmakers are those that keep making excuses for why the defense has sucked for 3 plus years.

---

I mean... I'll miss Keaton Thomas. I might have said the same for Jackie Marshall if he hadn't been injured the entire season.

---

Keaton Thomas is the only player I would really miss from last year's defense. I hope we can keep him in the fold.

I don't want to lose Thornton either, but those are about the only two we couldn't easily replace or upgrade through the portal.

He was good. I hate to see him go. I hope we get someone better.

Best of luck to DJ. He played hard and made some plays and also played himself out of position but appreciated the hustle.

thomas was all over the place, but often in the wrong place, likely due to him trying to compensate for others mistakes. Still, he was very inconsistent last year.

Mitch Henessey said:

---

IowaBear said:

---

The only people acting like the defense had playmakers are those that keep making excuses for why the defense has sucked for 3 plus years.

---

I mean... I'll miss Keaton Thomas. I might have said the same for Jackie Marshall if he hadn't been injured the entire season.

---

Thomas and Redding were the only guys who showed an ounce of football instincts.. and Redding is obviously limited. Thomas was out of position way more this year.. overcompensating for his clueless teammates.. still a good player.

A few of the corners did show some improvement. Bobby improved at safety but was still borderline P4.

Everyone else was mediocre G5 level. Marshall was disappointing unless he was injured.

I think corner improvement would have been quite noticeable if we had any semblance of a pass rush. Main areas of improvement are fundamentals (tackling) and pass rush.

May surprise some on board to know our defense was 5/16 in Big 12 in passing yards per game. The Paul Gonzalez move was literally the one thing that worked on defense. Our corners gave up very few big plays and were solidly middle of the pack this year adjusting for the fact that our run defense was so bad (13 of 16) that many teams never had to pass.

The biggest difference between our defense and a slightly below average big 12 defense was actually the lack of turnovers forced. That is Klanderman's calling card, so easy to see why they wanted him. He's also been around the big 12 for half a decade so very predictable what he will try to do and how they should perform given the talent. And he did most of his work with transfers and developed players, very few blue chips at K St.

When you give up 200 yards rushing a game there isn't really a need for the other team to throw. Our corners did show some improvement though, was just hard to see with all the running and zero pass rush

boykin_spaniel said:

---

When you give up 200 yards rushing a game there isn't really a need for the other team to throw. Our corners did show some improvement though, was just hard to see with all the running and zero pass rush

---

Ya it was masked by all the other mess but the improvement was clear if paying attention. Think how bad the CBs were against LSU? We had nothing even approaching that debacle.

Other teams are poaching our CBs as well --- Dave implied that --- so it's clear they have some talent to professional obsevers. I'm guessing Lavar Thornton is the #1 transfer target on our defense. He is clearly long and fast and was a couple dropped balls away from having a really nice year. It's easy to see how he could be an all Big-12 type if he continues to improve --- he has the best tools we've had at CB in a while. will take $$ to keep him I suspect.

boykin_spaniel said:

---

I think corner improvement would have been quite noticeable if we had any semblance of a pass rush. Main areas of improvement are fundamentals (tackling) and pass rush.

---

Agree. I might have understated that part but that's what I meant. Gonzales was solid

Ewalker80 said:

---

May surprise some on board to know our defense was 5/16 in Big 12 in passing yards per game. \ry few blue chips at K St.

---

Not that surprising, because Baylor was so frequently gashed via qb runs and running backs with little resistance.

Dia del DougO said:

---

Ewalker80 said:

---

May surprise some on board to know our defense was 5/16 in Big 12 in passing yards per game. \ry few blue chips at K St.

---

Not that surprising, because Baylor was so frequently gashed via qb runs and running backs with little resistance.

---

Perfect example: Jackson Arnold.


Why did he need to pass against us when he was averaging almost 9 yards a carry while rushing for 137 yards. Or Connor Weigman of Houston, who averaged 5.5 yards a carry while rushing for 121 yards. Utah only threw 16 times against us because they averaged 9 yards a carry.

Timbear said:

---

Maybe our new AD and LL can tell him how much the game day experience will be improved.

---

LOL. The first thing that I thought when I saw this was Linda Lovelace