Aranda’s Call Sheet: Lagway’s Status, Offensive Concerns and a Promising Defense
Following Baylor’s season-opening 17-16 loss to Auburn, which came down to a matter of mere inches, one of the biggest questions surrounding the Bears is the health of quarterback DJ Lagway (Jr.), who played most of Saturday’s contest on an injured ankle.
Lagway gutted through the injury and threw for 333 yards, but his limited mobility led to two costly turnovers and forced Baylor to condense its playbook, particularly in short-yardage situations. On Monday, head coach Dave Aranda labeled his star signal-caller as “day-to-day” but said the plan remains for Lagway to play against Prairie View A&M if he progresses throughout the week.
“We have a walk-through today; DJ will participate,” Aranda told the media in his weekly press conference. “We’ll be day-to-day after that. We’ll see after today how Tuesday looks and Wednesday and so forth. Right now, DJ’s a day-to-day guy.”
On the off chance that Lagway doesn’t end up playing this weekend, or gets pulled early against Prairie View A&M, Aranda remains confident in the backups, Nate Bennett (Jr.) and Edward Griffin (So.), but didn’t tip his hand as to who would get the first crack at things.
Bennett served as Sawyer Robertson’s primary backup over the last seasons and has completed six passes for 53 yards across five contests. Griffin, meanwhile, has yet to take a snap at the collegiate level and was a three-star prospect coming out of Coppell High School in the 2025 recruiting class.
“I feel really good about Nate and Ed,” Aranda said. “We've got guys who have been here, have been invested and know the offense. Each has particular skill sets. We can tweak things, and the offense can go in a different direction to best utilize their talents. That room is special, so we'll see. They're both going to be developed this week for sure.”
Aranda also provided more injury updates, saying that wide receiver Jadon Porter (Jr.), as well as center Koltin Sieracki (Jr.) and left tackle Kaden Sieracki (5Sr.), were all day-to-day with lower-leg injuries.
Kaden Sieracki was replaced for a few snaps at left tackle after getting his ankle rolled up, but ultimately came back into the contest and finished the game. Interestingly, Sieracki spent most of fall camp at right tackle before switching spots with UAB transfer Logan Moore (Sr.) ahead of Week 1, and Aranda made sure to explain what went into the permanent change.
“Kaden has been performing at a really high level, and he's been taking a leadership role, and he's been tough to beat,” Aranda said. “Really, it's just to put him more in a spot where he can take the brunt of their best rusher and their best competitor. Since we made that move, guys have kind of settled down and played their best ball going into this last week. I think that's where we're going to be moving forward.”
Circling back to Porter, although he had two key drops, Aranda was happy to see the local product finally have a breakout performance, as he hauled in a career-high five receptions for 77 yards. In addition to Porter, Oklahoma State transfer Gavin Freeman (5Sr.) made a mark in his Baylor debut, with 12 receptions for 154 yards and a touchdown, as well as Louis Brown IV (5Sr.), who caught five passes for 62 yards and a touchdown.
The issue, however, was that beyond that trio, not a single other Baylor wide receiver caught a pass. That lack of production, coupled with another concern Aranda raised during fall camp — the offense consistently needing 15-play drives due to a lack of explosive moments — reared its ugly head on Saturday. The Bears struggled to finish drives and got little production from their tight ends or other wide receivers.
“We had a bunch of plays on Saturday — a bunch of them,” Aranda said. “A couple things there: searching for explosives that can get points on the board and limit some of just those number of plays. Then, two, with the number of plays going on, with three guys carrying the brunt of the load, they're not going to last. We need to have other guys more involved, and so that's very much something that's front of mind.”
The good news is that Lagway’s most-trusted target, Freeman, is tough as nails, and showed the ability to lead Baylor’s wide receiver room, as he came through in the clutch time and time again, bringing down multiple fourth-down catches in the fourth quarter to keep the Bears alive.
“It's the guys who are the quietest and go about it in the most humble way who can come up and surprise you,” Aranda said of Freeman. “But he's been that guy from the start.”
Although the Auburn game ended in heartbreaking fashion, with tight end Matthew Klopfenstein (Sr.) coming up inches short of the goal line in what would have been a game-winning 2-point conversion, Aranda doesn’t anticipate a letdown against Prairie View A&M this weekend, for whom the seventh-year head coach expressed a lot of praise.
“I’m very invigorated to fight that," Aranda said of keeping his team focused on the task at hand. “I look at UMass-Rutgers. I look at a couple of years ago, East Carolina-Miami. We were talking about App State-Michigan. I look at all those deals, and it's just the way that our guys performed. Even though we didn't get the result that we wanted, what our guys were able to do was invest in the preparation.”
He continued, “The will to prepare was the best I've ever seen at Baylor. The guys sacrificed. Whether it was the mental prep, whether it was the football study, whether it was taking care of their bodies, getting rest, all the things. That is what gave us the ability to fight the way we fought, so we have to do that again. This opponent is a nameless, faceless opponent. Our standard is the standard, regardless of who we play. That'll be the fight. I'm fired up to fight it.“
What led the charge against the Tigers in Week 1 and will likely be Baylor’s bread-and-butter for the rest of the season is a dynamic defensive line that helped the Bears rack up five sacks, 11 tackles for loss and three interceptions against Auburn’s high-flying offense.
“It's really just a start,” Aranda said of his defensive line. “There's enough depth there where you can roll your twos and your threes and not miss a beat of what was happening with the ones. That's the difference between what we've had before and what we've got now: just the depth and the ability to roll those guys out.”
On the back-end of the defense, the Bears were handed a brutal blow when it was announced that their top defensive playmaker from a year ago, safety Jacob Redding (Sr.), would miss the season with a knee injury. Micah Gifford (Sr.) stepped into Redding's absence and shined, as he hauled in an interception and totaled three tackles in just 19 snaps; he was also Baylor’s highest-graded defender (93) per PFF.
Aranda noted that Gifford’s been the best special teams player in the Big 12 the last two years, but expects him to take a leap at safety this fall, saying, “Micah is somebody where you put a goal in front of him, he's going to scratch and claw and do everything to hit that goal. He wants to play on defense. He's improved to such a degree that he goes in and makes really impactful plays in the game on a big stage, and all the things. I’m proud of Micah. He's put himself in a position to have a great season.”
Even though the outcome wasn’t what Aranda anticipated or wanted to open the season, he was very pleased with his squad’s overall effort and hopes that the Baylor fanbase will notice this is a team worth rooting for and cheering on moving forward.
“We have to win, and that’s the No. 1 thing to get people excited," Aranda said. “But I think there’s enough film to think, ‘Hey. Maybe these guys are different. Maybe these guys can do something.’ If that’s where it’s at, we've got to move that to where these guys are winning, and where these guys are winners and deserved to be backed. We very much want to do that, and it starts here coming up.”
The Bears (0-1) return to Waco for the home opener at McLane Stadium this Saturday, Sept. 12, at 7 p.m. against Prairie View A&M (1-1). The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
