Baylor will retain coach Dave Aranda for the 2026 season as the university searches for a new athletic director. This latest coaching carousel twist comes less than 24 hours after previous athletic director Mack Rhoades, who hired Aranda in 2020, and Baylor parted ways.
Baylor president Linda Livingstone noted that the next athletic director will have an opportunity to perform their own assessment of the football program.
“We acknowledge the frustrations many of you feel, and we share in them,” Livingston said in a statement. “Baylor Football has experienced both historic highs and challenging seasons under Coach Aranda. While we celebrate the Big 12 Championship and Sugar Bowl victory in 2021, we know this season has not met our shared expectations. Please know that our team respects and loves playing for Coach Aranda.”
Livingston cited stability during the athletic director transition, retention of Baylor’s current roster and recruiting class and the ability to invest into the football program instead of paying Aranda’s buyout as reasons for the decision.
Baylor is currently 5-5 10 games into its sixth season under Aranda. Aranda’s tenure peaked in 2021 — his second year — as he guided the Bears to a 12-2 record, capped by their first Big 12 title in seven years and a victory over Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl.
The Bears have not finished better than fifth in the Big 12 since and it has just one winning record in conference play over the last four seasons. Baylor also won just nine games from 2022-23.
Baylor, which is currently 3-4 against conference foes, closes the 2025 season with a pair of tough games at Arizona and at home against No. 23 Houston.
Baylor ducks busy coaching carousel
Were Baylor to make a coaching change this year, it would be throwing its hat into an already crowded ring. Several prominent programs have made a midseason change after failing to meet their respective expectations, including some that could be fishing in the same coaching waters as Baylor.
Arkansas, which moved on from Sam Pittman, and Oklahoma State, which parted ways with longtime coach Mike Gundy, intersect with a lot of Baylor’s regional interests. They’ve also been tied to names like North Texas’ Eric Morris, who would likely be near the top of Baylor’s hot board if it embarked on a coaching search.
Beyond Texas’ borders, there’s plenty of competition to fill coaching vacancies from some of college football’s most recognizable programs like LSU, Penn State, UCLA and Florida. That’s driven Baylor to join Wisconsin and Florida State, which headed in the opposite direction by delivering midseason votes of confidence to their own embattled coaches.
Aranda must address defensive woes
If Aranda is going to turn things around, he needs to prioritize the unit that he’s most familiar with: defense. Before making his way to Waco, Aranda established himself as one of the brightest defensive minds in college football as a coordinator at Wisconsin and LSU.
He was, notably, the defensive coordinator and associate head coach on the 2019 LSU team that went 15-0 and won the College Football Playoff National Championship. That defense produced two All-Americans in cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. and safety Grant Delpit, who also won the Thorpe Award as college football’s top defensive back, and 13 future NFL Draft picks.
Though Baylor’s defense was solid for the first few years under Aranda, it has fallen well short of expectations since 2023. Things have gone from bad to worse this season.
Baylor currently ranks 13th in the Big 12 in total defense (393.3 yards per game) and 15th in scoring defense (31.9 points per game), ahead of only Oklahoma State. The Bears have held just one opponent in their last five games under 34 points.
Baylor’s offense has done its part — the Bears rank top-five in the conference in both total offense and scoring offense — but Aranda has a lot to figure out on his side of the ball in the offseason.
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