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Dave Aranda Is Baylor's New Head Coach

Vic Mackey

By Vic Mackey
in Football

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El Diablo

El Diablo 4232

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4 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

You think the NCAA is going to do shit?

I believe that they'll do enough that when Aranda sucks he'll have an excuse for failing to deliver. I think Baylor self administered a post season bowl ban the year they went 1-11 so at least they got that out of the way.

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sith_horn

sith_horn 2370

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Excerpt from this article on Yahoo Sports:  First-year coaches not off to start they envisioned.

 

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First-year Baylor coach Dave Aranda is living 450 miles from the school’s football offices in Waco, Texas. He’s waiting to move into a house there that he’s bought but never actually seen. And he’s spending his days alternating between reading philosophy, making recruiting calls and balancing work duties with his daughters’ requests for him to make TikTok videos.

Life at the Aranda house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, unfolds like a lot of American homes these days. School starts at 8 a.m. with the three kids scattered around the house – 15-year-old Jayden in the den, 13-year-old Jordan upstairs in her room and 10-year-old Ronin in the kitchen – locked into their assorted virtual schooling.

While Aranda’s kids study, he calls his current players, works on recruiting new ones and communicates with his staff via Zoom. His wife, Dione, monitors the virtual schooling. The afternoons have been filled with Aranda toggling between his work duties and the calls to join family bike rides and basketball games.

Aranda finds himself caught between navigating a demanding new job in unprecedented times and the life he’d temporarily left behind to go take it. The Aranda family stayed in Baton Rouge to finish out the school year, and their football coaching father said eight of his 10 assistant coaches have family in a city other than Waco. Aranda found a quote from his daily philosophy reading to summarize the uncertainty: “Technique is what teachers use until the real teacher arrives.”

Those spontaneous lessons are being learned around the country by first-year coaches like Aranda, dealing with the restrictions and fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are stuck in towns they’d planned on leaving, coaching a team that can’t practice and preparing for a season that may not happen. Much of their coaching is relegated to the video conferencing software Zoom, their vocation executed amid a setting that reminds them of the old Hollywood Squares gameshow.

The conversation with Aranda bandied from bible passages to Battleship, his favorite board game that he jokes his kids aren’t too keen on playing with him. But it ends up at football, which is going to be complicated as Baylor didn’t have a single spring practice before the school shut down athletic activity.

There’s been very little carryover from former coach Matt Rhule’s staff to Aranda’s. The new offensive coordinator, Larry Fedora, will bring a fresh system, and the defensive system of Aranda and coordinator Ron Roberts will require an overhaul. While there’s some optimism that there could be extra practices in the summer if a return to normal happens quickly, it’s already certain there will be a sprint to prepare for the season.

So what will Baylor look like from a fundamental football standpoint?

“It’s going to be, just the facts, man,” Aranda said. “The mindset changes when you don’t have the practices. We’ll be clear on an identity. This is who we are. This is what we do. It’s not going to be, ‘Try this,’ or ‘Look at this.’ It’s going to be one shot, one kill.”

Aranda hinted that football this fall could end up being less sophisticated and a bit sloppy. He said teams that can execute the simple things – get calls in on offense, communicate checks on defense and snap cleanly – are going to thrive with offseason reps limited.

At LSU, where he served as defensive coordinator the past four seasons, Aranda said they’d install a bevy of calls for blitzes in the spring – Install 3, Tight 4, Romo 4 and Bradshaw 4. That will be streamlined due to lack of opportunity. “It’ll be the quality of what we know,” Aranda said. “Not the quantity.”

For Aranda’s first season at Baylor, he’s hoping that by missing the daily cycle of practice, meetings, walkthroughs, film reviews and tutoring, there is a chance for even greater connection. He’s spent much more time individually with his players, albeit it on the phone, than he would have in a spring practice setting. He considers that a silver lining in all this.  

“The opportunity for authentic fellowship and connection,” he said. “It’s funny that you have to be a million miles apart and on Zoom to get that connection.”

In this strange era of what Aranda refers to as “the real teacher,” new techniques are abound. And Aranda has been eager to learn and embrace the new circumstance.

“When things do slow down, you’re reintroduced to yourself,” he said. “The best coaches coach who they are. To fully know what makes you tick and drives you. That’s the secret sauce. Embrace it and let it be known to your players.”

 

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