Dave Aranda on expectations for QB Blake Shapen: 'There's a fire we want to see from him'

Baylor quarterback Blake Shapen did not have the year he was hoping to in 2022. After starring for the Bears in the Big 12 Championship game late in the 2021 season, Shapen was unable to carry over that momentum in his first year as the full-time starter.

Shapen passed for 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions last year, as the Bears struggled to a 6-7 mark.

Baylor coach Dave Aranda spoke with ESPN during Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday about the expectations he has for Shapen entering the upcoming season.

“I’m really pulling for him. I’m invested with our team, for sure. But I think we can all relate to Blake to where when things go well, they go well, and you don’t know what you don’t know. And then all of a sudden there’s a huge blind spot,” Aranda said. “To not run away from it but to deal with it, and then to be down in a pit and to climb your way out of the pit. … And not like, ‘Hey, I’m going to show you’ or ‘I’m going to prove it to you.’ Not looking for approval but looking for improvement. All of that’s way cool, man, and that’s him. I’m rooting for him. I think when he’s at his best he’s a hardcore competitor, and so we’re looking for that. There’s a fire that we want to see from him.”

Aranda saw what he wanted to see from Shapen this fall as his returning starting QB battled with Mississippi State transfer Sawyer Robertson for the starting quarterback job.

Ultimately Shapen did enough this spring to earn the job, and Aranda loved what he saw and heard from both quarterbacks throughout the process. Despite losing out on the starting job, Aranda believes Robertson has a great mindset heading into the fall.

“I think it’s always a competition. I think that guys are always competing. And I think competitors invite it. For Blake to be able to see, ‘Hey man, this was a year that was up-and-down for me, and this was a year that I can get better.’ And to attack the way you want. He wanted the competition,” Aranda said. “To attack it that way was way cool, and for Sawyer, the type of teammate he is, the type of leader that he is. And for him to give everything for this competition, and at the end of it, it happens to be Blake, to say, ‘Coach, I’m going to be the best teammate. I’m going to be there ready. I’m going to keep pushing. It ain’t over for me. I’m still competing.’ I would want my son to say that. And so just way cool. And I think that competition makes us better.”