Greg McElroy puts Dave Aranda on the hot seat in 2024

The coaching carousel never truly comes to a stop with there being plenty of warm seats on it between seasons. With that, Greg McElroy has named Baylor’s Dave Aranda as someone who will likely go for a ride on it over the coming months.

McElroy answered a question about coaches that are under pressure this year during a recent episode of ‘Always College Football’. While he noted that there are several that fit that criteria, including Florida’s Billy Napier, his official pick was Aranda.

“I’m actually going to go with Dave Aranda,” chose McElroy.

In doing so, McElroy went through what Aranda’s four-year tenure has been like with the Bears. After a major leap from year one to year two there, years three and four have also finished with losing seasons.

“You kind of look at where things are right now, you look back in 2021? Dave Aranda was one of the hottest names in the coaching cycle. He had drawn significant interest from multiple Pac-12 schools and he had just been on the heels of winning the Sugar Bowl in just his second year there at Baylor,” McElroy recalled. “He was one of the hotter names, one of the hotter topics in the sport. You felt like his star was on the ascent.”

“Ever since then, things just haven’t really materialized for him,” continued McElroy. “Since then, they’ve gone 9-16, including a 3-9 mark last year. It began with a home loss to Texas State and ended with five consecutive defeats.”

The 3-9 record in 2023 was Baylor’s worst since Aranda’s first one in 2020. That tied them for the fewest overall wins in the conference. It also officially tied them for second from last in the standings for the Big 12.

It’s not getting any easier for Baylor in 2024 either. While the athletic department chose to retain Aranda, the team will have to be better with both play-calling duties being changed after both units finished outside the Top-100 last season. They’ll also be having to do it against a challenging slate in their league.

“With what Mack Rhoades did by retaining Dave Aranda? It’s nice to know that he’s going to be there for another year. But they have some new play-callers in Jake Spavital. You have Dave Aranda, who is actually going to be calling the defense now, taking over and kind of handling that side of the ball,” McElroy noted.

“You look at the schedule? There’s a lot of very difficult games. On the road at West Virginia, on the road at Texas Tech, on the road at Colorado, on the road at Utah,” added McElroy. “To know that he has to get to six or seven this year to keep his job, to me, feels like a difficult, difficult thing to expect, at least at this point looking at what they have returning and the personnel back on both sides of the ball.”

Aranda does have the best season in school history on his resumé. Still, with three other losing ones on it as well, his fifth year is going to need to be .500 or better for McElroy to think that it goes any further than that for him with the program.

“They probably need six or seven for him to feel good about being back in 2025,” McElroy stated.