2. Dave Aranda has the Baylor Bears on the rise and has SEC experience as an LSU assistant under Ed Orgeron
It’s never a bad thing to hire a guy who was a key member of the historically impressive 2019 LSU Tigers team.
That’s one reason why it makes sense that Baylor ended up hiring Dave Aranda. Given how Aranda was brilliant in designing LSU’s defenses and how the Baylor Bears are now performing with him in his second season at the helm, it’d be worth A&M giving him a look if the Aggies ended up needing a new head coach.
Baylor was a mess in Aranda’s first season, only managing to win a total of two games as the Bears ended up losing seven. But 2020 was a weird year for everyone and Aranda has the Bears back to winning this season.
So far through seven games, Baylor sits at 6-1 and is quietly poised to cause some chaos in the Big 12. This is all happening as the Bears are holding opponents to just 18.7 points per game (good for 16th in the country) and they’re scoring 38.3 points per game (also good for 16th in the country).
Aranda was consistently a good defensive coordinator when he was with LSU and he’ll likely see his name pop up as folks try to figure out who the next coach of the Tigers should be. His familiarity with Louisiana would make him an ideal candidate for that job, but now his familiarity with coaching in Texas and the recruiting areas that surround Waco would make him a good fit for Texas A&M should the Aggies need to replace Fisher.