LSU football: Best head coach target should be obvious

With the LSU football season winding down, the stars are starting to align for Dave Aranda to make his triumphant return to Baton Rouge, this time to replace Ed Orgeron as the head coach.

Now that the LSU football team is not likely to head to a bowl game, it would serve the university to do its best to hire Dave Aranda to succeed Ed Orgeron as their next head coach.

LSU is 4-6 on the year after losing an SEC West rivalry game to Arkansas. The Bayou Bengals have ULM and Texas A&M left on the schedule. While they could win both, they are more likely to split the pair and go a dismal 5-7 in Orgeron’s last year on the job. With a bowl game probably not happening, LSU needs to make its move to hire its former defensive coordinator as head coach.

Aranda is 8-2 in his second season at the helm at Baylor, having just come off a huge conference victory over previously undefeated Oklahoma.

LSU football: Dave Aranda is the perfect hire the Tigers need to make this winter

With wins over Kansas State and Texas Tech, a 10-2 Baylor has a great shot at getting to Arlington for the second time in three years. They would have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Sooners should Oklahoma fall to Oklahoma State in Bedlam. Though Aranda did inherit many of Matt Rhule’s players upon taking the job in Waco, LSU has not been the same since he left in 2020.

While it was Joe Burrow, Joe Brady and the rest of the LSU offense that led the Bayou Bengals to an undefeated national championship season in 2019, Aranda had become a mainstay on Orgeron’s staff as his trusted defensive coordinator. He has ample Power Five coaching experience and knows how to recruit well in the southeastern footprint. Aranda is an ideal fit here.

Though LSU athletic director Scott Woodward may back up the BRINKS truck to rip Jimbo Fisher away from Texas A&M, Aranda would not cost nearly as much and might get the Tigers back to good faster than Nick Saban’s former offensive coordinator could. Of course, Aranda’s success in Baton Rouge will all be contingent on how good of a staff he can put together after leaving Baylor.

At this juncture, he already has a coaching tree, as one of his former assistants Joey McGuire has taken over the Texas Tech Red Raiders program. He may have only been a head coach for two years, but it is clear Aranda can assemble a high-end coaching staff in the Big 12, as well as handle losing a top assistant to a job in-conference and still find a way to stomp Oklahoma.

Besides familiarity with the LSU program, it should be noted that two other top candidates for the job are probably not calling Baton Rouge at this point. Mel Tucker is getting a big extension from Michigan State. Though James Franklin could still leave Penn State, the Nittany Lions are only mediocre this year, which makes us wonder if he is the right head coach to lead the USC Trojans.

LSU may want to make a bigger hire than Aranda, but it is hard to top what he brings to the table.

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