I’d never have guessed that this was going to be a major topic in the Big 12, not even in the week or so after Matt Rhule left for Carolina, not until his name was explicitly mentioned for the Baylor job.
For starters, Dave Aranda has never necessarily seemed to be a future HC kind of guy. His specialty has always been defensive coordination and particularly the development of zone blitzes designed to attack pass protections and create free hitters and matchups. It seemed more likely that he’d end up in the NFL where scheming matchups is the name of the game, than that he’d be a head coach somewhere in college. That said, if there’s one place in college football where you can deeply test your ability to gameplan matchups against protections it’s the Big 12. And here we are:
It’s also the case that Baylor was recently a stepping stone to the NFL for another coach, but that was as a head man and program manager and not as a coordinator. As arguably the third most resourceful program in the Big 12, Baylor’s greatest need was for a strong program manager that could get those resources on the field to help the Bears continue to compete for Big 12 championships. Since he’s only been a coordinator in the past, it’s hard to know if Aranda is that.
Here are some of my big questions for a Dave Aranda Baylor program:
What sort of offense will he run?
Aranda came up as a DC for the first time with the 2010 Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, who’s QB Bryant Moniz threw for 5k yards and 39 TDs to 15 INT in their spread passing attack. From there he rolled with Gary Andersen at Utah State and then Wisconsin, where they ran spread-option and power-option style offenses. After a few successful seasons with the Badgers he left for the LSU job.
The big question at LSU was how he was going to adapt his multiple, zone blitz defense to Baton Rouge rosters that could out-execute opponents without needing to teach players to move all over the place. The Tigers started pretty simple and eventually added a little more exotic pressure back into the mix as time went on, ultimately winning the 2019 National Championship playing mostly press-man and base defense on standard downs before dialing up crazy zone blitzes on third down. Obviously the big key to LSU winning that championship was pairing Aranda once again with a spread passing attack.
I know that after Matt Canada was fired, Aranda encouraged Ed Orgeron to turn back to Steve Ensminger at OC whom he felt was the right guy for that job. Ensminger added more RPOs to boost the LSU run game from spread sets and then of course they brought in Joe Brady who minimized the LSU run game in favor of the pro spread.
What does Canada envision as the right approach on offense? Matt Rhule has been building the Baylor roster to be more of a smashmouth spread approach, running power to set up chances to throw RPOs and play-action down the field to guys like Josh Fleeks and Tyquan Thornton. I’m guessing Jacob Zeno will be the frontrunner to take over if they maintain that approach.
Man coverage?
Many of Aranda’s Wisconsin defenses and all of his LSU units tended to rely really extensively on man coverage. Like most of the well regarded defensive coordinators of his day, he employs more of a MAD defense, and his scheming is mostly oriented around winning battles before they can start with pressure up front. Todd Orlando and Alex Grinch were also well regarded for similar approaches and it worked really well, until it didn’t.
LSU’s success against Clemson largely came down to the play of Derek Stingley at cornerback, who could erase many of Clemson’s most potent counter-attack options.
Baylor is not currently loaded with 5-star, Darrelle Revis types at cornerback and I don’t know that they ever will be. Certainly not to the extent that LSU was and probably not to the extent necessary to hold up in the Big 12. For 2020 they have senior Raleigh Texada.
So how will Aranda look to hold up on the back end in the DC graveyard?
Recruiting?
Another area where Aranda’s choices for staff is really going to matter is in recruiting. Aranda is not known as a recruiter, his job at LSU was to maximize the elite athletes that Coach O and the rest of the staff was evaluating and assembling for him.
Baylor has the resources and positioning to recruit well within the Big 12. They’re within easy driving distance of some of the major talent hubs and are no further from Houston than most anyone else except Texas. It’s sort of strange that Mack Rhoades wouldn’t have opted for a stronger recruiter, but perhaps Aranda will keep the ultra popular Joey McGuire on staff in some capacity. That’d be the next domino I’d watch for, whether McGuire or any of the other staff stay in place.
Overall the fit and overall hire here aren’t all that terribly impressive. It’s easy to see Aranda crafting some nice pressures with the various linebackers he’ll find left over from Matt Rhule, but he’ll be up against it facing Big 12 offenses and trying to retool in the defensive backfield. Ultimately Aranda is a really smart and creative coach who’s been around some very strong leaders and programs so it’s easy to imagine him revealing to Rhoades that he has a good plan in place to help Baylor maintain the place in the league they’ve fought for this year.
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Read up on Baylor’s rise within the Big 12 in the 2010s in my book:
Aranda is pretty good at seeing his personnel & then making his schemes fit was he has. His proposed OC from Utah does the same. The plus athletes that are on the roster will still need development, but it’s a better fit than others. Recruiting wise, he needs to keep the Texas trio in place to ensure he gets to talk to the coaches in Texas he needs to. The players on D are used to much more complex schemes, which should help him implement his own exotic blitzes & looks.
The 2020 season will be much more interesting than previously thought. We’ll see how his 1st year shakes out, but his floor should be 6 or 7 wins as long as the O can score more than last year.
Disagree, I think this could go horribly. We’ve seen lots of well respected zone blitz coaches join the B12 and get wrecked. It’s almost an annual tradition.
Since Baylor loses 9 of 11 starters on D, the “get wrecked” prediction is not very risky.
I’m sure Herman felt better about this Baylor hire than he did when they hired Rhule. Did you see that video?
The competition between former roomies should create the next level of anxiety for both guys/teams. Sic ’em Bears.
Keep up the good work Ian.
I’ve heard about the Herman reaction to the Rhule hire, pretty hilarious. Herman used to be all about the Dave Aranda style of D and it was Aranda that tipped him off about Todd Orlando.
Since then, Texas has been destroyed on defense in the B12 and Herman zagged hard by bringing in Chris Ash to install a very different approach. Whether that will work or not, I don’t know, but I think Herman’s thoughts on that style of D have changed.
“I think this could go horribly.”
Name a candidate for the job you couldn’t say that about?
I think this is more likely to go horribly than many other options. That he immediately went for Andy Ludwig was eye opening, even though it didn’t work out.
Whomever his DC is, they’ll have to try to keep the 3-3-5 scheme. At LSU his preferred base was 3-4. I doubt he’ll completely disregard what ended up being a solid D specific to the B12. My only thought is how he’ll either tweak the 3-3-5 with his ideas. After all, the D Rhule & Snow brought to BU are in books which are technically property of BU. If he’s as intelligent as they say, he’ll comb through them & glean a few overall concepts/ideas that will help. Additionally, he doesn’t have the caliber of athlete he had at LSU.
Up front, Aranda can get up to all kinds of productive things at Baylor. The problem is on the perimeter. Like Grinch or Orlando, his particular expertise has often been in swarming spread run schemes and attacking protections in the spread passing game. It’s all up front. On the back end at Wisconsin they played a ton of off man coverage and then at LSU that changed to press-man because they had a never-ending supply of 1st round CBs.
He needs to diversify how he shores things up on the back end.
*has a never-ending supply of 1st round CBs.
That is all.
Geaux Tigers
Stingley may be the best yet. Man is he good.
Dave Aranda: Selected Sunday Readings - Big 12 Blog Network
[…] Dave Aranda to Baylor. By Ian Boyd, via Sportstreatise. […]
Why does it seem like you’re trying to rewrite history and act like Grinch’s first year wasn’t successful in the Big 12?
I don’t know, which part of this piece creates that impression?
I’d say it was solid with potential down the line.