CFB51 College Football Fan Community

The Power Five => Big XII => Topic started by: 847badgerfan on January 16, 2020, 05:16:53 PM

Title: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: 847badgerfan on January 16, 2020, 05:16:53 PM
I think he is going to be an excellent head coach, even though he has not been one before. He did wonders for the defenses in Madison and Baton Rouge. He's a stand up guy and he's honest. Players love him.

Looks like a really good hire from where I sit.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: utee94 on January 16, 2020, 06:30:11 PM
Could be.  It's a crapshoot regardless, but making the transition from coordinator to HC makes it even riskier.

Still, they most certainly need a stand-up guy there.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: Mr Tulip on January 17, 2020, 12:05:52 PM
Baylor was in a tough position. When your team stinks, you cut loose the coach in mid-November and start putting out feelers. At the least, you're working in mid-December to replace your staff. Since everyone has also made changes, there's a fertile field to make your best hire.

Matt Rhule got promoted to Carolina at a time when the NFL makes these moves for decent teams - early January. All the dance partners had already paired up. It's a tough environment to go coach hunting.

Aranda's a solid choice. I can't think of any other realistic options, and he's at least someone who's had their name spoken on TV before. Everyone has to get their first shot somewhere. Aranda will get his at Baylor, I guess.

Obviously, there's concerns. He fits the archetype of a bookish defensive coordinator. These guys don't have a great track record of making the transition to head coach where there are more moving parts that require a charismatic hand rather than simply demanding it be done a certain way. Baylor loses a ton of defensive talent this season that enabled them to catch lightning in a bottle. Matt Rhule did a lot for Baylor, but fate and circumstance meant this year's team was always going to be top heavy. The next coach just doesn't have a lot of currently proven options. Add to that, the current signing class is small with no ready made starters.

Baylor fans are used to being kicked in the nuts, so looking at things through crud covered glasses come naturally. It's hard not to take the dual-pessimist view of (1) this is likely to fail due to inexperience  and an inability to leverage Texas recruiting talent or (2) if it does go well, he's only at Baylor to check the "has head coaching experience" box before leaving for a bigger name.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: CWSooner on January 17, 2020, 02:39:58 PM
It's a bit difficult for me to feel sorry for generic "Baylor fans," since so many of them defended, and many still defend, Art Briles.

Similarly, it's hard for me to feel sorry for my home-town Tulsa fans, as the Golden Hurricane's HFC is Phillip Montgomery, who called Art Briles "like a second father" right up to the point where he got in trouble, and now he refuses to publicly comment on how things were at Baylor.

Too many people around Baylor football seem to lack self-awareness and the ability to see themselves as others see them.  The pre-game invocation for the OU @ Baylor game provides an example.  The pastor who gave it posited that Baylor was "God's team" and that Heaven was decked out in green and gold for the big game.

Back to Aranda . . . .  DCs aren't the hot ticket for head coaching positions these days, but he's smart and experienced, has done good work wherever he has been.  I suspect that he will do OK.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: Mr Tulip on January 17, 2020, 04:03:30 PM
There's some psychological word, probably featuring "syndrome" or "affectation" or something like that that describes what happens when you achieve some measure of power after being pummeled mercilessly for a long time. It describes how you lose your mud and just generally bug out.

I don't know what that phrase is. It describes a lot of Baylor fans, though.

Ever since college football became big-time, they went from everyone's lovable grandpa Grant Teaff to a string of rejects that left the program in a worse state every time they left. We've all been here long enough that I won't rehash the details of simply losing. They lost in a high school type stadium that leaked pee out of the urinals.

Briles and RG3 gave the program life. They built a shiny stadium, Best of all, they were beating Texas and OU. All that crap they took was gonna get shoveled down someone's throat, baby! Payback's a b and all!

Then, of course, "the troubles" came. I spelled it out on another thread, so I won't recap here. It led to Rhule and an immediate 1-11 season. After last season's 11 win campaign, they were just starting to get that "payback" mojo revved up again.

Be fair. Most fans of Baylor are in line with my thinking. They know that, while the University deserves most of the blame for ignoring and flouting the law, Briles enabled several players to hurt women more than once. He did this when he should have ethically known better. He deserves enough blame to be run out.

Of course, there's a contingent that grasp at anything to keep their righteous anger burning. The story behind the assaults was uncovered and kept alive by ESPN. ESPN works closely with the Longhorn Network. The big money mass media machine is in cahoots with Texas to destroy Baylor because the Bears are successful! Why can't you see that? Read my blog! I have a podcast! Argh!

I was going somewhere with this, but now the point eludes me. Stay outta my liquor cabinet!
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: Gigem on January 17, 2020, 06:30:13 PM
I actually don’t know any Baylor fans. Or grads.  Maybe 1, but I digress.  They only have like 12k students.  There just aren’t many of them. I’m pretty sure the ones who end up as Dr don’t care about football..
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: CWSooner on January 17, 2020, 07:39:52 PM
Students: 17,217 (Fall 2018)[2]
Undergraduates: 14,188 (Fall 2018)[2]
Postgraduates: 3,029 (Fall 2018)[2]

For the record, those are Wikipedia's figures for Baylor's student population.

For comparison, here are TCU's, from the same source.

Students: 10,394[4]
Undergraduates: 8,892
Postgraduates: 1,502

Matt Rhule strikes me as a stand-up guy who orchestrated a great turnaround in Baylor's football fortunes.  But I think he was loved at Baylor far more for his football success than for cleaning up the sewer that was the program left by Art Briles.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: FearlessF on January 17, 2020, 09:44:08 PM
fans love winners

from your buddy Vince...........  "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing"
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: CWSooner on January 17, 2020, 09:53:30 PM
fans love winners

from your buddy Vince...........  "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing"
That's from an NFL guy.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: FearlessF on January 17, 2020, 09:59:50 PM
Freshman football and basketball coach at Fordham University (1947)
Assistant football coach at Fordham University (1948)
Assistant coach at U.S. Military Academy at West Point (1949-53)
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: CWSooner on January 18, 2020, 12:48:17 AM
I should have known you'd come up with a rebuttal.

Maybe he said it to emphasize a point to his players.  I don't think he lived his life by that "creed."
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: FearlessF on January 18, 2020, 08:44:02 AM
inside the lines
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: CWSooner on January 18, 2020, 07:49:30 PM
No doubt.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: BrownCounty on January 27, 2020, 03:33:32 PM
I actually don’t know any Baylor fans. Or grads.

Go to the dentist.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: utee94 on January 27, 2020, 04:00:07 PM
I know quite a few Baylor grads and fans.  All of them very good people.  A few of them still crazily blind when it comes to Art Briles and the recent history of their athletics programs.
Title: Re: Dave Aranda to Baylor
Post by: Mr Tulip on January 28, 2020, 09:20:27 AM
I'm still waiting to see if Baylor is going to get sued out of existence.

Them, Uber, and AirBnB.