Baylor led Kansas by 11 after three quarters on Saturday. Kansas had not won a conference game all season. Isaiah Marshall ran in a 15-yard touchdown, Blake Herold blocked Baylor’s field goal attempt in the closing seconds, and the Bears lost 25-24 to a team they had beaten 14 straight times going back to 2007.
Dave Aranda was fired Sunday morning. He was 4-3.
Four Wins, Three Losses, and a Reported $12 Million
Baylor announced the move itself, hours after ESPN’s Pete Thamel first reported it. Doug McNamee, the athletic director since December, said Aranda “is a gifted coach and a brilliant football mind whose leadership brought some of our best Baylor football memories,” and then that “we believe a change in leadership is necessary at this time for our program.”
The three losses were by one point to Auburn in Atlanta, by 11 to TCU, and by one at Kansas. Baylor beat Arizona State 55-19 on the road three weeks ago. That is not the profile of a team that has quit on its coach.
Baylor is a private school and does not release contract terms. Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger reported the buyout at roughly $12 million. The extension Aranda signed in February 2022 ran through 2029.
Last November Baylor Said the Buyout Was the Reason to Keep Him
This is the part that should bother Bears fans. Aranda went 5-7 in 2025 and Baylor brought him back anyway, with president Linda Livingstone citing the school’s preference to invest in the program rather than spend on a buyout. “We acknowledge the frustrations many of you feel, and we share in them,” she said at the time.
Eleven months later Baylor is paying that buyout, and paying it in October rather than in December, for a team two games above .500.
The Record Was Always Two Different Jobs
Aranda finished 40-40 at Baylor across seven seasons and 26-32 in the Big 12. One of those seasons was extraordinary. The 2021 Bears went 12-2, won the Big 12 championship, beat Ole Miss 21-7 in the Sugar Bowl and gave the program its first AP top-five finish. Everything after it: 26-31 overall, 17-23 in conference, one winning season, never two in a row.
He had never been a head coach before Baylor hired him in January 2020. He had been one of the best defensive coordinators in the sport, at Wisconsin and then at LSU, where his 2019 defense was part of a national championship. Lance Leipold, whose team just ended him, said Sunday that Aranda is “one of the true real people in this profession” and “an excellent football mind,” and that “it’s a game of inches. And if the game would have gone the other way, who knows what happens.”
What Happens Now
Joe Klanderman, Baylor’s first-year defensive coordinator, hired from Kansas State last December, is the interim head coach. The Bears play at UCF on Friday night, then host Iowa State for homecoming on Nov. 7.
McNamee said Monday that the search is “already underway and will be focused, confidential, and comprehensive,” that he wants someone who will “launch a generation of consistent winning,” and that a hire will “likely be December.” He asked fans to pack the stadium on Nov. 7 so candidates can see what Baylor looks like full.
Aranda is the third FBS head coach to go in five days, after Maryland and Mike Locksley parted ways on Oct. 21 and NC State fired Dave Doeren on Oct. 24. Baylor just decided that whoever it hires in December matters more than whatever these last five games were going to be.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
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