Three Things Baylor Coach Dave Aranda Said ahead of the Bears’ Trip to Stillwater

Now in his sixth year coaching the Bears, Dave Aranda has a chance to draw even with the Cowboys this week.

Oklahoma State opens its Big 12 schedule at 2:30 p.m. Saturday against Baylor. Since taking over the Bears’ program in 2020, Aranda has a 2-3 record against the Pokes, but one of those two ended in Aranda hoisting the Big 12 trophy.

Ahead of Saturday’s game, Aranda met with reporters on Monday in Waco (back when Mike Gundy was still the coach in Stillwater). Here were three things he said that stood out. You can watch his full news conference below.

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1. On the ‘Talented’ Cowboys

Aranda used the word “talented” a few times when referencing the Cowboys.

When discussing the OSU offense, Aranda looked to the Cowboys’ gameplans being specific to their opponents to this point.

“They’re talented,” Aranda said. “You look at the gameplans, they’re pretty specific per the opponent. There’s generally gonna be a run of the day. Speaking offensively, they move the pocket around quite a bit. They use screens. There’s some gotcha plays in there. It’s gameplan-specific.”

A defensive mind, Aranda said he’s had some run-ins with new OSU defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. Grantham spent time at Mississippi State and Florida while Aranda was the DC at LSU.

“Then I think defensively, have gone against this coordinator multiple times,” Aranda said. “A lot of respect for him. I used to visit with him three or four schools back. He’s a veteran, knows a lot of ball, is aggressive, has no qualms about being aggressive, pressure and all that.

“So, yeah, it’s gonna be a challenge. They’ve got good skill people, good length. Their front are guys that defensively, they can take double teams, take two guys. They’re gonna come out fighting. We’re gonna make sure we come out fighting, too.”

2. The Bears’ Defense Is Banged Up

It seemed like about half of the questions Aranda fielded on Monday had to do with various injured defenders.

The Bears will be particularly light at linebacker, as it sounds as if Travion Barnes and Phoenix Jackson will miss the rest of the year.

“(Barnes is) getting surgery, I think, at noon (Monday),” Aranda said. “We have an injury to Phoenix Jackson and now an injury to Travion. Those are two of our main portal additions.

“Devin Turner would be another of our main portal additions. It’s next man up in all those areas. I think J-Red (Jacob Redding), you’re seeing him step up in the safety spot. Linebacker-wise, we’ve got Kyland Reed, we’ve got Kaleb Burns, we’ve got a couple of guys that are in position — JJ Evans — that need to take that next step.”

Here’s a quick look at some of those guys who Aranda said will fill in:

Jacob Redding: A 6-foot-1, 196-pound safety, Redding in his his third year of college football, having spent all of them at Baylor. He redshirted in 2023 and played primarily special teams in 2024. In four games this season, he has 14 tackles an an interception.

Kyland Reed: A true sophomore, Reed is a 6-foot-1, 218-pound linebacker out of Arlington. After participating in five games last season, Reed has 13 tackles this season, including a tackle for loss. He’s also forced a fumble.

Kaleb Burns: A true freshman linebacker, Burns was a four-star prospect coming out of Cy Falls in Houston. He picked the Bears over offers from Oregon, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas Tech and others. He hasn’t recorded a tackle this season, but he does have an interception.

JJ Evans: A redshirt junior linebacker, Evans has been at Baylor all four of his seasons thus far. He made one start in 2023 but has primarily played a reserve role to this point. He’s made three tackles in three games this season.

Safety Carl Williams IV was listed as doubtful on the initial player availability report for the game that released Wednesday night. He has only played in the Bears’ Week 2 matchup with SMU, but he’s in the process of coming back — whether that comes in time for the OSU game remains to be seen.

“He was going through everything that we were going through this morning, which is the continuation of last week,” Aranda said. “So, we’re hopeful that this is the week we see him.”

Corner LeVar Thornton has made nine tackles and intercepted a pass through Baylor’s first four games, but he was listed as out in the availability report.

“Looks like he’s gonna be in protocol,” Aranda said. “Depending on how these next coupe of days go, we’ll see if we have him or not.”

There is some good news for the Baylor D, though. It looks like 6-foot-4, 286-pound defensive lineman Cooper Lanz will be back this week after missing the Arizona State game.

“I think we’ll have our D-line for the first time this game,” Aranda said. “So, excited for that, excited for (Lanz).”

3. More Tampering Happened in the Axed Portal Window

If you haven’t heard, the NCAA announced last week that there will be a single transfer portal window this school year for college football. Now, rather than there being a window in January and other in spring, it’ll just be the one in January.

It’s hard to find the perfect way to do it, but Aranda said in his experience, that second window had more tampering going on in it.

“Our personal experience here at Baylor has been that first portal window, there’s a fair amount of teams that are trying to win games right up to the opening of that,” Aranda said. “Now, there’s gonna be staffs within that staff that are doing all the recruiting and the eval and all that. But say there’s 10 dudes, it’s probably six and four, or seven and three, something like that, focused on ball. I think as a result of that, what you get is more kids that are transferring because, ‘Hey, I didn’t play,’ ‘Hey, I didn’t get the opportunity,’ or, ‘Hey, it looks like it’s gonna trend this way. I want to go somewhere to play.’

“The second portal window was the front office plus the position coaches, so it’s 20 to nothing now, all working on, ‘Who’s on this team? He’s ranked this way.’ Lot more tampering. There’s a lot more, ‘Hey, I’m comfortable here, but this school is calling me, and they’re offering me this much money, and I gotta go.’ That really wasn’t the case in the first window, and that was very heavily the case in the second one.

“We’ll see. Anything to better the game and move it to where a kid can be at a school and start and finish, get his degree, I think the more that happens the better.”