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Brace yourselves, Baylor fans: rumors are swirling that that Dave Aranda, the LSU defensive coordinator, is a strong candidate/the favorite to land our head coaching job, and a hire could be imminent.
From the national guys, things kicked off with Ross Dellenger, known for his LSU connections, before ESPN’s Adam Rittenburg and Fox’s Bruce Feldman picked it up.
#LSU DC Dave Aranda emerging as the top candidate for #Baylor's head coaching position, sources tell @SINow.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) January 16, 2020
Something similar happened with Aranda and UNLV weeks ago and fell through. We'll see what materializes here, but Baylor is not UNLV.
ESPN Sources: #LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda is the leading candidate to become #Baylor’s next head coach. Deal could be done soon.
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) January 16, 2020
#LSU DC Dave Aranda has emerged as a strong candidate to become the next head coach at #Baylor, per sources.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 16, 2020
Those reports followed the tweet below from Baylor grad Matt Mosley, who was citing both his own sources and SicEm365’s Colt Barber, who posted about it on the boards over there right before Mosley’s tweet.
These Aranda vibes have not gone away. My guy @Colt_Barber is reporting @SicEm365 he believes Dave Aranda will be Baylor's next head coach. LSU is headed to the White House. Let's see if Aranda makes that trip. https://t.co/xD0WRxFw4m
— Matt Mosley (@mattmosley) January 16, 2020
For our part at ODB, we cannot confirm that a hire is imminent or that it will definitely be Dave Aranda, if it is. But it certainly seems that way given the fact that you have reports that seem to be gaining steam in what has otherwise been an extraordinarily quiet coaching search, and it appears that information is now coming from both sides. These reports are also coming the same day that two other supposed candidates (Fuente and ULaLa’s Billy Napier) publicly reaffirmed their commitments to their current jobs (something you typically see when someone doesn’t get the job they were going for), as did SMU’s Sonny Dykes. We can say that we started hearing that Aranda was the primary target Tuesday night from people connected to the Baylor side, around the same time as Pete Thamel’s report about Baylor targeting Justin Fuente of Virginia Tech.
Regardless, nothing is official at this time, and we’re all still waiting to see what happens. We will continue to provide more information as we get it, and we’ll hold off editorializing about whether it’s a good hire or not until it happens (or, in the case it doesn’t, we’ll hold off entirely).
Stay tuned.