3 Important Quotes Dave Aranda Had About Baylor Football Ahead of PV A&M Game
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In his weekly media availability, head coach Dave Aranda fielded several questions after making his brief opening statement. Ranging from how DJ Lagway's ankle injury is doing, other injured players and their current status, to expectations for upcoming games, among other questions. Here are our takes on some of the things that Coach Aranda said.
What is DJ Lagway's Status?
Dave Aranda: "So we have a walkthrough today. DJ will participate. He'll go through the walkthrough and so he's he's going for today and then we'll be day-to-day after that and so we'll see after today how Tuesday looks and Wednesday and so forth and so right now DJ is a day-to-day guy. If we get from day to day through day this week, we want to play him."
Our Take: Coach Aranda is certainly crossing his fingers on this one. With the investment put into Lagway through NIL, reps in practice, and the lofty expectations attached to him, Coach Aranda desperately needs Lagway around and healthy.
Other Injuries This Week
Dave Aranda: "Right, yeah. We've got Kaden Sieracki, we're looking at him. Kolton Sieracki, we're looking at him. Jadon Porter, they both got lower leg injuries that we're looking at. I would consider those guys day-to-day as well."
Also Dave Aranda (on losing Safety Jacob Redding prior to the season with a torn ACL): It's hard. He's a leader. He's a great communicator. We've done a lot of talking with him about how you can lead from the bench. That's tough to do when you had your mind set on something else. But in terms of my heart set and mind set and in terms of a person and someone that cares and someone that's all in and someone that bleeds green and gold, it's harder to find anyone more than him.
Our Take: Injuries may be an inevitability of this sport. Lots of very strong and athletic players making contact at high rates of speed against one another, and in DJ Lagway's case, just kind of landing on it wrong after a hurdle is how these injuries seem to go. Lagway was tackled on his way to the ground, but an otherwise normal tackle caused the star quarterback to be substantially limited in his mobility the rest of the game.
Sieracki in a similar way, though not hurdling a defender, simply landed in an unfortunate way with other linemen landing on top. Both injuries on otherwise fairly basic football plays. It's certainly rough to have to deal with the loss of the star safety heading into the season, a potentially limited star quarterback recruit, as well as the one returning offensive lineman from last season. Those are injuries to the positions and players that could impact the outcome of every game this season
On the Importance of This Week's Upcoming "254" Game Against Prairie View A&M
Dave Aranda: Yeah, totally important. We have to win. And so I'd say that, number one, to get people excited. I think there's enough film or the views of like, hey, these guys are maybe different. Maybe these guys can do something. And so if that's where it's at, we got to move that to where these guys are winning. And these guys are winners. These guys deserve to be backed. These guys deserve to roll with us. And so we very much want to do that. And it starts here coming up.
Our Take: Those are some mighty bold words. But, I can appreciate the head coach hyping up his team and wanting to win. The Prairie View A&M game isn't going to be one to sleep on though. Prairie View also plays the same kind of up-tempo game that Auburn utilized, but their head coach may not be Alex Golesh, but head coach Tremaine Jackson is in his sophomore year after his first season where he was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
Prairie View will be looking to win, not just compete, and it's going to be up to Baylor to stop them.
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Brad is a writer and contributes to the Baylor Bears on SI, with aspirations to share his own unique thoughts and perspectives with fans. Whether through the facts and figures of the past or the untold potential and triumphs of the future, sports have always been a large influence on Brad's storytelling and life overall. His inspiration to write began while watching sports when he first noticed the highs and lows of each game, each quarter, each play; there's a story in each of them worth telling, and he wanted to tell them.
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