Baylor's recruiting battles with blue bloods is a sign of success for Dave Aranda
Recently, our Josh Crawford had a hour-long conversation about all things Baylor football with Ryan Roberts of A to Z Sports (which you can check out here), where they discussed Baylor's place in the Big 12, Dave Aranda's tenure so far in Waco, program expectations, and a few Bears that could potentially hear their name called in the 2026 NFL Draft.
After Baylor's banner 2021 campaign, which included 12 wins and a Sugar Bowl victory, one of the biggest catalysts in the program's turnaround after two losing seasons in 2022 and 2023, has been the steady building of momentum on the recruiting trail for the Bears. After a 2024 class with no 4-star commits and ranked near the bottom of the Big 12, Aranda's staff responded with the Big 12's third-highest rated in 2025, and so far, four 4-star prospects in 2026 and a top-30 class nationally. For Roberts, he saw it just as a matter of time before Aranda's diversified background, a California native who served as defensive coordinator at LSU, Wisconsin, Utah State, and Hawaii before taking his first head role in Waco, would showcase itself on the recruiting trail
"Coach Aranda has been at some really great places and has a name in the coaching ranks in the industry. He's been in some unique places and kind of all over the place a little bit. He has a sell to northern kids, he has a sell to southwestern kids, southeastern kids, he has a sell a little bit of everywhere. Coach Aranda has all that in him, and he has the experience, he has the background, he sent players to the NFL. And, I think that he has that touch to him." says Roberts. While that diversity will serve Aranda going forward, he's recently emphasized planting a flag and building a fence around the Central Texas region, with all four 4-stars in the 2026 class residing less than three hours away from Waco. For Roberts, it's a smart utilization of one of the state's biggest exports: talented football players.
"You're in the state of Texas, right, Like, surplus of talent. If you are a good evaluator and a good developer, you do have a chance to have sustainability, because you're in a hotbed of great high school and even college talent. The fact that you're able to keep some of that top end talent in the state, I think it's huge, for a school like Baylor especially. Two of those 2026 four-stars, WR Jordan Clay and Jamarion Carlton, two of the program's highest-ranked signees in school history, Roberts sees them as potential building blocks for the program for the next 3-4 years.
On Clay and Carlton:
"Like, that kid [Clay] is a kid that Oklahoma wanted desperately, and the fact that you're able to keep him in the state matters so much. I mean, that kid had offers from Texas, from Oklahoma, from Notre Dame, from a lot of really good schools that would have taken him in the class if he wanted to come. When you talk about both players, monumental wins, monumental wins, and I think if you start sprinkling in those type of wins, along with identifying and developing talent, both in the recruiting rankings and in the transfer portal, I just think it speaks volumes. I think that is a couple of great examples of what you need to do on the top end."
Aranda's emphasis on the high school ranks is a slight deviation from the current trend in college football, where the off-season transfer portal window is now king, and you have multiple power conference teams signing 20 or more portal guys every year, and earmarking a majority of starting sports on both sides of the ball for portalers, rather than developing or thrusting an unproven homegrown talent in the role. While Aranda has secured some good portal finds (Ashtyn Hawkins coming from Texas State, Michael Trigg coming over after multiple stops, Sawyer Robertson from Mississippi State, and this year's trio of Travion Barnes, Calvin-Simpson Hunt, and Matthew Fobbs-White all being projected impact starters), he seems to have planted roots in the more traditional sense of recruiting. For Roberts, he sees it as a sustainable strategy to be able to rely on both.
"I think that is the sustainable ideology, 100%. Does the portal have its place? Absolutely. It's like the NFL with free agency. But, the best teams I think, still, in the college and the NFL level, are teams, that recruit the high school ranks, retain talent, and develop that talent. You're seeing teams that are completely flipping their rosters every year, 15, 20 kids out of the portal and every year. So, you need it, but, when you talk about why Ohio State was able to win a national championship last year, yeah Caleb Downs is a great player, Quishon Judkins is a great player, but, the stars on that team were still mostly homegrown talent."
So, with college football set to kick off at the end of this month, Roberts sees this Baylor program as one with a solid foundation in recruiting, with still more room for upward growth and momentum. It remains to be seen if these highly recruited portalers and high schoolers can convert their lofty expectations into substantial on-field production, but, from the eyes of a nationally respected college football expert, there's reason for excitement now and in the future, here in Waco.
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Josh began covering Baylor athletics in July 2025. Before this, he previously wrote for Syracuse men's basketball and football at SI from 2022-24. As a former Division I defensive lineman at Prairie View, Josh is passionate about storytelling from a former athlete's perspective. When he's not covering Baylor, he enjoys traveling, listening to podcasts and music, and loves cooking a good meal.