Dave Aranda shares the most disappointing part of Baylor's loss to Auburn
It wasn't the start Baylor had hoped for. In a primetime game, a sellout crowd, and new chrome helmets, the Bears faltered on Friday night. The Auburn Tigers came into McLane Stadium and left with a 38-24 win over Baylor. Despite going up and down the field in their first two drives, the Bears had just three points to show for it, and that's when Jackson Arnold got hot using his legs.
Auburn would go on to run for 307 yards on the ground, and Arnold had 137 yards and two scores on his own using his legs. But it wasn't the run defense that discouraged head coach Dave Aranda the most. In fact, the most disappointing aspect of the Bears' defense was the lack of tackling.
"I think it was the tackling," Aranda said of the most disappointing part of the Baylor defense. "I think there's times that we would fit something upright and it's a four-yard gain. And there's times where we wouldn't fit something upright. And it was an eight to ten yard gain. And so first of all, we gotta fit everything upright. And second of all, when we do that, it can't be a four-yard game. There needs to be a violence and intentionality where that thing is two yards or less. So there's a lot to be desired in that phase of it. And like I say, all the plays that we saw, SMU already runs. And so we got a lot of work to do."
According to Pro Football Focus, Baylor had 22 missed tackles as a team. Safety Tyler Turner and DT Devonte Tezino each had three missed tackles, but despite the large amount of misses, Aranda believes this is a fixable issue -- and it has to be. With SMU and Kevin Jennings looming, Baylor has just a few days to get everything fixed for yet another dual-threat quarterback.
"Yeah, I think you have to identify kind of the situations where they say, hey, there's this mistackle or there's this misfit," began Aranda. "We overran a lot of stuff, which is disappointing. The position that I work with overran way too much. And yeah, I'm frustrated with myself on that. And so I feel like crap because of that. I let the team down that way. So there's drills I'm already thinking of that we need to emphasize more. And then we've gotta be able to find a way to tackle more live people and bring those people to the ground. And we'll do that."
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