One Position Coach Dave Aranda Still Needs to Figure Out for Baylor Football
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With Week 0 set to kickoff on Saturday, there are only seven days until Coach Aranda and his team of Baylor Bears head out to face the Auburn Tigers in the Aflac Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The expected capacity crowd (approximately 71,000) watching the game in the stadium that day will be ready for a game of football. However, Baylor still has an uncertainty that still needs figured out.
Five Offensive Linemen But Only One Returning Starter
The offensive line has only one returning starter from last season in Kaden Sieracki. That's the biggest and most glaring uncertainty that exists for the Bears this season. How are they going to perform in the first game of the year with four of the five linemen never having played an official game together?
Koltin Sieracki returns after being the sixth lineman last season and he will take over as the starting center. The Bears will also rely on transfers Asher Hale, Logan Moore, Nate Kibble, and Cole Rhett this season.
Uncertain, Unproven, But Certainly Not Unimportant.
32 players through the transfer portal. We've talked about it here on this channel as it's been a topic of conversation throughout most of the offseason. This 2026 Baylor Bears team is almost unrecognizable from the team that stepped onto the field week one in 2025.
Sawyer Robertson (QB), Michael Trigg (TE), Bryson Washington (RB), and others have left the Bears with big shoes to fill, but none of the shoes to fill are as big as the ones belonging to the offensive line.
Without a stout offensive line, quarterbacks don't get protected, running game never gets established, and the team quickly devolves into becoming one-dimensional.
The moment a team becomes one-dimensional, that dimension of their game had better be elite, or quickly the wheels fall off and the opponents know what's coming and how to stop it.
Offense Line Rule #1: Protect the Quarterback
If Quarterback DJ Lagway has any hopes of having a productive season connecting with his receivers (or merely having time in the pocket to throw), and for Dawson Pendergrass or Caden Knighten (or any of the other potential running backs) they need the offensive line to move the defense around to provide protection and to create gaps and space.
If the offensive line doesn't operate as a cohesive unit, Lagway won't be very effective getting swarmed by TFL, FF, and QB Sack-seeking opposing defensive lines.
Defense Wins Championships, But the Offensive Line Controls the Game
Musician Roger Miller once sang "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd," a light-hearted song about the importance of still being able to accomplish whatever you would like, regardless of how silly it may seem as long you follow the advice of "All you gotta do is put your mind to it; knuckle down, buckle down, do it, do it, do it."
It's solid advice in an otherwise silly song. However, if you can't control the opposing defense by consistently getting them to move further backwards, deeper into their own territory, and closer to their own goal-line, little to no amount of sheer individual determination on offense is going to overcome the astronomical feat of the opposing defense working as a unit.
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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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