Could Robert Griffin III be the next Baylor Bears head football coach?
If presented the opportunity, he told the “Dan Patrick Show” he would “100%” take it.
“If Baylor wants to get back to winning and have a university that isn’t just respectable on the football field, but one the fans can be proud of, they need people who know what it looks like to win at Baylor,” Griffin, a Heisman Trophy winner during his 2011 senior year at Baylor, said.
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“So yeah, I would 100% be interested. I talked with the athletic director, who is a guy in Doug McNamee that knows what it looks like to win at Baylor, know how you have to win at Baylor and recruit to Baylor to make those things happen.”
McNamee and his staff will be doing an extensive coaching search to find Aranda’s replacement, and it’s unknown if they’d want a familiar face in the building, let alone Griffin himself.
However, Griffin makes a point: he knows what it’s like to win at Baylor and how much it means to the university and the community.
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Though he went 25-21 during his four years there, Griffin went 10-3 with the Bears in his Heisman-winning season before being the Washington Redskins’ No. 2 overall pick in 2012. Baylor won the Alamo Bowl that season as well.
To this day, Griffin remains the only Heisman winner in school history, making him quite the figure in Baylor athletics lore.
But Griffin has never been a coach at any level, let alone a Division I football head coach. So, it will be very interesting if his former squad was among their list of candidates.
After a rollercoaster career in the NFL, Griffin quickly entered the media realm, joining ESPN at first and landing with FOX afterwards to cover both the NFL and college football.
It was right after Griffin’s playing career ended in the NFL in 2020 when Aranda was hired by Baylor. He was a first-time head coach, though he was with LSU for four seasons as an assistant head coach and defensive coordinator before being hired by the Bears.
Things were looking promising after a 12-2 campaign in 2021, especially considering Baylor went 2-7 during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. It was the most wins by the Bears in school history.
Aranda was unable to follow that up in the coming years, but it looks like Baylor was going to compete this season for a playoff spot after going 4-1 to start the year. However, back-to-back losses to TCU and Kansas leaves the Bears 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the Big 12.
As a result, Baylor decided to part ways with Aranda, leaving defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman as their interim head coach for the remainder of the season.