Baylor fires head coach Dave Aranda, Joe Klanderman to serve as interim

The Baylor Bears have fired head football coach Dave Aranda, the school announced on Sunday. Defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman will serve as interim head coach for the rest of the regular season.

Baylor hired Aranda ahead of the 2020 season. It was his first time as head coach, and he came from LSU after serving as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for four years, including on the Tigers' national championship-winning squad in 2019.

The Bears went 2-7 in the COVID-19-shortened season in Aranda's first year, but bounced back in a big way, going 12-2 in 2021, including a Sugar Bowl win. It remains the most single-season wins in school history.

Aranda couldn't sustain that success, as the Bears went 6-7 and 3-9 over the next two seasons. Baylor has been to just three bowl games in the past six years and lost two. Aranda leaves Baylor with a 40-40 record.

The Bears started this season 4-1 but lost to TCU two weeks ago. Then Baylor lost this weekend to Kansas, as the Jayhawks scored the game-winning touchdown with just 1:13 left.

This loss dropped the Bears to 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the Big 12.

Aranda becomes the third FBS head coach fired this season. Maryland was the first program to fire their head coach, cutting ties with Mike Locksley , and then NC State fired Dave Doeren on Saturday.

This is Klanderman's first season at Baylor. He spent the past seven seasons at Kansas State as safeties coach and then defensive coordinator. Klanderman has never been a head coach, and how he fares over Baylor's remaining five games will dictate if he is considered for the opening this offseason.

The Bears will go on the road to face UCF this coming Friday. Then, Baylor ends the season against Iowa State, BYU, Texas Tech and Houston. The Bears need to win at least two of those games to become bowl-eligible.