Baylor and Wisconsin entered the season with their coaches sitting squarely in the glare of the hot-seat conversation. Four weeks in, Dave Aranda and Luke Fickell have done enough to take some of that heat off.
Both coaches were listed by CBS Sports in its preseason rankings among the four hottest head coaches on the board, but their teams are 3-1 heading into Week 5 and look much improved from a year ago. The season is still young, and plenty can change, but right now both programs are outpacing the expectations that surrounded them in the offseason.
Aranda’s case at Baylor has been one of steady pressure for a while. This is his seventh season in Waco, and his record sits at 39-38 after four games in 2026.
Baylor did win the Big 12 in 2021, but that’s been his only other winning season besides 2024. The Bears have also fallen into an every-other-year postseason pattern during his tenure, which has only added to the scrutiny.
Still, this year’s team has looked sharper, especially on defense. Baylor finished 2025 with just 12 sacks and 48 tackles for loss, a rough number for any unit and a big reason Aranda was viewed as vulnerable.
But after bringing in Joe Klanderman as defensive coordinator, the Bears already have 15 sacks through four games in 2026. Klanderman’s scheme, with its twists and stunts designed to turn the offensive line against itself, has clearly changed the feel of that side of the ball.
Fickell’s situation has been different, but the pressure has been just as real. He is the coach who saw Wisconsin’s 21-year bowl streak end, and after four seasons his record in Madison is 20-22. That’s not the kind of resume that sits well with a fan base used to winning records and January football.
But Wisconsin just delivered one of the season’s biggest jolts by upsetting Penn State in Happy Valley, and Fickell was named Coach of the Week for Week 4. Like Baylor, the Badgers weren’t entering the year with sky-high expectations, and that matters. There’s a long way to go, but for now the coals under Fickell’s seat are cooling.
How the rest of the season unfolds will decide the final verdict on both coaches. For the moment, though, Aranda and Fickell have given their programs a lot more hope than heat.
In Other News...
Baylor Is Turning McLane Stadium Into A Fan Experience Unlike Usual
McLane Stadium is set to take on a different kind of buzz later this month, with Topgolf bringing its Topgolf Live Stadium Series to Baylor University from Oct. 29 through Nov. 1. The setup will turn the football venue into a golf and fan entertainment space, complete with hitting bays, a watch party for the Baylor-UCF game, VIP football experiences and hospitality options that lean into the stadium atmosphere in a new way.
For Baylor, the event is part of a broader push by Topgolf to take its entertainment platform into college stadiums while supporting collegiate athletics and NIL programs. It gives the Bears another way to showcase McLane beyond game day, blending sport and social experience in a setting that is usually reserved for football first and everything else second. [Read more 🡒]
Dave Aranda Just Framed Baylors Biggest Competitive Problem
College footballs money race keeps getting harder to ignore, and Dave Aranda put Baylors place in it into plain terms this week. The Bears are investing heavily in their roster, but Aranda acknowledged there is still a gap between Baylor and the biggest spenders in the sport, a reality that shapes the margins on Saturdays and the kind of talent-rich opponents the program has to chase.
Arandas point was not just about dollars, though. He framed toughness as the trait Baylor has to lean on to keep competing when the financial terrain tilts the other way, a reminder that resource disparities are now part of the competitive math in college football. For Baylor, the challenge is not simply keeping up, but finding ways to win anyway. [Read more 🡒]
Baylor's Quarterback Situation Looks Different In A Shifting Big 12 Pecking Order
Week 4 in the Big 12 gave the quarterback picture a different look, and Baylor is watching that shifting pecking order closely as the league settles into conference play. Several new faces and fresh starts stood out, including Drew Mestemaker, DJ Lagway and Keyone Jenkins, while Colorado made one of the weekends loudest moves by going to Isaac Wilson at halftime and then sticking with him as the starter moving forward.
For Baylor, the bigger takeaway is how quickly the conversation around the leagues passers can change from one week to the next. Week 5 brings another round of telling matchups, including Keyone Jenkins against Conner Weigman and Michael Hawkins Jr. against Jaylen Raynor, and the early rankings of Big 12 quarterbacks are already starting to reflect recent play rather than preseason expectations. [Read more 🡒]