Greg McElroy Names Major College Football Head Coach On The Hot Seat In 2024

Baylor head coach Dave Aranda could be entering his final season with the Bears after back-to-back losing seasons. The Bears finished last season 3-9 (2-7 Big 12), including five consecutive losses to end the season.

ESPN's Greg McElroy believes Aranda may be on the hottest seat in college football. On the most recent episode of Always College Football , McElroy discussed what Aranda needs to do in 2024 to save his job.

"I'm actually going to go with Dave Aranda," McElroy said. “You kind of look at where things are right now, you look back in 2021... Dave Aranda was one of the hottest names in the coaching cycle. He had drawn significant interest from multiple Pac-12 schools and he had just been on the heels of winning the Sugar Bowl in just his second year there at Baylor. He was one of the hotter names, one of the hotter topics in the sport. You felt like his star was on the ascent.

“Ever since then, things just haven’t really materialized for him,” McElroy continued. “Since then, they’ve gone 9-16, including a 3-9 mark last year. It began with a home loss to Texas State and ended with five consecutive defeats."

After a 2-7 season in 2020, Aranda led Baylor to the first conference championship since 2014. The Bears finished No. 5 in the final AP Top 25 rankings after defeating Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl. Since that season, the Bears are 9-16 over the past two seasons under Aranda.

McElroy believes that Aranda must lead the Bears back to a bowl game or could be one of the casualties of the college football coaching carousel. He noted that Baylor will also face a challenging schedule next season, which creates a massive challenge for Aranda in 2024.

“You look at the schedule? There’s a lot of very difficult games. On the road at West Virginia, on the road at Texas Tech, on the road at Colorado, on the road at Utah,” McElroy said.

“To know that he has to get to six or seven this year to keep his job, to me, feels like a difficult, difficult thing to expect, at least at this point, looking at what they have returning and the personnel back on both sides of the ball. They probably need six or seven for him to feel good about being back in 2025."

Baylor will open the 2024 season against Tarleton State on Aug. 31 at McLane Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT on ESPN+.

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