Anonymous Big 12 coach believes Baylor could compete for the league championship in 2025

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster in recent seasons for the Baylor Bears under head coach Dave Aranda. Now, following a bounce-back season in 2024, they’re hoping to build on that and actually compete for a Big 12 Championship.

One anonymous Big 12 coach told Athlon that he thinks it’s very possible that they’ll be competitive this season. He said, “They could turn the corner and compete for the league title this season.”

Dave Aranda took over at Baylor in 2020 and struggled to rebuild amid the pandemic. A year later, though, he won his first Big 12 championship. After that, however, the Bears took a couple of steps backward, culminating in a three-win season in 2023. After finding quarterback Sawyer Robertson, however, the Bears found more success in 2024 and could ride that in 2025.

“They’ll go as far as they can with that backfield [Sawyer Robertson and Bryson Washington],” a Big 12 coach said. “And could be one of the best offenses in the nation this season.”

Another major change to the offense last season was bringing in former head coach Jake Spavital. Coaches around the conference have praised him to Athlon. Then, as another coach said, “The offense clicked, and it turned them around completely last season.”

Like many programs around the country. Baylor has had some inconsistency in finding a footing in recent seasons at the same time that there have been some massive changes around the sport. Still, they have had stability under Aranda. That stability has become a strength that opposing coaches in the Big 12 have noticed and are impressed with.

“This program is a good example of the shift going on in college football,” a coach said. “They stuck with the coach and put the resources into a team GM and focused on NIL, and they’re seeing results.”

Going into the 2025 season, ESPN is predicting that Baylor is going to win 7.2 games. That’s based on their FPI metric. ESPN also, notably, uses FPI to predict that the Bears are going to finish fifth in the conference standings, which would certainly put them on the outside looking in at the Big 12 Championship Game.

The 2025 season is going to start the season with a major test, hosting the Auburn Tigers on August 29th. They’ll then have a few weeks before starting Big 12 play. There, the Bears face another test, hosting defending conference champion Arizona State Sun Devils on September 20th.