Dave Aranda blasts Baylor's players amid fall camp: 'We've got to grow up'

Baylor enters this season with expectations in the Big 12 and even to some, for the College Football Playoff. If the Bears are to reach any of that, though, Dave Aranda needs to see some coming of age from his roster.

Meeting with the media on Wednesday, Aranda spoke about what his team’s goals were for this fall camp, which began yesterday. Maturation was his answer, as, for all the good players they have, there needs to be some growth from them in that area for them to be better individually and better as a team because of that.

“I think we’ve got to grow up. We’ve got to mature,” Aranda said. “There’s a lot of talent on this team. I think there needs to be more discipline on this team. There needs to be – we’ve got a bunch of individuals on this team. We’ve got to be a little bit more of a team.”

Aranda noted that it wasn’t fully a criticism of or a negative about his team. It is just the fact of the matter to him, considering the team he knows they’ll need to eventually be to win games this season, namely in the Big 12.

“I don’t think any of it’s in an ugly way,” Aranda said. “I look back at the years we won a lot of games. Those games were in the fourth quarter, those games were goal-line stands, those were two-minute drives. This league is so competitive that it takes everyone giving everything they got and we can’t get in the way of that. That’s probably our biggest obstacle we’ve got right now, is us.”

Again, it’s not that Baylor is inexperienced. The Bears do have among the most returning production in the country with multiple starters back on both sides of the football, especially on offense, while bringing in 20-plus transfers from elsewhere in the portal. That said, getting experience as individuals and with one another is the goal between now and when they kick things off against Auburn in Waco on August 29th.

Beyond that, Wednesday was a good start to that camp for Baylor. That’ll only get better if Aranda sees that development from his team, on top of staying healthy going into the next four weeks.

“It was good,” Aranda said. “I mean, I’m glad no one’s hurt, you know. So, we’ll see if that, if we can get that to another day. I think, if we get to our third day without any injuries, I think we’re in position to do some good things.”