Dave Aranda really needed that one.
He needed that one yard from Baylor tight end Matthew Klopfenstein on the now-infamous failed two-point conversion attempt that made Auburn safety Eric Winters a hero and the Bears losers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
He needed Week 1 to go his way; that one signature win over an SEC program to inspire optimism for the next few months.
What Aranda got instead was a 17-16 loss in the closing seconds that puts his Baylor head-coaching tenure on the brink of extinction, now in year seven and having lost the opening game in three of the last four years.
The Tigers were directly responsible for two of them, this year and last. The other loss, an unfathomable 42-31 upset to Texas State in 2023, saw TJ Finley throw three touchdown passes and amass 298 passing yards against Aranda and Matt Powledge's defense at McLane Stadium.
Aranda now has little room for error for the rest of the season. The next two weekends against Prairie View A&M and Louisiana Tech will be filled to the brim with pressure on him. Win those, and there's still a chance to lose his job if Deion Sanders' Colorado football team whacks the Bears in Waco at the end of September. The campaign gets especially tough deep in the heart of Texas at season's end, when Baylor plays BYU and Houston on the road, with a home game against Texas Tech sandwiched in between.
Dave Aranda has lost the room after losing to Auburn
Aranda is in trouble now. The narratives have turned against him after losing so heartbreakingly in the Aflac Kickoff Game in front of a national audience.
Yahoo Sports' Dan Wolken claimed Aranda's Bears should've won that game, and warned that almost isn't counting for Baylor since this isn't horseshoes or hand grenades.
"As much as you can commend Aranda for almost getting off to an ideal start in a make-or-break year, this was not a game Baylor should not have lost," Wolken wrote. "When you have 436 offensive yards, you should score more than 16 points. When your defense forces three turnovers, you should capitalize. When you leave points on the board by missing a 42-yard field goal, then calling an ill-fated fourth down play in the third quarter instead of a 33-yard field goal in a game you lost by a single point, can you really say the head coach had a good day?
"Baylor played with heart and grit Saturday, but Aranda can only change their minds by winning. Making the right call or coming close — even inches short — won't be good enough."
The Bears did the worse thing in Wolken's eyes: they enabled an Auburn win. Wolken isn't exactly a Tiger fan.
Still, his points are valid. "Close" is what no program wants in the year 2026, with millions of dollars being spent on these rosters.
Auburn didn't want that under Hugh Freeze and is overjoyed right now that Alex Golesh's program actually got over the line separating "close" and the cigar.
How long Baylor will tolerate "close" is now the major question in McLennan County, Texas.
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