WACO, Texas — Most coaches around the country usually work 20 hours a day and are constantly on the go. For Baylor Head Football Coach Dave Aranda, being a new coach in a new city during a pandemic is something he is still getting used to.
"I got the house now, here in Waco," Aranda said. "I have an inflatable mattress. I've got the pepperoni pizzas in the freezer."
Aranda continues to commute to from Waco to Baton Rouge every weekend to see his wife and three kids, while he also squeezes in a little work during the six-hour drive.
"Try to build as many recruiting calls as possible on that drive," Aranda said. "Our department here has done a great job with teeing those up for me so about every half hour I'm on the phone."
Virtual work with coaches and players has been the new normal routine across campuses. Aranda and his staff have installed new schemes for a team that he has not seen since March 6, right before the coronavirus shut down sports altogether.
"Back at that point, I felt at some point we would be back at football so we were very heavy in the schematic part of it," Aranda said. "The longer it's been, the more we have held that back. I think we have gone through the install period three times so our players during this process have been in the install cycle three different times."
Getting on the football field is very critical, especially when new players are involved. Besides the incoming class of 2020, Aranda has picked up a pair of grad transfers in Penn deep snapper Gunnar Royer and Arkansas State defensive end William Bradley-King.
"I think his (Bradley-King) experience and skill set are a perfect fit for this position that we got and so he's really looking forward to coming in and competing," Aranda said.
Bradley-King was a two-time All-Sun Belt selection who had 14.5 sacks in his final two seasons.
With the start of college football up in the air, Aranda hopes his team will learn a lot about communicating and learning virtually until they step back on the football field.
"The communication with our players and the communication with our coaches, in terms of staying on the same page," Aranda said. "As a new staff, I think there's some difficulty to it. I think when you step into that, there's a lot you can get out of it so I feel we're going to be the better for it when all is said and done when we are back together."
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