Dave Aranda didn’t really like school, yet he was a hands-on teacher for his high school football teammates.



He disdained traditional classroom learning, yet his college coaching career was sparked by intense study and coaching clinic attendance.



The highest-paid coordinator in college football, who many of his peers also view as the most cerebral coach in the business, was actually a terrible student growing up. He felt school was a waste of time. “I was just not focused,” he told The Athletic.



“Really? I don’t believe that,” says Texas Tech head coach Matt Wells, one of Aranda’s buddies from the defensive coordinator’s lone season coaching at Utah State. “He’s just so smart. Seems like everything comes easy to Dave.”



At Redlands High School in Southern California, Aranda was an undersized linebacker who was so quiet and so shy that it got him a nickname: The Fencepost. That was stuck...