The bigger the spotlight gets, the harder it becomes to tell what’s real. In this NIL generation, most players start sounding like a brand instead of a 20-year-old trying to survive the madness. And that’s why DJ Lagway’s latest moment is a breath of fresh air. 

On Thursday night, Baylor Football shared photos of four of its players with an uplifting caption on X.

“Lives Forever Changed 🙌” it wrote. “Last night, DJ Lagway, Stilton McKelvey, Daniel Cobbs, and Kaleb Arterberry publicly declared their faith and were baptized.”

For DJ Lagway, this is a huge moment. The former 5-star QB has always been open about his faith even before he arrived in Waco. During his rise from Texas high school phenom to national recruit to SEC QB, he repeatedly sent the message that football matters, but it is not the center of everything.


“Faith plays a huge role in my life,” he once said. “Without God, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.”

DJ Lagway arrived in Gainesville as the 2023 Gatorade National Player of the Year. His freshman season in 2024 gave people hope and expectations. He earned consensus Freshman All-American honors going 6-1 as a starter, throwing for 1,915 yards and 12 touchdowns. He was statistically once the best deep-ball passer in America on throws over 20 yards.

But by 2025, injuries piled up. From his shoulder problems to calf injuries, Florida struggled under DJ Lagway who threw 14 picks during a disappointing 4-8 season. Head coach Billy Napier got fired midseason. So he pressed reset and entered the transfer portal and returned home to Texas, landing at Baylor, his father’s alma mater, in January 2026. And maybe, this was the best place for him after all on a personal front. 

Baylor isn’t like most Power Four schools. The university was founded on Baptist values and openly integrates faith into campus life. It’s a Christian institution, though students from dozens of religious backgrounds attend the school. So maybe this is an environment where DJ Lagway can remain true to his faith. 

“What he gives, he can take away also,” he said earlier. “So just always staying grounded in my faith and my parents instilled that in me at a very young age… just really having that faith foundation has been huge for me.”

Thursday also saw the baptism of CB Stilton McKelvey, a former New Mexico State starter, veteran safety Daniel Cobbs, who recorded 39 tackles last season at Kansas State, and LB Kaleb Arterberry, a physical JUCO product from Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Can DJ Lagway change how ESPN views Baylor 

Baylor is coming off a 5-7 season that forced the program into a major rebuild. The Bears lost 32 players to the transfer portal, including important names like LB Keaton Thomas, RB Bryson Washington, and center Coleton Price. So, head coach Dave Aranda chose to completely change the team by bringing in 31 portal additions. 

DJ Lagway instantly became the face of that rebuild. And he believes this transfer is God’s plan. 

“My biggest thing when I was going through the whole transfer process, I prayed to God,” he said. “I just wanted to have clarity on my decision. When I came up here on a visit, I knew this was the place to be. I knew this is where I wanted to be at and where I wanted to continue my college career.”

The Bears also added contributors like Gavin Freeman and Dre’lon Miller at receiver, while DC Joe Klanderman added defenders like Ryan Davis and Garrick Ponder. Yet, Baylor still isn’t getting much respect nationally. ESPN ranked the Bears just 11th among Big 12 teams in terms of offseason success. 

The biggest concern was that Baylor lost so much production and it’ll take this season for these new faces to prove themselves. For now, nobody knows if it’ll work. But the Bears could be heading towards that. And in a sport obsessed with branding and clout, seeing four players publicly stand together in something personal reminded people that not every program rebuild starts with a depth chart. Sometimes it starts with themselves first.

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