Coach Briles

While I am on the subject of college football, I probably should weigh in about my thoughts on the recent head coaching changes that have occurred at Baylor.  For more info on the subject (or really just an attempt to have positive PR) you can go here.  I think that Baylor made a smart choice (although I thought the same thing when they hired the last coach).  Here are my reasons for making this bold statement before seeing how this coach performs:

1.  He knows how to recruit in Texas.  This is a big deal when Baylor is probably capable of recruiting in the second tier of recruits because of competition with recruiting powerhouses such as UT, A & M, OU, and all the other teams that feel the need to drain our talent pool in Texas.  If you are one of the best players in high school football in Texas, you are probably not going to choose Baylor.  However, if you are a Chase Daniels who is being looked at by Missouri and Baylor, there may be a chance that you will choose to stay closer to home.  Why didn't Baylor go after Chase Daniels?  Why did he end up all the way up in Missouri?  Could it be that our previous coach didn't know how to recruit in the second tier and insisted on taking the scraps of the first?  Coach Briles obviously knows how to put together a winning program with recruits no one has heard of.  He took Houston from being a no name to being a bowl contender every year.  I know that I can't name a single player on the Houston team, but they win anyway.  Maybe he can do the same thing at Baylor.

2.  His track record at Houston.  He took a program that was pretty much a laughing stock and turned it into a bowl contender.  His job will be more difficult in the Big 12 (especially the Big 12 South), but surely he can make Baylor competitive against the North teams (so that there is not a repeat of Kansas and Missouri in the top ten at the same time in the same year because it was their year to play Baylor instead of UT and/or OU).  

3.  Baylor's athletic director showed his ability to choose a coach by his decision to bring in Scott Drew as basketball coach.  First, Ian McCaw had to convince a coach to come to Baylor when the coach knew that recruiting would be affected by the NCAA's punishment of Baylor following a scandal that I do not wish to summarize here.  Plus, McCaw had to retain the guy.  Now the basketball program is reaping the benefits of a coach who determined to build a solid foundation, and is now making the program competitive, at least in this pre-season.  We will see how things pan out in the conference play, but things are looking good.  McCaw hopefully has done the same thing with the football coach (minus the huge scandal, although the minor one of an assistant coach getting drunk after a game and urinating on the outside of the bar is embarassing).

Hopefully Coach Briles will not be a disappointment.  Only time will tell.