Unfortunately, the problems go so much deeper for a program that’s won only 11 league games in 12 years. The lone private institution in the tough super conference, Baylor has less money, less tradition and traditionally less support than just about any of its conference brethren.
And all that has painfully shown up on the scoreboard year after embarrassing year.
Yet, Waco’s plucky Bears are not giving up.
Construction is plowing full speed ahead on a $34 million improvement on the aging football facilities that made Baylor a laughingstock when recruits would compare them to the gleaming state-of-the-art offices and weight rooms that Texas and Oklahoma lavish upon their student-athletes.
Plus, Art Briles is on board. After proving himself a winner everywhere he’s been, Briles became the fifth head coach since Baylor squeezed into Big 12 membership with the help of the political clout of Ann Richards, a Baylor graduate who was governor of Texas when the super conference was formed in 1996.
Briles admits that fans are hungry in Waco.
“And they should be hungry,” he said. “Just like I’m hungry and our players are hungry, ’cause we haven’t been fed.”
The only time the Bears finished better than last in the Big 12’s South Division was 2006, when they were next-to-last. Four times they’ve gone 0-8 in the league, including a winless campaign last season that wound up being the last for Guy Morriss.
“Everybody’s been up at the table and we’ve been back there looking over trying to get something to eat because those other folks aren’t letting us in,” Briles said Wednesday as the conference wound up its three-day media session with head coaches.
“We’ve got to grind our way up in there and get fed. In football terms, that’s winning some games. We’ve had some droughts. We’re through fasting. It’s time to push up to the table and get us a good, healthy meal.”
Fans weren’t the only ones who wondered why Briles would take the Baylor job after he guided Houston to four bowl games in five years. Even Jancy Briles wondered aloud why her dad would want to take the job.
“This is just a daughter being a daughter,” Briles said with a grin. “If you ever want a girl to like you, have a daughter. They’re the only ones who kind of like you as a man. That’s all it is. She’s kind of analytical, anyway. There’s not much gray in her. It’s black and white. I’ve got a lot of gray in me.”
In taking the job, he went with his “gut feeling.”
“I like people who are leaning forward to do things and that’s kind of the feeling the Baylor family has right now,” he said.
The schedule will be no friend to Briles and his Bears. They open at home against Wake Forest, which figures to be nationally ranked, and also have Washington State and Connecticut on the non-conference schedule. In the league, besides South rivals Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, they will go to Nebraska and host North Division favorite Missouri.
“The Baylor people want to be first in something, so we’re first in the toughest schedule in the Big 12,” said Briles, who was at Houston when the 2008 schedule was put together. “So we’re jumping out there already as a No. 1. There are a lot of different ways to look at it.”
Baylor senior tackle Vincent Rhodes, one of six returning defensive starters, says the new coach’s enthusiasm is rubbing off on a group of players badly in need of self confidence.
“He’s real big on motivation. I love it,” Rhodes said. “We’re trying to put what happened in the past . . . let it be the past. This is a new beginning. Our slogan is ‘It all starts here.’ We’re not the Baylor of old. We’re the new Baylor.”
One interested observer who believes Briles can make the Bears a contender is Texas coach Mack Brown.
“There’s 350 players that sign each year to Division I-A football schools on the average in the state of Texas. And you’re talking about four or five schools in the state maybe that fight for them, and a number out of state,” he said.
“But I don’t see any reason Baylor can’t get those. And they’re located between Austin, Houston and Dallas so you’d think they’d have a great location, and a good school.
“I think we’ll see Art make a good move.”
