ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?! BECAUSE THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN. UTTERLY SHATTERED.
Did you hear it? That sound? That was the sound of the last shred of accountability in college football being tossed into a raging dumpster fire. Because Art Briles is back. Yes, THAT Art Briles. The architect of the Baylor Bears football dynasty and the man who presided over a culture so toxic, so horrifyingly negligent, that it became one of the most sickening scandals in the history of American sports, has just been handed the keys to another program. Another team of young men. It’s a joke. But nobody’s laughing.
He’s the new head coach at Eastern New Mexico University. A Division II school, sure. But that doesn’t matter. It’s a head coaching job. A title. A platform. And it’s a terrifying statement from the world of college sports: winning is all that matters, and everything else, including the safety and dignity of human beings, is just a minor inconvenience.
SO, WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED? AGAIN?!
They gave him a three-year deal. Sources are screaming about a $1 million buyout. A million dollars! For a D-II school! They are strapping themselves to this man with golden handcuffs, betting the entire reputation of their institution on the hope that people have forgotten. Or worse, that they just don’t care. And maybe they’re right. That’s the scariest part.
This isn’t some quiet return as an obscure assistant. This is the top job. The big chair. He’s in charge. Again. After everything we learned. After all the depositions, the lawsuits, the firings, and the stomach-churning details that painted a picture not of a football program, but of a predator’s paradise shielded by the pursuit of championships. And it worked for a while. Oh, it worked.
DO PEOPLE EVEN REMEMBER THE BAYLOR NIGHTMARE?
Let’s turn back the clock, because we have to. We absolutely have to. Because forgetting is how this happens. Baylor University, under Briles, became a football powerhouse. They were electric. They put up insane numbers. They won Big 12 titles. Robert Griffin III won a Heisman Trophy. The school was buzzing, the money was flowing, and Art Briles was the king of Waco. But it was a kingdom built on a foundation of rot.
And then the whispers started. Whispers that grew into shouts. Lawsuits started piling up. The stories were horrifying. Between 2011 and 2015, a period coinciding with the height of Briles’s success, a pattern emerged. Dozens of female students alleged they were sexually assaulted by Baylor football players. These weren’t isolated incidents; this was a plague.
The university, desperate to protect its cash cow, allegedly did nothing. Worse than nothing. They actively buried complaints. They intimidated victims. They created a culture where football players were untouchable gods who operated by a different set of rules. A report commissioned by the university itself, the Pepper Hamilton report, found a “fundamental failure” by Baylor to implement Title IX policies. It described the actions of football staff as “a cultural failure that created a perception that football was above the rules.”
BUT WHAT DID BRILES KNOW?
This is the question, isn’t it? His defenders, the few that remain, will tell you he was just the coach. He was focused on X’s and O’s. That’s a lie. It’s an insult to our intelligence. He was the CEO of that program. He was the undisputed ruler. Nothing happened without his knowledge or his blessing. Text messages and emails that later surfaced showed he was aware of allegations. He was involved in player discipline, or the shocking lack thereof.
He allegedly interfered in investigations. He cultivated an environment where reporting an assault by a player was seen as an act of betrayal against the team, against the school, against the brand. The message was clear: your pain is less important than our next victory. The victims were disposable. The players were assets to be protected at all costs. And this is the man they just hired. This is the leader Eastern New Mexico University wants mentoring its student-athletes.
It’s madness.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS? WHY ENMU?
Why on God’s green earth would a university risk everything for this guy? It’s a question that claws at your brain. The answer is as simple as it is depressing: desperation. ENMU football is not a powerhouse. They’re looking for a shortcut. A miracle worker. And Briles, for all his monstrous failings as a human being and a leader, knows how to win football games.
He can take a program and, with his offensive schemes, make it relevant almost overnight. That’s the drug. Winning is the most powerful, addictive drug in sports. It makes people blind. It makes administrators, alumni, and boosters with deep pockets forget about pesky things like morality, ethics, and basic human decency. They see the scoreboard, not the human cost. They’re willing to make a deal with the devil for a conference title.
But this isn’t just a football decision. It’s an institutional one. Every single student at ENMU is now represented by this man. Every young woman on that campus now has to walk past the stadium of a coach who oversaw a program where women were systematically ignored and endangered. How are they supposed to feel? Safe? Valued? This decision screams to the world that the administration of Eastern New Mexico University values a winning record more than the safety and well-being of its own student body.
And the million-dollar buyout? That’s the tell. That shows this wasn’t a casual decision. They know the firestorm is coming. They know the backlash will be immense. They are digging in, protecting their controversial hire from the inevitable outcry. It’s a calculated, cynical move that reeks of arrogance.
WHERE IS THE NCAA IN ALL THIS?
Another great question. Where is the supposed governing body of college sports? Crickets. The NCAA hit Baylor with penalties, sure, but they were mostly financial and recruiting-based. They gave Briles a one-year show-cause penalty, which has long since expired. A show-cause basically means any school wanting to hire him would have to justify it to the NCAA. It’s supposed to be a black mark, a scarlet letter.
But what is it, really? It’s a timeout. A brief slap on the wrist. It’s not a lifetime ban. It’s not a declaration that this person’s moral failures make him unfit to ever lead young people again. The NCAA’s inaction, its toothless punishment, is what opened the door for this to happen. They had a chance to make a definitive statement about what is and isn’t acceptable in their sport. They could have said that what happened at Baylor was a line that, once crossed, could never be uncrossed. But they didn’t. Because the NCAA is a feckless, powerless organization more concerned with amateurism and broadcast rights than with the actual human beings it’s supposed to protect. Their silence is complicity. Pure and simple.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW? IS THIS THE NEW NORMAL?
This is the part that should keep you up at night. This is the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is dead. If Art Briles can get a head coaching job again, then who can’t? What scandal is too big? What moral failure is too great? This hire sets a precedent that is bone-chillingly terrifying. It tells every other coach who might be tempted to cut corners, to look the other way, to sacrifice a student for a win, that there is a path back. All you have to do is wait. Lay low for a few years, coach in Italy or high school in Texas, and eventually some desperate athletic director will come calling, willing to trade their soul for a shot at glory.
The floodgates are open now. We are erasing the lines between right and wrong in real time. We are teaching an entire generation of athletes and fans that the ends always justify the means. The message from ENMU is loud and clear: We don’t care what he did. We care what he can do for us. And that is a moral cancer. It will spread. And it will consume the very idea of what college sports are supposed to be about.
This isn’t a comeback story. It’s a tragedy. A complete and utter failure of leadership at every single level.
