Every year or so, someone tries to hire disgraced college football coach Art Briles and, every time, they are blasted into the sun by those who do not believe the former Baylor coach has done anything to prove he deserves a second chance. With Hugh Freeze having coached his final game at Liberty, many around the college football world are expecting that cycle to continue very soon.
Briles infamously oversaw one of the worst sexual assault scandals in college sports history while at Baylor. Evidence would prove that he was aware and complicit in the cover-up attempt in order to ensure that his successful football team would not be held accountable. Briles also never truly apologized for what happened or took accountability for his role in any meaningful way.
While he became a pariah for a short while, his on-field success always meant that some people would look the other way in order to hire him. The CFL’s Hamilton-Tiger Cats tried to hire him as an assistant in 2017 but a massive backlash ended that within 24 hours.
Briles went on to coach briefly in Italy in early 2019 and served as head coach at Texas’ Mount Vernon High School for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, though he resigned after their 2020 season. However, Grambling was the next school to try and rehabilitate Briles’ image when they hired him as OC this past February. Briles did a disastrous interview in which he once again evaded responsibility for what happened at Baylor and he left the program within days.
With Freeze taking the Auburn job, that means Liberty AD Ian McCaw needs to find a new head coach. And if you don’t already know, McCaw was the AD at Baylor who hired Briles where the two turned the perennial doormat into a Big 12 powerhouse.
No one has said that McCaw is going to hire Briles yet but it certainly seems like everyone around the college football world is expecting it to happen.
https://twitter.com/38Godfrey/status/1597333595341086722
Liberty’s gonna hire Art Briles and somebody’s gonna write the “redemption” piece and I’m going to evaporate
— Jane Coaston 🏔️ (@janecoaston) November 28, 2022
Liberty is hiring Art Briles aren’t they
— JP Acosta (@acosta32_jp) November 28, 2022
liberty already has an art briles placard for the office door
— The Smoking Musket (@smokingmusket) November 28, 2022
https://twitter.com/twesq/status/1597335486464344066
For what it’s worth, Action Network’s Brett McMurphy reports that Briles will not be a candidate for the job.
Even though former Baylor coach Art Briles worked w/Liberty AD Ian McCaw at Baylor, Briles will not be a candidate for the Liberty job, industry sources told @ActionNetworkHQ
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) November 28, 2022
