Art Briles said recently that he’s never done anything “illegal, immoral or unethical.” Really? I get the guy wants to defend himself given the mess he left at Baylor, but this seems like a pretty bizarre statement, and as you can see from the video above he’s getting ripped for it.

By now most college football fans are familiar with Baylor’s embarrassing nonconference schedule. This year the chest-thumping Bears get the season started with SMU, Lamar and Rice.

The plan of course is to run up some impressive (though meaningless) stats playing defenses that resemble an intramural touch football game, and naturally Baylor chalked up over 50 points against defensive backs who couldn’t tackle members of the Baylor chess club.

But with minutes left in the first half, Baylor was only up 28-21 as SMU managed to come up with zero points after having first and goal inside the five due to amateurish coaching mistakes.

Now, it’s the first game of the season, and it’s easy to sit back and rip apart teams who don’t pay flawless football in their opener.

But with Baylor we saw a pretty lame defense giving up big chunks of yardage to SMU, and you have to ask yourself how this team could possible stop real Power 5 running games from the likes of Alabama, Auburn and Ohio State.

The fact that Baylor has excelled in the Big 12 is more of an indictment of what Bob Stoops has been doing in Oklahoma and the mess in Texas that Charlie Strong is trying to clean up. If those programs wake up, Baylor’s time in the sun will end soon unless Art Briles learns how to put a real defense on the field.

Former Baylor University football player Sam Ukwuachu has been convicted of raping a fellow student.

But there’s much more to this story.

Ukwuachu had been dismissed from the team at Boise State due to violent incidents, and then he transferred to Baylor. When asked if he was aware of the circumstances around Ukwuachu dismissal.

Washington’s Chris Peters, who as the Boise State coach at the time, immediately called out Briles as a liar in a statement: “After Sam Ukwuachu was dismissed from the Boise State football program and expressed an interest in transferring to Baylor, I initiated a call with coach Art Briles. In that conversation, I thoroughly apprised Coach Briles of the circumstances surrounding Sam’s disciplinary record and dismissal.”

Have we seen many instances of a high-profile coach calling out another coach like this?

Does anyone believe Art Briles?

Some are already saying Briles should be fired if he lied.

Baylor claims it will thoroughly investigate, and they should probably start with their own ca,pus police who seem to have dropped the ball on the initial investigation.

But we’ll see how thoroughly Baylor President Kenneth Starr (yeah, that Kenneth Starr) takes this. All Briles correspondence on this matter, including emails, need to be reviewed.

As Paul Finebaum just stated on ESPN, this doesn’t pass the smell test.

Briles should have come clean and explained he tried to give Ukwuachu a second chance. Up until the Ray Rice fiasco, this has been common practice in the NFL and college football. Now things have changed, and teams need to be much ore careful about these situations. Briles would have taken some heat, but lying makes this so much worse.

This should not have been a shock. Baylor has had an incredible season, but the hype surrounding this team’s offense and Art Briles has become ridiculous. There were even people suggesting Briles should be considered as an NFL coach, which is just absurd. Presumably even Texas is taking a hard look, which is more appropriate, but Texas doesn’t need a gimmick offense to be a power. I susect they’re much better off with a different coach.

Plenty of people watched the game last night more interested in watching UFC’s Blake Bortles as an NFL quarterback prospect for the NFL draft. His performance was up and down, but he seems to have all the tools that will make NFL scouts drool.

But back to the game, Baylor certainly had its moments on offense as they have very dynamic players, but good defense can really disrupt this offense, whcih makes all of their gaudy stats meaningless. I would have loved to see Baylor play a team like Michigan State as I think they would be overpowered based on this performance.

UFC was a huge underdog but they outplayed Baylor for most of the evening. It was a fun game if you don’t care about defense. Both teams have no idea how to tackle, particulary in the secondary. But at least UCF managed a pass rush, and that really affected Baylor.

In the end, both programs are on the rise, so we’ll be seeing plenty more of them in the years to come.

Now that Mack Brown has faced reality and resigned, there’s plenty of speculation as to who will be targeted by the Texas Longhorns. Here are the currrent odds:

Who will be the next Head Coach of the Texas Longhorns?

Charlie Strong 2/1
Art Briles 9/2
James Franklin 5/1
Mike Gundy 7/1
Bill O’Brien 15/2
Chip Kelly 10/1
David Shaw 10/1
Jim Mora 10/1
Jimbo Fisher 15/1
Jim Harbaugh 20/1
Mike Tomlin 20/1

Click here if you think you know who is going to win and want to cash in on your knowledge.