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In the end, the shadow of one of college football’s greatest coaches was simply too large for Grambling’s newest (and now former) offensive coordinator, Art Briles.
Briles, the 66-year old former head coach at Baylor University, was seeking a second chance to coach in college football beginning this year. He was forced out of the Waco, Texas school after the 2015 football season after a highly-publicized series of scandals which occurred on his watch.
Though coach Art Briles was (years later) cleared of any personal wrongdoing in the sexual misconduct involving several of his football players at Baylor, his lack of accountability for failure to report any misconduct occurring during that period ultimately resulted in a four-year probation for the Baylor football program.
Art Briles has been attempting to resurrect his college football coaching career after spending a few years out of coaching altogether. He eventually traveled to Italy in 2018 to coach an Italian Football League team. He then returned to the US to become the head football coach at Mt. Vernon High School in northeastern Texas for two seasons in 2019 and 2020. His teams went 20-6 in his two seasons as head football coach.
Late last week, Grambling State University announced that they were hiring Art Briles to become the Tigers’ new offensive coordinator.
Four days later on Monday, Art Briles resigned from his new job at Grambling amidst a media-inflamed and alumni-driven firestorm.
“Unfortunately, I feel that my continued presence will be a distraction to you and your team, which is the last thing that I want. I have the utmost respect (for) the university, and your players.”
The legendary Grambling State University head football coach Eddie Robinson built the school’s football program into a national powerhouse and well-known name. The Louisiana native and Hall of Fame coach headed the Grambling football program for an incredible 56 years beginning in the 1940’s and through his eventual retirement in 1997. Grambling’s current football stadium (built in 1987) bears the coach’s name.
During Coach Robinson’s years at Grambling, his teams won 408 games and lost just 165. The team had just one losing season in thirty years between 1960 through 1990. By the middle 1990’s, though, Grambling suffered three consecutive losing years.
Coach Robinson finally retired in 1997, and the beloved coach passed away in 2007 at age 88.
Grambling has employed five head football coaches since Coach Robinson’s exit 23 years ago. The most recent head coach, Broderick Fobbs, had the longest tenure (eight years) prior to being dismissed last year following a 3-7 record in 2021.
Grambling is a relatively small state university in north Louisiana whose proud history has been energized by a competitive football program.
During the decades of success which Coach Eddie Robinson’s football teams enjoyed, Grambling became internationally famous. The Tigers have traveled across the country over the years to showcase their football team and, of course, the incredible Grambling State University Marching Band.
Winning and tradition are both quite important to the school, its proud alumni, and the small community which bears the same name of the school in north Louisiana. Since the end of the Coach Eddie Robinson era, Grambling has struggled to maintain its once-dominant football program. The increased competition for top high school football players has made it harder for Grambling to field a winning team most every season.
Coach Eddie Robinson was, perhaps, the best college football recruiter in history with his calm, fatherly approach. Parents and student-athletes felt like Coach Rob was going to personally take an interest in their college years at Grambling. Grambling was “family” then, and the school and its alumni want to carry on that tradition today.
In December, 2021, Hue Jackson became the sixth head football coach at Grambling in the post-Eddie Robinson era. Hue Jackson is a familiar name to professional football fans as he is best known for being the head football coach for the NFL Cleveland Browns which lost all sixteen games (0-16) in 2017. The Browns joined the 2008 Detroit Lions as only the second team in NFL history to lose all 16 regular season games.
After being fired by Cleveland, the well-traveled Hue Jackson returned to work in 2018 as an assistant coach for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals. He then left coaching for two seasons and indicated that he had been writing a book which would detail issues he had observed during his years as the head football coach in Cleveland.
Hue Jackson resurfaced in 2021 as the offensive coordinator for Tennessee State University. After just one season in Nashville, Jackson was offered the head coaching job with Grambling State University this past December.
Enter Art Briles.
Unlike Hue Jackson (who had climbed the coaching ladder in college football into the NFL), Art Briles began his career as very successful Texas high school coach. After a three year successful stop as the running backs coach at Texas Tech, Briles was named the head football coach for the Houston Cougars in 2003. His University of Houston teams were known for their prolific high scoring offenses as Briles led the Coogs to four bowl appearances in five years.
In 2008, Baylor then hired Art Briles as their head coach with the goal of turning around the school’s long-time losing program in the Big 12 Conference. By his third season in Waco, Baylor had turned the corner, and the winning seasons had begun. The Baylor Bears won ten or more games four times during Briles’ final five seasons as the team’s head football coach through 2015.
In the spring of 2016, Art Briles was removed as head football coach at Baylor after an independent review of the football program reported on the school’s handling of sexual assaults by more than one Baylor football player. Coach Briles reportedly reached some type of financial settlement with the school concerning the years remaining on his multi-million dollar Baylor football coaching contract.
As mentioned earlier in this story, Art Briles wanted another chance to coach in college football. When Grambling’s new head football coach Hue Jackson showed interest in giving Briles a second chance, Jackson’s boss became involved.
Grambling’s Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics, Dr. Trayveon Scott is relatively new at the school, too. Hired in July, 2021, Dr. Scott was the person who hired Hue Jackson as Grambling’s new head football coach. He apparently approved of the hiring Art Briles as well. Despite Art Briles’ personal shortcomings, there is no doubt that his offensive schemes have resulted in quick turnarounds everywhere he has landed.
As it turned out, Art Briles’ new bosses made a major mistake by ignoring or forgetting the history of Grambling’s cherished football program. Trust is very important to Grambling’s alumni and loyal fans.
Former Grambling quarterback and, later, head football coach Doug Williams said he doesn’t see why Grambling would hire Art Briles while other schools have passed on him.
Currently employed as an executive for Washington DC’s NFL organization, Williams said, “I don’t know Art Briles. I’ve never met him in my life. I don’t know why Grambling State had to go be the one to hire him, so I’m not a fan at all.”
When asked if he would continue to support the Grambling football program, Doug Williams replied, “Oh, no. I can’t do that. No, no, no. If I support them, I condone it.”
The grandson of Grambling’s football legend, Eddie Robinson III, added his thoughts last Friday about bringing Art Briles into the college football program. He said, “Once you weigh everything, that’s not the Grambling we all know. That’s not the legacy that Eddie Robinson built, that Doug Williams followed. How do you fathom that? I don’t have anything against Coach Briles. It’s just … we’re Grambling.”
In summary:
- Art Briles was hired to become Grambling’s offensive coordinator late last week.
- Local and national media and a few key Grambling alumni exploded with outrage about hiring someone with such a checkered past to coach football at the school.
- Instead of being welcomed at Grambling, Art Briles heard all of the noise, reconsidered, and handed in his resignation on Monday after just four days on the job.
This situation reminds me of the 1960’s Andy Griffith TV show.
Let’s pretend that Grambling is this story’s version of “Mayberry”.
It has always been a proud and generally friendly small Louisiana town. Imagine long-time head football Coach Eddie Robinson as being Grambling’s version of Sheriff Andy Taylor. The townspeople are willing to trust their long-time sheriff on just about every issue based on his years and years of honesty and earned respect.
In today’s version of the story, though, Sheriff Andy (Coach Rob) has now passed on, and the community’s world famous football team is struggling to get back to its former winning ways. The two new “sheriffs” within the Grambling Athletics Department decided to take a chance on a shady outsider. Though his record as a football coach speaks for itself, this gentleman’s personal character warranted a much closer look.
The local townspeople did not like what they saw.
Here’s another way of looking at it. The only other active college football coach with anywhere near the gravitas which Coach Eddie Robinson had earned with Grambling might be Alabama’s Nick Saban. If Coach Saban wanted to give Art Briles another chance of coaching college football at Alabama, the Crimson Tide faithful in Tuscaloosa might have raised a few eyebrows and mumbled a few unkind things, too. However, I’m pretty sure that Art Briles would still be on the staff of Alabama right now.
Anyone remember a guy named Steve Sarkesian?
After head coaching jobs at both the University of Washington and USC, the news surfaced that the head coach had a rather lengthy history of alcohol-related issues. One year after his dismissal from USC, Alabama’s Nick Saban hired Steve Sarkesian as an analyst. Within a few years, he had been promoted to Bama’s offensive coordinator. In 2021, he was hired by the University of Texas to rebuild their football program.
As we return back to Mayberry (oops, I mean Grambling), the north Louisiana locals and alumni are saying, in effect, that the school’s new football program “sheriffs” simply haven’t earned enough trust yet to warrant taking such a big chance on Art Briles being placed in such an important position with Grambling’s college football program.
You can’t fault Grambling’s supporters for having that view, but you also can’t fault Art Briles for packing up and leaving town after less than a week, either.
Meanwhile, Grambling’s newest head football coach Hue Jackson is off to a Barney Fife-like start in his first few months on his new job, too. Even if the team wins big on the football field this fall, the townsfolk and alumni will now be keeping a close eye on him for the next few years.
It is mighty tough to follow in the giant shadow of a beloved legend – especially in a small town!