If you were rooting for Baylor interim head coach Jim Grobe to trip on his words during Tuesday’s Big 12 media days, you got what you wanted.
Grobe is one of two people in green and gold -- new AD Mack Rhoades being the other -- who doesn’t have to answer for what happened in Waco under Ken Starr, Art Briles and Ian McCaw. He’s got a clean slate. He is the clean slate.
Still, Grobe chose to wade into the waters of moral equivalency.
Let’s dive into the transcript, shall we?
Q. With all the talk surrounding the program, it’s all been nonfootball recently. All the success that Art had on the field and in the standings, how daunting is this task for you to come in and try to continue that while also changing the culture off the field?
A:..... So from our standpoint, what I want to do is let people know that the majority of our kids are fantastic kids and their programs, the problems that we’re dealing with at Baylor or have dealt with at Baylor to this point are probably problems at every university in the country. I hate to say every one, but I’m guessing most universities are having some of the same issues we’ve had at Baylor. You can make a call as to whether you think Baylor was too strong in the way they dealt with it.
Unbelievably, I’ve had people tell me they don’t think they dealt with it strongly enough. But I think going forward, do we want to learn from our past mistakes? We absolutely want to learn from our past mistakes, and we’re doing that.
For those keeping score, Grobe just said A) most universities are dealing with issues where their most high-profile students are caught raping other students, the university has no Title IX office to handle such cases, the head football coach then takes the jurisprudence of these cases into his own hands and the university president refuses to act, B) the university may have been too strong in firing those its law firm deemed responsible, C) acted incredulous at the suggestion the school didn’t go far enough in keeping the entire assistant coaching staff intact.
Q. Jim, so much has been made about the assistant coaches remaining on your staff that were a part of Art Briles’s staff and part of that culture and yesterday interim President Garland said the way you change the culture is by having a new President, a new Athletic Director, a new head coach. But obviously those coaches remain in their position. What have you implemented in your obviously short time still at this point within the Baylor family? What have you changed to help modify the culture that exists there?
A: Well, I have to push back, again, and tell you that is not a culture at Baylor University. We don’t have a culture of bad behavior at Baylor University.
Grobe denied a culture of bad behavior despite the fact that his employment is proof of the culture of bad behavior at Baylor University. He wouldn’t have the job he does otherwise.
And, again, he doesn’t have to answer any of these questions! A simple “I was hired to move this football program forward” would suffice.
But instead Grobe chose to go to bat for people he didn’t know two months ago and a culture that is in the process of implementing sweeping changes.
And in the process, he walked himself into some unfortunate -- no pun intended -- verbal bear traps.