As Baylor gets set to kick off its first season under Matt Rhule, and put its recent scandal-plagued past in the rearview, the first-year Bears head coach is bringing his own brand of discipline to Waco.
A pair of senior starters, safety Taion Sells and left tackle Mo Porter, have been suspended by Rhule. Sells has been suspended for the first three games of the upcoming season, while Porter will miss the first half of the opener against Liberty.
In addition to the opener, Porter will miss the following Saturday’s game against UT-San Antonio as well as the Week 3 road trip to Duke. He’ll be eligible to return for the Big 12 opener against Oklahoma.
Rhule declined to say specifically why the two were suspended, saying only that there were two, unrelated incidents over the summer that triggered the punitive measures.
Last season, Sells started four of the 13 games in which he played. Porter played in all 13 games as a backup lineman.
Earlier this week, suspended defensive back Travon Blanchard confirmed that he would be transferring to a Div. II program in Texas. Blanchard, who was suspended in February after he was reportedly involved in a domestic violence case and was later arrested on family violence charges in connection with that incident, started 23 games for the Bears the past two seasons.