Will Art Briles Coach the Baylor Football Team?

Monday was a very interesting day to be a contender for any college football coaching position. Texas A&M moved quickly to replace Dennis Franchione with Mike Sherman, but there are still 11 openings for NCAA Division I-A head coaches.

Baylor hoped Hall of Fame Mike Singletary, currently head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, would come back to coach at his alma mater, especially since his son is a freshman football player there, but Singletary has removed his name from consideration. Rumors had outgoing Arkansas coach Houston Nutt considering the Bears, but Nutt seems headed to Ole Miss.

The Baylor Bears have just completed their 12^th losing season. They were co-champions in the 1994 Southwest Conference, and took a 10-3 loss the same year to Washington State in the Alamo Bowl. They have not participated in a bowl game since.

Art Briles might be a good fit for the Bears. Under his leadership in the past 5 years in Houston the Cougars have a 34-28 record. This year they are 8-4 and scheduled to play a Big 12 team in the Texas Bowl. Briles benefited last year in his 10-win season and Conference USA championship from quarterback Kevin Kolb. Kolb went to the Philadelphia Eagles this year, but even with him gone, the Cougas ranked 4^th in the nation in total offense, averaging 273.3 yards passing and 239.9 rushing.

This may be all good for the Bears, who have trouble coming up with a meaningful offensive strategy. Briles seems to be something of an offensive magician, and the losing Bears could use a little magic.

Briles, who will be 52 next week, has been a college coach only once before. He spent three years under Mike Leach at Texas Tech, where he was the running back coach. Before that he was a very successful high school head coach at several large schools, and he served as president of the Texas High School Coaches Association as well.

Baylor is a small, private college with a 107 year football history of both top level and bottom of the barrel playing. This small college has had nine of its alumni inducted into the Hall of Fame: Barton Koch (1974), James Ray Smith (1987), Lawrence Elkins (1993), Bill Glass (1985), Coach Morley Jennings (1973), Mike Singletary (1995), Coach Grant Teaff (2001), Hayden Fry (2003) and Thomas Everett (2006). Maybe Art Briles can lead them back from the bottom to the top.