Art Briles is returning to college football.
The former Baylor coach will take over as head coach at Division II’s Eastern New Mexico, the school said Monday.
Baylor fired Briles in 2016 amid a major sexual assault scandal; the school’s president and athletic director eventually resigned over claims that they helped cover up claims of sexual assault by football players.
This will mark Briles’s first gig in college football since being ousted from Baylor. Since then, he has coached two stints in Italy’s football league and at Mount Vernon High School in Texas in 2019–20.
The Canadian Football League team, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, hired Briles to their staff in 2017 and then reversed the hiring shortly after fan backlash. Then, in 2022, Briles was offered the offensive coordinator position at Grambling State, but did not end up taking the job after the school received negative press.
Briles was fired from Baylor after allegations surfaced that multiple football players committed acts of sexual assault or violence, and that football coaches and other athletic department officials didn’t properly report the allegations or even covered them up. The school paid Briles a $15.1 million settlement after his ouster, tax returns revealed in 2018.
At a press conference Monday, Eastern New Mexico athletic director Kevin Fite discussed his experience working with Briles when both were at the University of Houston. “Art was fully committed to following NCAA rules and providing a positive, winning experience,” he said.
Fite did not directly address the Baylor scandal, but alluded to it. “I understand that this a unique and surprising hire,” he said, adding: “I know Art Briles. I know his family. I know his commitment to impacting the lives of young people. I know he is a tremendous leader.”
An NCAA investigation released in 2021 said Briles “failed to meet even the most basic expectations of how a person should react to the kind of conduct at issue in this case.” Briles avoided any serious NCAA punishment, though, because the NCAA did not have any bylaws around sexual assault investigations. At the time, Briles’s attorney Scott Tompsett said the report “completely exonerated” him and “clears the way for Mr. Briles to return to coaching college football.”
Then, in 2023, a federal judge dismissed claims of “gross negligence” brought against Baylor, Briles, and former athletic director Ian McCaw.
Now, Briles is set to return to college coaching for the first time in almost ten years.
“I was more concerned about the next chapter than I was the last chapter,” he said Monday. “I kind of learned through the process that a lot of times, the less said is best said. Because a lot of times when you say stuff it can be construed, however everybody wants.”
“People can form their opinions.”
