GRAMBLING, La. -- Grambling State football coach Hue Jackson has hired disgraced former Baylor coach Art Briles as offensive coordinator, the university confirmed Thursday.
Briles has not worked in college football since 2016, when he was fired by Baylor after an investigation concluded he and his staff took no action against players named in sexual assault allegations.
Grambling has not made a formal announcement, but made Briles available for an exclusive interview with KTAL-TV in Shreveport.
Briles coached at Baylor from 2008-15, going 65-37. Boasting one of then more prolific spread offenses in college football, the Bears were regularly ranked in the AP Top 25 during his tenure and twice received bids to major “New Years Six” bowls. Baylor had four 10-win seasons in a five-year span from 2011-15, after only winning 10 games once before that.
At Grambling, Briles takes over for Ted White, who left to join the NFL’s Houston Texans.
Last summer, an NCAA panel cleared Briles of committing any rules violations, but also made it clear that it found Briles conduct at Baylor unethical.
The NCAA infractions panel stated that 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. Furthermore, as a campus leader, the head coach is held to an even higher standard. He completely failed to meet this standard.”
Baylor paid Briles more than $15 million after firing him. He later acknowledged making mistakes and apologized for “some bad things” that happened under his watch.
Briles coached briefly in Italy and then at a Texas high school in Mount Vernon.