Big 12 Head Football Coaches Ranked: No. 1-5
Dec 6, 2014; Waco, TX, USA; Baylor Bears head coach Art Briles walks through the crowd of fans before the game between the Bears and the Kansas State Wildcats at McLane Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
No. 3: Art Briles, Baylor
As a former high school football head coaching legend in Texas, Briles has become a trendsetter in the world of college football. And after leading the Stephenville High School Yellow Jackets to 4 state titles, the native of tiny Rule, TX was brought on to coach running backs at his alma mater, Texas Tech from 2000 – 2002.
Taking over as head coach at the University of Houston in 2003, Briles led the Cougars to 4 bowl games and one conference title in five seasons. Just two years prior to Brile’s arrival at Houston, the program had gone 0-11 making Briles’s accomplishments impressive, but what he has done since leaving Houston has been nothing short of miraculous.
In the first twelve seasons of play in the Big 12 Conference, the Baylor Bears had gone 35 – 101 under four different coaches (Chuck Reedy, Dave Roberts, Kevin Steele, and Guy Morriss). The once proud program had become a national joke. Bumper stickers circulated around Texas that said, “I’d rather be on probation than lose to Baylor,” and a generation of fans had grown up knowing nothing but Baylor futility.
Briles took over in Waco in 2008 and had consecutive 4-8 seasons to start his tenure. In 2010, the Bears had its first winning season in 15 years and appeared in a bowl game for the first time in 16 seasons.
Since then, Briles has led the Bears program to the upper echelon of college football. Since 2011, Baylor has won no fewer than 8 games (2012), with a 10 win season in 2011, and two 12 win seasons in 2014-15. Briles also guided his star quarterback, Robert Griffin III to the Heisman Trophy in 2011, the first time a Baylor Bear received the game’s highest honor.
Briles enters 2015 with a record of 55-34 at Baylor. The Bears are also the two-time defending Big 12 champions and they will enter this season ranked in the top ten in virtually every major poll.
What Art Briles has done in going from a prominent high school coach to an elite college coach has sparked a number of other colleges to hire successful Texas schoolboy coaches to run their program. Chad Morris at SMU, David Beaty at Kansas, Todd Dodge at North Texas all followed in the steps of Art Briles as they went from Texas high school football to major college coaching positions.
Dodge was a failure at North Texas, and Beaty and Morris have yet to coach a game, but it will be almost impossible for any coach to replicate the turnaround Briles has completed at Baylor.