Just like Darrell Royal and Barry Switzer and Mike Leach, Art Briles is a coach blessed with the gift of gab.
"I'll fight a man with three children and a nice house any day over a man that's living out of a car,” Briles gloriously said after Baylor hung on to beat “desperate” Texas Tech in late November.
Recently, though, Briles has turned his rhetorical guns on the College Football Playoff.
Now, it’s about time he holsters them.
Initially, Briles’ choruses – "Let's get somebody,” he said of the selection committee, “that understands what fixin' means" – carried a certain charm. And, as they might say in Texas, held a little bit of water, too. Baylor, after all, went 11-1, won the Big 12 and with its 61-58 triumph over TCU, delivered the most impressive regular-season victory of any playoff contender.
Ohio State, however, nabbed the final spot instead. And on the same day Baylor squandered a 21-point fourth-quarter lead in a Cotton Bowl Classic loss to Michigan State, the Buckeyes toppled Alabama in the Sugar Bowl semifinal before moving on to dominate Oregon and capture the national championship. With their bowl performances, the Buckeyes and Bears ultimately revealed that the selection committee got it right with its final playoff pick.
But those postseason results haven’t slowed Briles from taking aim at the committee. And his latest charge was anything but charming.
Last week, unprompted, Briles claimed "a source" told him that the Bears fell short of the fourth and final playoff spot by "an 8-to-4 vote."
"We were close this year," he said. "We were an 8-to-4 vote getting in from the No. 4 spot. Whether that's public or not, I don't know, but it is now. Unless I'm getting bad information, and I won't give you my source."
Why Briles suddenly brought this up, I don’t know. But according to CFP executive director Bill Hancock, Briles’ source gave him some pretty bad information.
Hancock retorted that an 8-4 vote technically would have been impossible, given that the committee ranks teams in sets of threes, not head to head. On top of that, Hancock added all votes are taken via secret computer ballot. Not even the committee members know what the votes are.
“An 8-4 vote,” Hancock summarized, “would not be possible under the committee's protocol."
All that said, I believe Briles believes an 8-4 vote was taken. I also believe that someone of some stature told Briles an 8-4 vote was taken. Who knows, maybe an 8-4 vote actually was taken, at least in some sense? Maybe eight voters had Ohio State fourth, and four voters had Baylor fifth.
But at this point, what is the point?
Briles still deliberating on the playoff committee smacks of rotten cotton. Especially considering Ohio State blazed to the national title as Baylor collapsed against the Spartans, whom the Buckeyes, by the way, manhandled in East Lansing. In fact, the only Big 12 team to emerge from the bowl season looking playoff worthy was TCU, which finished 12-1 after annihilating Ole Miss 42-3 in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. While Briles bemoaned the committee, Gary Patterson’s Horned Frogs simply let their play do their talking.
Without a doubt, Briles is among the top coaches in the country. In one of the most impressive turnarounds ever to grace college football, Briles has whipped Baylor from conference doormat to perennial power. He’s also the best quote in the game this side of Steve Spurrier. But even as persuasive and charismatic as he is, Briles is not winning anyone over with his “we-got-snubbed” argument. And if he continues to hammer this nail, he risks losing credibility.
After back-to-back Big 12 championships, Baylor is past playing the victim card – or at least it should be. And instead of focusing on what could have been, it’s time for Briles and the Bears to turn their attention to what could be. After all, despite losing all-conference quarterback Bryce Petty, Baylor, with 17 returning starters, boasts another loaded squad capable of knocking on the playoff door again.
Briles got one more salvo in on the playoff.
Let's hope it's his last.