Figured this might be a good time to recap some Briles history from one of our posters. I'll leave his name off, in case he doesn't want it back out there, although it went a little viral a few years ago:
1) 1990. My first taste of Briles was my senior year in high school playing against his Stephenville team. They were the dirtiest, cheapest, thuggish team I've ever played against. Talked the foulest trash at us during pre-game and never stopped. Lots of scratching, clawing, kicking, twisting ankles while on the ground, too. Like playing against 11 Ahmad Dixons. So sitting at ACS last Saturday brought back a lot of memories.
2) 1994. Just out of college and started my first coaching gig as an assistant at a 4A high school. We open the season at Stephenville. We get to the field house and their is no AC in the visitor locker room. This is the last Friday in August so it's scorching hot and very humid. Briles tells us the field house is undergoing some repair work and the AC unit is off line. Of course, the AC works just fine in his locker room though. At halftime, our starting QB gets an IV as well as another player, but those are the only two we can accomodate. Three of our players had to be taken to a local hospital for severe dehydration and overheating, largely due to the conditions in our locker room. Afterwards, we were told by Tarleton State staff that there were no repairs being done to the field house and that Briles has simply turned off the breaker that controlled the AC for the visitor locker room. Needless to say, Briles couldn't care less about the safety of his opponent's players.
3) 1995. Re-match. Starting the season against Stephenville again. We trade film from each other's two August scrimmages. When we put in the tape of their scrimmages, the first series of the first team offense is missing from both scrimmages. Therefore, we have no idea what their first team offense ran or what personnel they used. When we asked about the missing plays, Briles told us they had trouble getting the videocamera to work.
On Thursday I was helping coach the JV. We're winning. Briles is in attendance and gets pissed off that his JV is gettign beat. He takes over the playcalling from his JV coaches and coaches the JV himself in the second half. We still win and Briles refused to talk to us afterwards.
4) Fast forward to 2000. I'm going to law school part time and now work in the TCU Compliance Office. The phone rings one day and Texas Tech has lodged a complaint with the NCAA alleging that we provided an impermissible recruiting inducement to a prospect that signed with us by providing the athlete's father a job. The kid is playing during that season, so we pull him off the field. Kid and coaching staff are pissed and stressed (making a run at the BCS and don't want to have to forfiet games for playing an ineligible player). We investigated and turned out TCU hired the kid's uncle - as a custodian. Neither HR nor the kid was aware of it at the time. Guess who made the allegation and accused TCU of cheating? Texas Tech's new RB coach - Art Briles.
5) 2003. I'm now the Director of Compliance at a DI school in Colorado. Briles is now the head coach at Houston. A player on his team is from Colorado and wants to transfer to be closer to his family. His older brother is a special needs kid with some medical issues, and his mother is an invalid who is having trouble taking care of him. We request a waiver from the NCAA to allow the kid to transfer and be immediately eligible to hlep take care of his family. In that process we asked UH to support our waiver. They refused. When I asked the UH Compliance office why they wouldn't give their support, I was told, "Briles said no."
There have been other stuff off and on over the years, including Briles' penchant for making phone calls and contacts with prospects over the NCAA limit and confirmation from one source that Briles looked the other way when his Stephenville players were juicing.
He's a first-rate d-bag who disguises himself as a simple good-ol' country boy who'd give the shirt off his back to you. He would, but with the other hand he'd slice open your spleen. I've always marvelled at his football acumen - he's a true innovator when it comes to Xs and Os. But the guy is absolutely consumed with winning at all costs and simply cannot and should not ever be trusted.