George Truett said:
I still don't get the bizarre and illogical theory that the BOR decided to make their cash cow their scapegoat. It makes absolutely no sense and flies in the face of all the support Briles got over the years from the BOR, including first-class facilities.
You don't? Well, let me paint the picture for you.
BoR knew from the PH report they had a huge problem. It wasn't just because of football that the mullahs put their heads down on the conference table and wailed to God when they heard the report. As the summary of findings suggested, the problem encompassed the entire school.
The question was not whether they were going to pay a huge price. They were. It was just a question of how big. There was no question about huge damage to reputation. It was how big.
So, much as they loved football, much as they had invested in it, they made a calculation. They decided to let football and the reputation of the program take the rap in hopes of salvaging the reputation of the larger school. They had already seen from basketball that it was possible for a major program to go as low as it could and recover in time. It would be harder with football but still do-able, they thought, especially since we now had the huge asset of a new stadium.
Besides, they thought the alternative was worse.
If nice Baptist mommies and daddies think that Baylor isn't safe for their nice daughters, or if the school is going to look the other way if they become victims of sexual assault, then Baylor is no longer what they thought it was, and they're not going to pay a small fortune to send their kids there. But if you can convince them that the problem was a few unruly big, scary black dudes who were allowed by one bad man to get out of control, then the situation becomes more manageable. "See?" they can tell Baylor people, "we cut out the tumor, and now the cancer is all gone." Except that it wasn't. But they calculated based on what they could sell and what their audience would buy. The fuller truth was a tertiary consideration.