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Art Briles admits mistakes at Baylor and apologizes in GameDay interview

Nick Bromberg
Art Briles has won 164 career games as a head coach (Getty).
Art Briles has won 164 career games as a head coach (Getty).

Art Briles is set to publicly apologize for things that happened during his tenure at Baylor.

ESPN said Wednesday the former Baylor coach sat down with Tom Rinaldi for an interview that will air in its entirety during College GameDay on Saturday. Briles was fired from Baylor in May after findings from an independent investigation into the way the school handled sexual assault allegations.

“I made mistakes. I did wrong, but I’m not doing this trying to make myself feel better for apologizing,” Briles told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi. “I understand I made some mistakes. There was some bad things that went on under my watch. I was the captain of this ship. The captain of the ship goes down with it.

“So, I understand that I made some mistakes, and for that I’m sorry. But I’m not trying to plead for people’s sympathy. I’m just stating that, ‘Hey, I made some mistakes. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m gonna learn. I’m gonna do better.”

A summary of the findings from the Pepper Hamilton report revealed “Athletics personnel failed to recognize the conflict of interest in roles and risk to campus safety by insulating athletes from student conduct processes. Football coaches and staff took affirmative steps to maintain internal control over discipline of players and to actively divert cases from the student conduct or criminal processes. In some cases, football coaches and staff had inappropriate involvement in disciplinary and criminal matters or engaged in improper conduct that reinforced an overall perception that football was above the rules and that there was no culture of accountability for misconduct.”

Two former Baylor players are currently serving jail terms for rape while former defensive end Shawn Oakman was indicted on sexual assault charges in July. Other players from Briles’ time as coach have also been accused of sexual assault.

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Speaking publicly for the first time since his firing in June, Briles said he would have done some things differently. While two football staffers were also fired, Briles was the only member of the team’s coaching staff to be dismissed in the wake of the report. Briles was replaced by former Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe.

While we’ll see the full context of Briles’ apology and any other comments on Saturday, his admission of mistakes is the first public step if he wants to get back into coaching after the 2015 season. He certainly wouldn’t be the first coach to get a second chance after an egregious misstep and with a career record of 164-99, a school may very well give him another coaching opportunity if he’s appropriately contrite.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!