I guess it makes sense that Baylor is in Texas.

Some people who look at the forthcoming presidential election and joke they are leaving the country, say they will move to Canada, Costa Rica or TEXAS. Yes, Texas, because that state has always believed it is a country unto itself, with its size, wealth and proclivity to push the envelope in everything from social class distinction to college athletics. And now comes the strange case of Baylor football.

After an ongoing sexual assault scandal erupted at the Waco school, costing Chancellor Kenneth Starr of Bill Clinton-gate fame and Athletic Director Ian McCraw their jobs, football coach Art Briles finds himself suspended but with a chance to sit out a season and come back. The same school that just 13 years ago had a basketball player who murdered a teammate is now thinking of NOT firing Briles.

An internal report on the sexual assault incidents by players that were swept under the carpet used the words “horrified” and “shocked” and “outraged” for creating the perception that football was above the rules has now been overshadowed by a move from big-buck boosters who want to save Briles as the coach after a one-year suspension. Whaaaat!

Briles has turned Baylor from a doormat in the Big 12 to a national power, but ran a program that according to the report “posed a risk to campus security and the integrity of the university.” What integrity? Now Baylor Regents, among them the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, want Briles to be suspended for one season when the team would be led by interim Jim Grobe, the former head coach at Wake Forest. Why would the classy Grobe agree to that?

Does Baylor have no regard for the laws of the land, the rules of the school and the tenets of common sense and decency by even proposing such a plan? Briles may have known nothing about the boorish behavior of his players, which is hard to believe, but as we have seen before, he was the boss, so the buck stops with him. The explanation is obvious: Baylor believes in winning and money above all else. And only in Texas can you get away with that mentality.