DALLAS _ New Baylor coach Jim Grobe said he is not going to make changes "from a football perspective" with the Bears, who he said were skeptical and heartbroken after the departure of former coach Art Briles.
"It absolutely was a challenge, and there was no road map to this," he said. "When I got in and first met with the team, I think they were somewhat skeptical of a lot of things. They were certainly heartbroken that they lost Art. I know the staff was in shock, and so it's been a journey, to be honest. I think we've gotten to the point now where the players are trusting of me, and I think they wanted that I'm here to help, I'm not here to change things. Some coaches come in and they try to run off the old guy's players and bring in their fresh recruiting classes. I'm not here to do that."
Grobe, speaking at his formal press conference Tuesday during Big 12 Media Days at the Dallas Omni, said he is keeping Briles' style on offense.
"I've been so impressed with what Art and the football program has accomplished over the last few years," Grobe said. "I'm an old West Virginia hillbilly, and we got that feeling if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So from strictly a football perspective, I think we want to continue to play fast and furious on offense. We want to keep those same principles that Art had."
Grobe said he will keep many other aspects of the football operation.
"I'm not here to make a lot of changes," he said. "I thought that was really important especially for our players to have the same terminology, the same type of schemes as much as possible but hopefully as we go forward if I do see things that I think might help us be a little bit better we might put a different spin on a few things, but I'm not here to change a whole lot."
Grobe said the majority of Baylor kids "are fantastic kids" and that Baylor is dealing with its problems from the fallout of the sexual assault cases that led to the departure of Briles and other athletic officials.
"The problems that we're dealing with at Baylor or have dealt with at Baylor to this point are probably problems at every university in the country," he said. "I hate to say every one, but I'm guessing most universities are having some of the same issues we've had at Baylor. You can make a call as to whether you think Baylor was too strong in the way they dealt with it. Unbelievably, I've had people tell me they don't think they dealt with it strongly enough. But I think going forward, do we want to learn from our past mistakes? We absolutely want to learn from our past mistakes, and we're doing that.
"Baylor University right now is better than every because we have confronted some problems and made changes in the way we deal with problems going forward and I'm talking about serious problems. I'm not talking about missing class and late to weights and those type of things."
Grobe said he can make changes as he sees fit with the coaching staff.
"When I took the job I was assured that I could make any changes with the coaching staff that I needed to make," he said. "When I got here, my plan was to be at Baylor's direction, really. I'm working for Baylor University. When I got here, I found, I've had nobody tell me about assistant coaches' misbehavior. If our assistant coaches' conduct had been bad, if anybody told me that, if anybody can come to me and point out that the coaches have not behaved properly then I would have no problems making changes."
