Jim Grobe ready to begin his year as Baylor's 'cleaner'

Jim Grobe knows his success as Baylor’s coach for the upcoming season won’t necessarily be judged on wins, but more on headlines.

The school is looking to rehabilitate its off-field image at the expense of furthering its football prowess on the heels of a scandal that cost former Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw and former football coach Art Briles their jobs. An internal investigation revealed Baylor coaches and officials took no action regarding sexual assault allegations against football players over a period of several years.

Enter the mild-mannered, God-fearing Grobe, who had been out of coaching for two years and was in the midst of settling into retirement when former Baylor coaching stalwart Grant Teaff called. Teaff was looking for someone to replace Briles and help restore Baylor’s good name. The 64-year-old veteran Grobe was at the top of Teaff’s list.

“My focus was to come in and help heal,” Grobe told Yahoo Sports. “The pressure is not so much the football, but making sure the kids, we’re talking to them all the time about character and behavior issues going forward. That’s the number one foundation that we need to set going forward. And so there’s a little pressure there. There’s probably less pressure on me from a football standpoint than there is trying to emphasize every day to our guys to be good guys.”

Grobe and Briles are friends. The coaches and their wives spent time together during sponsored retreats and shared many of the same values. Grobe said he reached out to Briles via text when he was offered the position and wanted to speak with him in person, but feared being spotted by the media. Grobe wanted to reassure Briles that his intention wasn’t to replace him but rather help Baylor through the transition.

And so far it hasn’t been easy.

During his nearly seven weeks on campus, Grobe has been peppered with questions about Baylor’s off-field issues and how he plans to stem the tide. Internally, he’s tried to win over a coaching staff, which is unchanged from Briles tenure, and a team still reeling from the loss of their leader. Grobe admits he’s continuing to establish trust, but he still has a ways to go.

“When I came in, I just felt a sadness on the coaches’ part and on the players’ part. That’s probably the best way to term it,” Grobe said. “They were disappointed that this had happened to coach Briles and there were so many negative things being written and said about Baylor’s football program. So for me to come in and be very aggressive or to try to come in and be the tough guy that was not my plan at all. My plan was to find a bunch of good kids and coaching staff that’s struggling and put my arms around them.”

In Grobe’s role as Baylor’s “cleaner” he made it clear that he has no plans to change the way the Bears operate on the field, but the off-field restoration is like nothing he’s attempted before. While his programs at Ohio and Wake Forest steered clear of national imbroglios during his 19-year head coaching career, he knows that saying all the right things during the preseason won’t make people forget about the misdeeds of his predecessor.

“(The negative image) is going to persist throughout the year and going forward we know that,” Grobe said. “To think that magically when we play the first game that all the past stories and whatnot aren’t going to linger through the season, that’s unrealistic. That’s not gonna happen.”

Grobe knows time is limited to accomplish his goals. With Baylor hiring athletic director Mack Rhoades, the school is most certainly looking to land a big-name coach to resume the program’s on-field aptitude. Rhoades, who spent the past year at Missouri, was likely hired to help lure coveted coach Tom Herman away from Houston. Hiring Herman at Houston was one of Rhoades’ final acts before leaving the Cougars for the SEC.

Still, Grobe knows while keeping the players on the straight and narrow is paramount, he also has to keep the program whole for the future. The Bears have lost 17 players since the spring and 12 of those players were from what was the No. 17 recruiting class, according to Rivals.com. So far, the Bears have just one recruit for the 2017 class and rank among the bottom in the national recruiting rankings. To put that in perspective, no other Big 12 school has fewer than seven committed recruits (Texas) and no Power Five program has fewer than three (Utah).

Baylor’s 2016 class dropped to No. 55 in Rivals rankings thanks to the departures.

On Thursday, Big 12 media picked the once favored Bears to finish fourth in the conference and the once College Football Playoff contender could be out of the Top 25 when the national polls are released next month.

“I think a lot of people don’t have a lot of confidence in our ability to win right now,” Grobe said. “For me, the future’s this season. That’s all I care about and that’s all (the team) should care about. We’ve got to play one game at a time. All that’s kind of coaching cliché stuff, but it’s never been more true than it is at Baylor right now.”

For more Baylor news, visit SicEmSports.com.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday