Doug Williams offers candid thoughts on Art Briles being hired at Grambling State: ‘I’m not a fan at all’
By Keith Farner
Published:
One of the more eyebrow-raising hires this offseason in college football came when Grambling State hired Art Briles to be the program’s new offensive coordinator. Now one of the most well-known Grambling players of all-time has weighed in.
The hire is the first in college football for Briles since Baylor fired him for his handling of sexual assault allegations against his players. Briles was fired by Baylor in May 2016 after an external investigation into accusations of sexual assault found school and football administrators failed to adequately handle those allegations.
A report from a law firm found that 17 women reported incidents of sexual assault or sexual violence involving 19 football players and that Briles was informed of at least one of them but failed to report it to local authorities, as did other administrators.
“I don’t know Art Briles; I’ve never met him in my life,” Williams, who also had two stints as Grambling’s coach, told The Washington Post. “But the situation, nobody else would hire him for whatever reason. I don’t know why Grambling State had to go be the one to hire him, so I’m not a fan at all.”
Briles denied that he was involved in a coverup at Baylor.
“Let me be clear: I did not cover up any sexual violence,” he wrote in an open letter in 2017. “I had no contact with anyone that claimed to be a victim of sexual or domestic assault. Anyone well-versed in my work as a coach knows that I strove to promote excellence, but never at the sacrifice of safety for anyone.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
