{"id":287,"date":"2008-02-07T13:48:38","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T19:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homepages.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2008\/02\/07\/briles-triumph-follows-tragedy\/"},"modified":"2008-02-07T13:48:38","modified_gmt":"2008-02-07T19:48:38","slug":"briles-triumph-follows-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2008\/02\/briles-triumph-follows-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Briles&#8217; triumphs follow tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/briles-bu-pressconf.jpg\" alt=\"Art Briles\" align=\"right\" \/>New head football coach <a href=\"http:\/\/baylorbears.cstv.com\/sports\/m-footbl\/spec-rel\/020608aab.html\" target=\"_blank\">Art Briles introduced his first Baylor signing class yesterday<\/a> (click the link for a transcript and video), and the recruiting haul bodes good things for the Bears. According to rankings from <a href=\"http:\/\/rivals100.rivals.com\/commitlist.asp?Year=2008&amp;School=8\" target=\"_blank\">Rivals.com<\/a>, it is Baylor&#8217;s best group in at least seven years (that&#8217;s as far back as their online archives go).<\/p>\n<p>Among the class&#8217; headliners are 4-star quarterback Robert Griffin, a local product from nearby Copperas Cove, and receiver Kendall Wright, who was among <a href=\"http:\/\/insider.espn.go.com\/ncf\/recruiting\/tracker\/player?recruitId=47206&amp;season=2008&amp;action=upsell&amp;appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fncf%2frecruiting%2ftracker%2fplayer%3frecruitId%3d47206%26season%3d2008\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN&#8217;s top 150 recruits<\/a> in the nation. With Griffin and fellow freshman-to-be Nick Florence, plus transfers Jeremy Sanders (Navarro JC) and Kirby Freeman (U. of Miami), Baylor&#8217;s incoming quarterback class was ranked third in the nation by both <a href=\"http:\/\/rivals100.rivals.com\/teamrank.asp?Sort=0&amp;PosType=4&amp;Year=2008\" target=\"_blank\">Rivals<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/recruiting.scout.com\/a.z?s=73&amp;p=9&amp;c=14&amp;view=3&amp;yr=2008\" target=\"_blank\">Scout.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Briles said he and his staff &#8220;jumped in with both feet&#8221; to make up for the short time they had to recruit after coming to Baylor. &#8220;I&#8217;m not intimidated by circumstances,&#8221; Briles has said. &#8220;Events in my life made me unafraid.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The events he referred to include the death of his parents when he was just 20. The <em>Austin American-Statesman<\/em> recently ran <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statesman.com\/sports\/content\/sports\/stories\/other\/01\/27\/0127briles.html\" target=\"_blank\">a moving feature on how that has shaped Briles<\/a> into the man he is today. It&#8217;s as good a read as you&#8217;ll find into the Bears&#8217; 25th head football coach.<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Coach Briles and Baylor football!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New head football coach Art Briles introduced his first Baylor signing class yesterday (click the link for a transcript and video), and the recruiting haul bodes good things for the Bears. According to rankings from Rivals.com, it is Baylor&#8217;s best group in at least seven years (that&#8217;s as far back as their online archives go). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}