Amid ambiguity of Baylor case, the right thing to do was obvious

Dan Wolken | USA TODAY Sports

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There is enough ambiguity between what former Boise State coach Chris Petersen put forward as his version of events and Art Briles' "Nobody told me" defense that both coaches have likely insulated themselves from personal consequences over the transfer of defensive end Sam Ukwuachu, who sexually assaulted a former Baylor soccer player shortly after Briles brought him on campus.

That likely suits both parties just fine.

If Petersen recommended Ukwuachu transfer to Baylor (which is what Briles flatly stated in comments last Friday) and yet was aware that he had a history of violence against women, he bears a significant measure of responsibility for the tragic outcome of this story. If Briles knew or even suspected he might be recruiting a predator — which could be interpreted from Petersen's statement that he "thoroughly apprised" Briles of the circumstances around Ukwuachu's dismissal from Boise State — he should not be coaching college football.

And yet, there is just enough vagueness on both sides to offer a shelter of deniability. Combined with the lack of any police report and Baylor releasing transfer documents that show Ukwuachu had not been subjected to any official university discipline at Boise State, both sides can claim they did everything right.

But this silly back-and-forth is merely a distraction from the real issue at hand: What kind of people are college football programs bringing onto their campuses, and at what point does a coach need to be taken out of the equation in weighing a player's off-field baggage?

Far more often than not, coaches are going to come down on the side of the second chance. It's how they're wired. The most successful ones, especially, have such strong belief in the virtues of football and the ability to rehabilitate a troubled kid through their particular brand of discipline and structure that they overlook all the obvious reasons to just take a pass. Plus, in a business where careers almost always end because of won-loss record rather than anything that happens off the field, there is simply no incentive in most cases to let an available talent go elsewhere.

The SEC took a step toward changing that equation in May when it adopted what will forever be known as the Jonathan Taylor rule, which bans schools from accepting transfers who were dismissed from their previous school for any incident of sexual or domestic violence.

Though this scenario has played out several times in recent years, including with former LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger (who pleaded guilty to a sexual battery charge while at Georgia), the world has changed since the fallout from the Ray Rice video last summer. And the tipping point for the SEC came when Taylor, who was dismissed from Georgia in July 2014 after allegedly hitting his girlfriend, enrolled at Alabama in January only to be arrested again on a domestic violence complaint two months later. (Those charges were later dropped after the woman recanted her story; his first case, meanwhile, is still pending.)

To pretty much everyone but Alabama coach Nick Saban, who continues to defend giving Taylor an opportunity, this was an embarrassment for college athletics and a wake-up call to make better decisions about players who pose a risk to the safety of women.

There has been chatter about other conferences following the SEC's lead and adopting similar policies, and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby acknowledged to CBSSports.com the issue would likely be discussed informally this week at a regularly scheduled meeting of its athletics directors in light of the Baylor situation.

If anything, though, the circumstances around Ukwuachu's transfer to Baylor show that these situations often don't fit into a neat little box that can save a coach from himself.

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The narrative of Ukwuachu's final days at Boise State isn't straightforward. There was no arrest or police report to indicate that he beat up his girlfriend, though she testified last week that he did. He also never went through a formal university discipline process, which is why a Boise State compliance officer checked "No" on his NCAA transfer form beside a question that asked if Ukwuachu had been "suspended or disqualified from your institution for disciplinary reasons."

And yet, it's clear that Ukwuachu was not welcome in the Boise State football program following some series of events in May 2013 and landed at Baylor shortly thereafter. At that point, he didn't need to be subject to any university discipline because he was already gone.

What we do know, according to a series of notes from Boise State's head athletic trainer Marc Paul that were obtained by Texas Monthly, is that Ukwuachu had exhibited behavior that made him a danger to himself, the girlfriend who was living with him and his roommate to the point where she was instructed not to go home by Boise State officials, and police protection was arranged for the roommate. Later, Paul notes that it was arranged for her to go to the house to pick up clothes and personal items when they knew Ukwuachu wasn't there.

We also know the situation was so dire that Paul told Ukwuachu's mother on May 4 he needed to "go home sooner" than his plane ticket date of May 15. In other words, the school couldn't even wait 10 days before getting him out of town. And among those looped into the conversations according to Paul's notes were Petersen, athletics director Mark Coyle and other administrators in the athletic department.

Everyone at Boise State knew.

Did it prove they knew Ukwuachu hit his girlfriend? No. But it certainly indicates they were worried enough about the possibility that multiple layers of administrators and local police were involved in getting him out of Boise. It indicates this was a person who had serious mental health issues that needed to be addressed before he could even think about playing football again. It indicates he shouldn't have been at Baylor.

Is it possible Baylor didn't receive any of that information prior to enrolling Ukwuachu? Yes, but it's certainly not plausible, not when that many people at Boise State knew. Forget the phone call between Petersen and Briles. If Baylor didn't know, it's because it didn't dig very deep into why a freshman All-American was suddenly available.

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And yet, given what we know, it isn't clear-cut that even the SEC's new transfer rule would have prevented one of their schools from accepting Ukwuachu. Again, no police report, no formal university discipline. At the same time, any administrator with even a basic sense of concern for their community could have looked at what Texas Monthly was able to dig up on Ukwuachu and reasonably concluded that he didn't belong on their campus.

The problem, though, is that too many schools have yielded too much power over those decisions to coaches who risk nothing by taking the player ("Hey, if he screws up, we can just dismiss him") and have very little incentive to say no.

Briles has built his program with a bevy of second-chance kids. Many of them have worked out wonderfully, including star defensive end Shawn Oakman, who was dismissed from Penn State but has seemingly been a model citizen since coming to Baylor. Because of that track record and the fact Briles built a top-10 program, there is a sense among several people connected to the Big 12 and familiar with how Baylor operates that the coach has gained significant latitude with the administration in taking on questionable characters.

But that needs to end now — not just for Briles, but any coach whose instinct is to rationalize personnel decisions that put other students at risk. Athletics directors and school presidents need to use this as a defining moment to assert control and bring some common sense to how athletes with serious behavioral issues are vetted, admitted and dealt with on a day-to-day basis. "We didn't know" isn't going to fly anymore. And though a rule like the SEC's represents a good start, that alone isn't going to be good enough to prevent the next Sam Ukwuachu from taking away a young woman's innocence.

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