George Schroeder

USA TODAY Sports

WACO, Texas — When Matt Rhule’s iPhone started buzzing last Friday afternoon — and then buzzing, and buzzing, and after that buzzing some more — it was anything but good news. Five high school players and their families were on the Baylor campus making official visits. A new coaching staff hoped for a big finish to an improbably strong recruiting class.

But the first text was from another recruit, who sent a link to a news article filled with fresh allegations related to the sexual assault scandal that has embroiled the school and its football program.

“Coach,” the recruit wanted to know, “what is this?”

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Even though a significant part of Rhule’s pitch to recruits had been, “Be a part of solving something that was wrong,” it was a jarring moment to learn of a lawsuit alleging 52 acts of sexual assault by 31 football players from 2011-14.

“It just reintroduces all the awful things that happened,” Rhule said.

On Wednesday, Rhule introduced a 29-player recruiting class — 23 who signed national letters of intent that morning, plus four early enrollees and two graduate transfers already on campus — that ranked 39th nationally and fifth in the Big 12, according to 247Sports (Rivals.com ranked Baylor No. 3 in the Big 12).

When the final letter of intent arrived at 11:15 a.m., Rhule was ecstatic.

Justin Harris, a three-star defensive lineman from Gonzales, La., had chosen Baylor instead of LSU. He’d been among those five players on campus when that report came out. One had already committed to Baylor. Another signed Wednesday with Texas A&M, his initial choice. But Harris was one of three players who visited last weekend and chose Baylor Tuesday or Wednesday.

So yeah, Rhule was stoked. There was also another emotion.

“It feels like a relief,” Rhule said, “that it’s over.”

But Rhule feels that way after every game. And after each recruiting cycle, regardless of the circumstances. But considering Baylor’s circumstances, they hope it’s a fresh start. Or as Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades put it: “This day is about moving forward.”

Which perhaps is why Rhule paused, then added: “Everything went so well. It’s a takeoff point.”

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***

The final weeks of the recruiting calendar are a whirlwind for every college coaching staff. It’s especially hectic when coaching changes have been made, new staffs sprinting to catch up in a very competitive race. In recent years, there may not have been anything quite like the situation Rhule encountered when he arrived in December after leaving Temple.

Jalen Pitre, a safety from Stafford, Texas, had been committed to Baylor for two years — but he was the only one. The former coaching staff had been retained after Art Briles’ firing last May, but those coaches knew wholesale change was coming after the 2016 season.

Recruiting … well, essentially there wasn’t any.

“There were no unofficial visits,” Rhule said. “There was no list (of prospects). There had been no one called. No one had been (evaluated).”

Before he evaluated any players, Rhule recruited three Texas high school coaches. David Wetzel, the longtime coach at Reagan High School in San Antonio, and Shawn Bell, from Cedar Ridge in Round Rock, were both Baylor alumni. Joey McGuire, who’d won three state championships at Cedar Hill High School near Dallas, met Rhule at an iHop in Hillsboro, Texas. Two hours later McGuire was sold.

“I called my wife and said, ‘We’re moving to Waco,’ ” he said.

And Baylor’s recruiting had a chance to move, too. Wetzel, who was also president of the Texas High School Coaches Association, said the hires played well among their peers. It also provided Rhule and the rest of the Baylor staff, mostly made up of former Temple assistants and other personal connections, with instant and important Texas ties.

To begin, the new staff gathered in a conference room in the Simpson Athletics and Academics Center, turned on a projector and watched video of every Texas high school player with a listed scholarship offer to either the FBS or FCS level. One positive from the mad scramble: Unlike in a traditional recruiting timeline, when coaches identify and zero in on players after their sophomore and junior seasons, Baylor’s evaluations were of players’ senior seasons.

“If you’re a Division I football player, you should have a great senior year,” Rhule said. “We were able to watch their senior year and make a decision on people. There were some late-bloomers.”

If a player’s video caught a coach’s eye, they began making phone calls. They researched his academic profile, talked with high school coaches — and then, if everything checked out, they offered. In less than two months, the Bears offered more than 100 players.

***

Rhule’s message to recruits and current players alike, is this: “You are not a football player. That is not who you are. … You can have a passion for football and can want it to be your job, but it can’t be who you are.

“You’re not what someone else did, you’re not what someone else says you are. You are not just a football player. You are who you are.”

He said the coaches addressed the scandal head-on with recruits and parents.

“We’ve had real conversations,” he said, “detailed, intimate personal conversations about the things that have happened and what we want to do now that we’re here. … The thing I don’t want to ever do is diminish the egregious nature of the things that happened.

“You want to be respectful of the victims. Just one woman getting assaulted is a really, really, really big deal. So we don’t want to diminish that. But we really believe in Baylor. We believe in the kids we have on this team now. We believe in these recruits. So we move forward and we learn from the past.”

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The first commitment came Dec. 28, from Houston safety Trevon Lewis. Three days later, Charlie Brewer — the state player of the year at Austin’s Lake Travis High, and the younger brother of former Virginia Tech and Texas Tech quarterback Michael Brewer — flipped from SMU to Baylor.

“I think a lot of people around the state said, ‘Oh, wow,’ ” Rhule said.

Said Brewer: “I knew people outside of Baylor were gonna talk bad about Baylor. I told myself it’s gonna be that way. I’m not too worried about what people think. Hopefully after a year or two, it will fade.”

Brewer was among that group of six early enrollees. Rhule said he first met them in person — this is not an exaggeration — “when they moved their stuff into the dorm.” R.J. Sneed, a receiver from Cypress, Texas, was committed to Ole Miss but reconsidered after a staff change there. Baylor jumped in quickly.

“We talked on a Friday,” Sneed said. “I committed on a Saturday. School started Monday” — and he was enrolled a couple of days later.

Treston Ebner, a receiver from Henderson, Texas, flipped from TCU to Baylor on Jan. 15. On Jan. 22, six players committed, including Xavier Newman, an offensive lineman from Desoto, Texas, who’d earlier committed to Colorado. Rhule wore a scuffed pair of cowboy boots that day, and now considers them lucky (he wore them Wednesday, and several of the other transplanted East Coast coaches did the same).

“It was bang-bang-bang-bang,” Rhule said of the commitments. “It gave people a lot of hope (that Baylor would be able to recruit).”

***

But then came last Friday. Five recruits were on campus when the news broke and text messages started the phone vibrating nonstop. The allegations sparked fresh outrage on social media and elsewhere. And it rattled the new coaching staff and the recruits.

“It’s alarming, just the things you read,” Rhule said. “At the same time, we’ve had a very consistent message about moving forward. No. 1, the kids on this team that you’ll be joining, your teammates — none of them has been accused of anything. They’re good kids. And moving forward, we don’t want to be the solution. We want to be the example of how we can be.”

Amid the sudden uncertainty, Gavin Holmes, a receiver who had committed only a few days earlier, sent a Tweet with a screenshot explaining his reasons for sticking with Baylor:

“This whole situation is horrifying to say the least,” Holmes wrote. “My thoughts and prayers go out to the women and their families involved in this. But many people still love and are proud fans of Baylor football. The OLD staff was fired for a reason. Those players and coaches who were involved are long gone not 1 player or coach who was involved is still affiliated with Baylor football, and the new coaches and current players are working to give Baylor football a whole new name and face. … I still believe in this coaching staff, and the University itself, and know this 2017 class still believes as well, or else we wouldn’t have chosen to partake and be a part of this program. Change is coming!”

“I think that held a lot of kids together,” Rhule said. “A lot of other kids were starting to say, ‘Oh no.’ His being able to vocalize, ‘I want to be a part of making the change,’ now the kids had something they could rally around. That was huge.”

And it set the stage for a surprisingly successful signing day.

***

Wednesday started with a team-building conditioning workout in the Bears’ indoor practice facility. From 6-7 a.m., players rotated from station to station — one station, conducted by the head coach, consisted of mat drills. He required meticulous attention to detail. When one player messed up, the entire group started over. It’s Rhule’s way of attempting to develop accountability.

He’s also attempting to rebuild something else. If Wednesday was a takeoff point, a bunch of new players signing on with a new staff and hoping for a new era, it might have been summed up around 7 a.m. As the letters of intent were beginning to arrive in the adjacent building, Rhule called the current players into a huddle after the completion of the workout.

“No matter what was written about you guys, no matter what was said about you guys, those kids wanted to be here,” Rhule told the players. “Take that as a source of pride.”