The lavish Christmas decor — towering trees filled with giant teal and silver ornaments — remains perfectly in place a day after the holiday in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency on Louisiana Street.

The rest of downtown Houston is eerily quiet. Traffic is nonexistent, with many people still at home on vacation.

But activity at the Hyatt picks up around 8 a.m. as the Baylor football team and staff begin making their way downstairs to start the day.

Just inside the revolving doors sits a table full of boxes with bagel sandwiches and fresh fruit. Players, dressed in their black dri-fit warmups, trickle down and stop for the breakfast to go as they head to their buses outside.

Assistant coaches and staff members sip coffee and catch up with each other. Every once in a while, someone yells “Fast Friday!” to get the players hyped for their typical up-tempo practice (even though this one happens to be on a Wednesday).

As the morning picks up, head coach Matt Rhule steps off the elevator and into the lobby. He carries a blue pinstripe suit, white dress shirt and gold tie in one hand and a pair of brown dress shoes in the other. He and his team are headed to the University of Houston for their last practice before Thursday night’s Texas Bowl.

A year ago, a 2018 bowl appearance seemed almost preposterous for Baylor. The Bears were 1-11 and in major rebuild mode.

But Rhule promised they’d make a postseason game this year. Thanks to a 6-6 record, the vow was kept, and a 45-38 victory over Vanderbilt makes the season even sweeter.

Cordial coach

As he walks toward the hotel’s entrance, Rhule says good morning to everyone he encounters — a few fans, a couple of fellow coaches, and Hyatt employees he has made a point to thank repeatedly since he and his team took over the hotel three nights earlier.

It’s 8:20 a.m. when Rhule hands his suit to one of his staffers, who will take it to the University of Houston for him. He uses his free hand to hold a fresh cup of coffee, black. He isn’t sure how much he’s already had at this point of the morning.

“It’s a lot,” he says with a smile before boarding the bus with his dress shoes.

He makes small talk with his players as they pass him. He tells one how awful he thinks the new Netflix movie “Bird Box” is.

“I can’t believe you liked it,” he tells the young man.

He tells another to wake up, that he still looks tired. The player smiles at him before replying, “I’m up. I’m ready.”

Rhule checks in with one of his assistants at 8:40 a.m., five minutes before all players are supposed to be on the bus, to make sure they made it.

They’re all there.

The team heads off on three buses to UH — with a police escort — where it will practice one last time before Thursday’s Texas Bowl.

On the quick bus ride from downtown to UH’s indoor practice facility near TDECU Stadium, Rhule is genuinely cheerful. He chats with everyone near him about how they spent Christmas night.

He, his wife and their two kids went to The Aquarium for dinner. He laughs while talking about reading a seafood menu as fish swam in tanks all around him.

At UH, the team disappears into the locker rooms while the staff sets out medicine balls, ropes and water jugs among other practice items. Several area high school coaches seep in to stand on the sidelines and watch. Each is greeted and welcomed by a member of the Baylor staff.

While most teams use their “Friday” (the day before game day) to do a light walk-through, Rhule and his staff tried something different this year. During his time at Temple, he’d observed Chip Kelly doing it with his Philadelphia Eagles.

“It mirrors track,” Rhule said. “Take a day of rest (a light walk-through practice) on Thursday, then start to ramp your body up. We started it this year as we were looking for ways to improve. The key is you have to get guys to want to go fast and run full speed the day before a game.”

The team is keyed in for “Fast Friday.” Before practice, Rhule had changed into green gym shorts and a pullover. And with the outfit change comes one to his whole demeanor as well. Rhule goes from being the laid-back, upbeat guy joking on the bus to a full-on, intense football coach.

His voice rises as he watches his offense run plays.

“When you’re here, be here!” he yells. “Be elite in practice so you can be elite in games!”

When the team wraps up practice, Rhule begrudgingly changes into the suit waiting for him before getting into a SUV and heading to the Westin Galleria for a luncheon for both teams.

“I hate dressing up,” Rhule says after adjusting his tie.

The suit is one he has had since living in Philadelphia. He doesn’t update that part of his wardrobe often, since he rarely dons anything but the athletic wear he prefers to live in.

He frequently asks his wife what he has to wear any time they are going to a new restaurant.

“As long as I can wear gym shorts, I’m in,” he says.

At the Westin, Rhule and a few Baylor players wait in a holding room while Vanderbilt finishes its part of the news conference. When Commodores coach Derek Mason walks out of a room, he and Rhule embrace and then chat for a few minutes.

Rhule asks Mason if he’d be interested in exchanging scouting reports following their bowl. They shake on it, and Rhule heads to face a small gathering of media.

Sensitive to the past

In just about every news conference since taking over at Baylor, Rhule is asked about the “challenges” of his job.

Some reporters are vague with the question, others very specific. It’s a constant topic. Rhule took over a Baylor program trying to rebuild after a scandal involving several football players and widespread sexual assault allegations.

The university has turned things around in a lot of ways, and hiring Rhule was one of them. He was far removed from Baylor. He brought in a whole new staff and outlook.

He strives to be transparent. And while it’s clear Rhule wants to move on from Baylor’s past, he handles the situation with sensitivity.

As the Bears get ready for their date at NRG Stadium, Rhule couldn’t be happier about the progress and about the Texas Bowl. Houston is a hotbed for recruiting. The Bears will play Rice here next season and will face Mississippi at the Advocare Texas Kickoff in 2020.

Rhule knows being present will help Baylor recruit top student-athletes. And after the scandal the school endured, getting recruiting back on track is one of his biggest challenges.

Answering questions about the program’s past indiscretions is one thing with the media. It’s a whole other issue when it comes to recruiting.

“It still comes up in every recruiting conversation,” Rhule says. “I think people feel good about the culture of the program right now. I think they come here and they see it. I don’t think it’s really ‘Is my son going to be in a good place?’ anymore.

“I think it’s more, ‘Is the NCAA going to come down?’ I had a kid ask on signing day, ‘Are you guys going to get the death penalty?’ So I am still addressing those things.

“I want to be respectful of the people who were involved. There were victims. But at the same time, I do want to move forward and say, ‘You should come to Baylor.’ It becomes tricky.”

But Rhule has seen a change.

When he started at Baylor, he could barely focus on football. He spent most of his time cleaning things up, making sure the program was following every process correctly.

“I’ve learned a lot,” he says. He and his staff know procedures up and down. They also spend a lot of one-on-one time with players and try to keep a close eye on everything.

While it’s a lot of work, Rhule likes it. He feels close to his team and program, and he’s proud of what his players are doing.

They still deal with backlash. He remembers specifically when a story came out earlier this season about Baylor facing NCAA allegations. The team was supposed to be preparing for Kansas State.

“Instead, they were hearing we might have a bowl ban,” he says. “I told them we were going to a bowl if we made it. I try to keep them focused.

“What happened here isn’t their story. It isn’t my story.”

Still, he knows he has to keep addressing that story and that it might be some time before it fades.

At the luncheon, which includes Baylor and Vanderbilt fans, there is a Q&A session with Rhule, Mason and a handful of players.

Rhule is excellent in front of a crowd. At ease and comfortable, he answers each question by the book. He has a politician’s ability to say the right things at the right time.

When the lunch is over, he and the team make their way back through the Galleria toward their buses. Rhule is itching to change back into gym clothes before a meeting with ESPN about the following day’s broadcast. A few of his players ask him if they can stay behind to shop.

“Yeah, just buy me something nice,” he says before making his way through the rain and onto the bus.

Rhule wants his players to enjoy their bowl trip — “They earned it,” he says — and constantly emphasizes to them to be in every moment. If they are in practice, be intense and focused there. If they are hanging out and having fun at Lucky Strike (where the Bears bowled on Christmas night), enjoy the time with teammates.

“It’s easy to just get caught up and be on your phone or in your room or whatever, but I just want them to be present,” he says.

Bringing team together

As the day winds down, Rhule works nonstop to get his work done in time to join his team for a movie down the street from the hotel. They are going to see “Aquaman” as a group.

“Last year, I’m not sure they would have wanted to do this,” he says.

Last season was tough for the Bears. It was all about rebuilding. The players who stayed were dealing with their third coach in three years. Baylor’s reputation wasn’t good, and a stigma hung over the program.

But Rhule didn’t rest. He worked to get to know every player and to make them know each other. If they could build a trust and a brotherhood, they could work to rehabilitate the image of the team.

This year, there’s a genuine, palpable closeness with the group. The players work hard for each other on the field because they care about each other off it.

Baylor still has work to do. Rhule is trying to create a winning program that stays far from scandal. When he took the job, he knew it wouldn’t happen overnight. There will still be reports, settlements, more “he said, she said” as the university deals with fallout from its transgressions.

“We are working on it,” Rhule says. “We are writing our story now.”

jenny.creech@chron.com

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