I’m sure that the Baylor fans, alumni and stakeholders who’ve threatened my life, my family and made our private records and personal matters public in recent days over my reporting of BU’s horrifying (and ongoing) scandal will feel that they’ve “won,” but they haven’t.

This will personally be the last piece of reporting I will be doing on this aspect of the Baylor Scandal.

This is not my beat. I was only pulled into this whole mess due to the fact that no one else seemed to care and I felt obligated to step forward and care. As I’ve spoken to crying victims late into the night or laid sleepless and fidgety in recent weeks, I’ve wondered, “How the hell did we end up here?”

For goodness sake, I’m a football analyst.

The reason I’m moving on from the story and taking a pause is not for concern over my own safety, as these threats are idle and made by cowards, the kind of cowards who not only circle the wagons to go after reporters looking for the truth and some semblance of justice, but also victims who’ve already been damaged beyond repair by this same mob’s lack of doing anything remotely similar in these victims’ darkest moments.

If Baylor stakeholders did the type of digging on the criminals Coach Art Briles harbored within his football program that they have done on me, none of us would be here right now.

Alas, the witch hunt has now extended from the people reporting on this crisis to those affected by it. Victims – some whose names have never even come out and just want peace as they recover (alone and unsupported) – are now receiving the same sorts of threats and bully tactics, as intimidating strangers wrongly accuse them of being involved with me and lord only knows what else.

The reason I know this is happening is because I know numerous sexual assault survivors who attended Baylor. Many of them I met at a prayer vigil held on BU president Ken Starr’s lawn last year. Some of these people I’ve kept in touch with and consider friends, but certainly have never relied on for source-material. These women are again being victimized, now via unfounded threats and accusations related to me.

Lawyers I have never met are being reported to the bar association for contact with me that never occurred. The reason struggle has been brought to these innocent people is because of cowardly responses to my reporting, which I can’t handle having on my conscience.

It’s clear that someone, somewhere, realized that I had gone from a pesky pain in the ass to a “Holy shit, this guy has the goods on us”-type of presence and they unleashed the hounds.

It goes to show (yet again) Baylor’s lack of ability to conduct a reasonable investigation on its own. My best “source” in all this has yet to be contacted or bullied – and, in fact, might just be someone they see every day.

Maybe there is at least one decent person around there, after all.

Here is what needs to be known for the media and investigators who’ll continue digging, free of the personal restraints I now feel myself bound by:

This is a fact:

The results of a private investigation Baylor has hired an outside firm to conduct will show that Baylor and Head Coach Art Briles were aware of alleged violent incidents involving players who were kept on the football team; and who later went on to commit or be accused of subsequent violent acts against female Baylor students.

If these damning details are not made available in the version of the investigation results Baylor chooses to dispense, it means they have been removed in an attempt to protect Briles, the athletics administration and BU president Ken Starr.

The proof is everywhere. Baylor knows it. Now the question is, will it continue with the cover-up or come clean? In the end, it doesn’t really matter, as I’m quite sure the truth will come out either way.

It just won’t be coming from me.