Art Briles

Baylor head football coach Art Briles talks with the media before the first day of practice for the 2015 season, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Waco, Texas. (Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune Herald via AP)

Art Briles got fired? The football coach who produced two Big 12 titles, a Heisman Trophy winner and a state-of-the-art new stadium was shown the door? At recent national power Baylor?

Wow. You know what that means?

Winning didn't win. Winning wasn't the only thing after all.

Capturing conference championships and putting the football program on the national map didn't trump the health, welfare and safety of students who weren't auditioning for the NFL.

The scoreboard no longer counted like it once did, the new stadium didn't stand as an untouchable fortress on campus and the football coach wasn't bigger than the university.

Stop the presses. And wake up, college football fans.

If you think what happened at Baylor couldn't possibly happen at your favorite program, you're fooling yourselves. In some ways, perhaps more isolated and less egregious ways than the systemic failure in Waco, it probably already has.

Read some of the scathing indictments of Briles and his Baylor football program from the 13-page summary of the Pepper Hamilton report the school released Thursday, which led to the ouster of Briles, the reassignment of school President Ken Starr and probation for AD Ian McCaw.

According to the report's summary, Baylor "created a cultural perception that football was above the rules." Is there a Power 5 school that at some point hasn't created that same perception?

How did Baylor do it? By taking transfers with questionable pasts. By allowing coaches to investigate complaints of sexual assault, dating violence and other forms of misconduct by their players and handling discipline themselves rather than going through proper university channels, although the report also notes that proper university channels were severely lacking.

The report's summary said, "The football program's separate system of internal discipline reinforces the perception that rules applicable to other students are not applicable to football players, improperly insulates football players from appropriate disciplinary consequences and puts students, the program and the institution at risk of future misconduct."

How is Baylor's "separate system of internal discipline" that different from other Power 5 programs where coaches handle things as quietly as possible with as little transparency as possible?

When the head football coach is given the power of judge and jury, and the head football coach's continued employment depends on the continued enrollment of young men who sometimes break the rules or the law, conditions are ripe for what happened at Baylor.

What did happen at Baylor? Again, from the Pepper Hamilton report summary:

"In addition to the failures related to sexual assault and dating violence, individuals within the football program actively sought to maintain internal control over discipline for other forms of misconduct. Athletics personnel failed to recognize the conflict of interest in roles and risk to campus safety by insulating athletes from student conduct processes.

"Football coaches and staff took affirmative steps to maintain internal control over discipline of players and to actively divert cases from the student conduct or criminal processes. In some cases, football coaches and staff had inappropriate involvement in disciplinary and criminal matters or engaged in improper conduct that reinforced an overall perception that football was above the rules, and that there was no culture of accountability for misconduct."

In short, Baylor football tried not to throw the babies out with the bathwater. Baylor football tried to keep it down home, cuz. Baylor football did everything in its power to protect and serve Baylor football rather than Baylor University.

Is Baylor unique in that regard?

As the report said, "Pepper's findings ... reflect significant concerns about the tone and culture within Baylor's football program as it relates to accountability for all forms of athlete misconduct."

Ask yourself. Who's accountable to whom at your favorite school? Do you care as long as your team wins?