At Liberty University, they don’t want to talk about Ian McCaw’s past at Baylor.

“Liberty has no comment at this time,” said the email from Len Stevens, executive director of external communications.

Same thing with Kendal Briles at Florida Atlantic.

“It is our policy not to comment on legal cases,” said the email from Katrina McCormack, assistant athletic director for media relations.

Arizona State at least put a little more effort into discussing Phil Bennett.

“All university employees are fully vetted through ASU’s human resources department on campus, and Mr. Bennett was no exception. We look forward to his contributions to our program.”

They’re ducking questions from Yahoo Sports – and who knows how many other media outlets – about hires of prominent former employees from the fetid swamp that was Baylor athletics during the Art Briles Era.

The hires happened during the winter, so they’re not new questions. They’ve heard them all before. But they need to be asked, again, after the latest and perhaps most lurid Title IX lawsuit was filed against the school last week. When an alleged gang rape is portrayed as a football bonding experience, a re-examination is necessary.

And then they might need to be asked again and again and again, depending on what else comes out.

The Baylor stain on the careers of McCaw, Briles and Bennett is not going away. If anything, it’s deepening with every new allegation. It must be noted that lawsuits give only one side of the story, and these belong to the plaintiffs suing the school – but they’re unbelievably ugly, and they spur fresh wonderment over how some people have gotten their current jobs.

View photos Baylor continues to fall from grace while some former Art Briles associates escaped on life rafts. (Getty) More

Liberty took the most egregious step, bringing onboard former Baylor athletic director McCaw for the same position at the fundamentalist Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia. McCaw resigned from the Baptist school in Waco after victim allegations and the school-funded Pepper Hamilton report portrayed him as, at best, a buck-passing administrator more concerned with information suppression than cleaning up a massive problem.

Florida Atlantic hired former offensive coordinator Briles – Art’s son, the head coach whose own job prospects should be increasingly dim. Kendal was a truculent holdover under interim coach Jim Grobe last season, inscribing his father’s initials on his hands for the season-opening game. While loyalty to one’s father is understandable, the public display at an extremely charged time on campus was questionable. It wasn’t the time or place to make Art Briles a martyr.

Arizona State landed former Baylor defensive coordinator Bennett, making him the only full-time assistant from the 2016 Bears team to land a job at another Power Five conference school. He came with something of an exoneration letter from current Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades – but that piece of paper isn’t an all-purpose cleanser.

Neither the younger Briles nor Bennett were named in the publicly shared summary of the 2016 Pepper Hamilton report, and there is nothing that publicly links them directly with any of the wave of sexual assaults and other violent acts perpetrated (and/or allegedly perpetrated) by Baylor football players. But guilt by association has torpedoed the rest of last year’s staff.

The rest of the full-time staffers from that team have become virtually untouchable: two former Baylor assistants are working at a junior college, two at an NAIA school, and three appear to be currently out of coaching. Former assistant athletic director/strength coach Kaz Kazadi was “reassigned” this spring, with no explanation of what he’s been reassigned to do other than disappear. Nobody was retained by new Baylor coach Matt Rhule.

For the three schools that put their reputations on the line by hiring former Baylor staffers, the desire is to minimize and move on and hope to start winning games and changing the conversation. Because winning games is the most important thing in the college football world, right?

Story continues