Baylor's post-Briles recruiting might look like the pre-Briles era in Waco
Baylor has lost 11 pledges from its 2016 recruiting class since Art Briles was removed as head coach
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On Friday, Baylor lost another member of its 2016 recruiting class with Brandon Bowen's decision to pursue a college football career elsewhere. The four-star weakside defensive end is the 11th player to de-pledge from the Bears' 2016 class, once ranked among the 20 best in the country by the 247Sports Composite, since Art Briles' ousting.
Briles has long been considered the architect of the modern Baylor program, recruiting future Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III and using his aggressive style to fearlessly take on the old guard in the Big 12. With more snaps on offense and touches to go around, Baylor infiltrated the top talent pools and saw a major boost in its recruiting rankings. Now that Briles is gone, the departures have led to a slide in that recruiting ranking with few signs of a rebound on the horizon.
Part of what enabled Briles to build up the talent in Waco was his longevity at the job. After Grant Teaff's two-decade run as head coach (1972-1992), no one spent more than four or five seasons with the Bears until Briles' eight-year tenure. In that time he turned classes of three stars into NFL stars and soon had blue chip prospects picking up the Bears' hat on National Signing Day. Now the clock starts over with Jim Grobe and an uncertain future, and Baylor fans are rightly concerned about the program's ability to continue the program building success that Briles achieved.
In order to guess where Baylor might be stacking up against the rest of the conference in the next few years, we should look at where the Bears were ranking prior to the arrival of Briles and his high-octane style of offense. Rankings are according to the 247 Composite.
| Recruiting Class | National Rank | Big 12 Rank |
| 2005 | 69 | 12 |
| 2006 | 54 | 10 |
| 2007 | 77 | 12 |
| 2008 | 55 | 9 |
| 2009 | 52 | 10 |
| 2010 | 40 | 8 |
| 2011 | 46 | 8 |
| 2012 | 26 | 3 |
| 2013 | 27 | 3 |
| 2014 | 26 | 3 |
| 2015 | 36 | 5 |
| 2016 | 36 | 4 |
So while Baylor still has a respectable class for 2016 and enough in-roads with Texas high schools to recruit at a competitive level, the expectations for where the Bears fall among their peers should change as the program moves forward from this scandal. Briles' impact on Baylor brought memorable wins and a new level of national recognition, but its reputation, even on an institutional level, has been shaken enough to think that a return to the pre-Briles era is more likely than a continuation of the program's trajectory.
Baylor won't lack for bodies, but four-star prospects like Brandon Bowen or the handful of former-Baylor-now-Texas pledges might be less common in Waco moving forward.
