Baylor Coach Jim Grobe Doesn't Know Who Shawn Oakman Is, Apparently

VIDEO: Shawn Oakman walks to Baylor's Locker Room after Rice game on Friday. Jim Grobe's reaction from today's press conference about Oakman pic.twitter.com/OnkCJxNBYb
— Nick Canizales (@NickCanizales) September 19, 2016

Baylor, a Christian university in Texas perpetually incapable of getting out of its own way, beat the Rice Owls on Saturday, 38-10. After the game, former Baylor behemoth defensive end and the recently-indicted-for-sexual-assault Shawn Oakman was seen walking off the field and into the locker room to celebrate with the team. New head coach Jim Grobe has no idea who Oakman is, however, so don't blame him.

Baylor, you might recall, is also in the midst of a re-branding of sorts after the recent scandal involving the school's across-the-board failure to deal with sexual assault on campus, and in particular when the primary perpetrators were members of the football team, including the aforementioned Oakman. It cost university president and chancellor Ken Starr his job; ditto for former football coach Art Briles.

After Briles was fired, the university promised that it was going to do better and begin to hold people and programs accountable. First order of business was to hire Grobe, the former Wake Forest coach, to replace the outgoing Briles. Second order of business was…nothing. Every other member of Briles's staff remained at the school in order to preserve continuity. Not long after that, Grobe denied there was a rape culture at Baylor, and reverted back to the grade-school retort of everyone else is doing it, why are we the only ones getting in trouble? This on the same day that Big 12 commissioner said stopping rape on campus was "unrealistic," and one day before Oakman was indicted for forcibly removing a woman's clothes, forcing her onto his bed, and sexually assaulting her.

That is to say, it strains credulity that Jim Grobe would get in front of cameras and say he doesn't know who Shawn Oakman is. If, by some miracle, Jim Grobe actually does not know who Shawn Oakman is, it strains credulity that Baylor officials have not at some point told Grobe exactly who he is. It strains credulity that Oakman was allowed within a city mile of that campus in the first place, let alone on the field with this team that has become a symbol of everything wrong with college sports. And yet somehow, it all makes sense, because nothing Baylor has done from the moment this scandal broke until now indicates they are taking any of this seriously.

And if Grobe had trouble figuring out who Oakman was, he could have just asked his predecessor; Briles surely knows Oakman, and he was at the game, too.