Report: Push for Art Briles' return as Baylor head football coach is dead

A push by major Baylor donors to bring back Art Briles as the football program's head coach after a one-year suspension is no more, according to a report from Chip Brown of Horns Digest (Scout.com).

Contract settlement talks between Briles and the university are underway, according to Brown's sources. Mediation has begun on how to settle his contract, which has eight years and nearly $40 million in guaranteed money remaining, according to Brown's sources.

Baylor regents never voted Monday night on the status of Briles, a school spokeswoman said Tuesday.

With the reports swirling Monday, Baylor donor Bob Simpson, whose name is on the school's athletics and academics center and who was a regular at home football postgame press conferences, said he would welcome Briles' return in a brief phone interview with our own Chuck Carlton.

"We don't know yet. We'd like to see that," said Simpson, also a co-owner of the Texas Rangers.

Briles had been "suspended indefinitely with intent to terminate according to contractual procedures," Baylor announced on May 26 as part of the school's response to a 13-page "findings of fact" in the Pepper Hamilton report.

According to Brown's sources, Briles and an influential group of Baylor donors had been led to believe by some leaders on the school's board of regents that then-president Ken Starr would be removed and blamed for the sexual assault scandal for not having a Title IX coordinator from 2011-14.

The investigation led by the Pepper Hamilton law firm into Baylor's mishandling of sexual assault claims revealed that 125 such claims were made from 2011 through 2014, according to Brown's sources.

-- To read Brown's full report on HornsDigest.com, click here. --