Matt Rhule can win at Baylor, if the Bears are patient

After the 2016 and 2017 classes, it will take a while for Matt Rhule to get Baylor’s talent level up.

Baylor has hired Temple coach Matt Rhule.

Rhule has presided over turnarounds before. In the four years before he took the Temple job, the Owls had won just 17 games. In his four years, Rhule won 28, an improvement of 65 percent.

Matt Rhule will now take on one of the biggest rebuilding projects in the Power 5.

That will start with recruiting.

Following the sexual assault scandal that led to the firing of Art Briles, Baylor’s recruiting is in complete shambles. As of Dec. 6, the Bears have just one commitment. This follows a year in which Baylor lost the vast majority of its top 2016 signees as well. It is, effectively, two years of unofficial sanctions as a result of the school’s extreme negative image.

From 2012-15, 15 percent of Baylor's signees were rated four- or five-stars, a trend that was rapidly increasing as the Bears established themselves as a program. But Baylor's 2016 signing class was slashed to just 17 members, with only one blue-chipper. 2017 is even worse. Baylor has just one commitment, and there is zero chatter about BU's chances at top prospects.

Even if the new staff hits the ground running, which it won't, the 2016-17 classes are going to set Baylor back on the field significantly.

This is going to be really tough.

I hope Rhule got paid, because the chance he gets Baylor back to annual Big 12 contender status any time soon is extremely small.

Rhule has no noteworthy experience recruiting in Texas.

I often scoff at the “[coach] has no experience recruiting in [state]” ideas thrown around. Urban Meyer had little experience recruiting Florida before he put together one of the best five-year recruiting runs ever with the Gators.

But with Texas, it is a bit different. Texas high school coaches are a fickle bunch, and it can take a while to win them over, as Charlie Strong found out at Texas.

Rhule’s spent almost all of his career on the East Coast.

A pro-style system could complicate matters.

Speaking of those Texas high school coaches, they do not run the pro-style offense Rhule has run at Temple. They run the spread. And they run it at a blistering pace. And they do it starting in little league ball.

That could be a major problem, if Rhule doesn’t strongly adapt to the available talent in the state.

Rhule is a really good coach, but Strong arguably doomed himself by taking two years to figure out how tough it is to change Texas prospects who have grown up in the spread. As of this writing, Rhule has not indicated what sort of offense he will run.

His defense, though, has done a great job of defending a wide variety of offenses in the AAC, and that will play very well in the explosive Big 12.

Tom Herman at Texas makes this tougher.

New Texas coach Herman has been an absolute beast of a recruiter everywhere he has been. All indications are that he is going to take Texas’ recruiting back to the very top of college football. That means there are going to be far fewer elite recruits in play for Baylor, compared to the latter years of Mack Brown’s tenure or Strong’s tenure.

Baylor’s talent pool is going to be limited for a long time.

I cannot speak to internal changes Baylor has made to fix its problems, but as someone who comes from the outside and covers national recruiting, I can confidently say that Baylor has a major image and culture problem.

That is going to be difficult to overcome in the near term. Some parents just won’t send their kids to Baylor, as they do not want to be associated with the program.

Even if Baylor gets its act together internally, its team is still not likely to be very good. And it is hard to attract kids to Waco if the program is simply going to middling bowl games.

Higher standards could prevent a quick JUCO fix.

At almost any other program, a roster with this many holes would be extremely inviting to top junior college players, because of the certainty of early playing time. But while Baylor may be able to plug some holes with JUCO players, some players are at a JUCO because of disciplinary issues at their first university.

If Baylor is truly committed to turning around its program and image, it will likely be going over disciplinary records with a fine-tooth comb.

What are reasonable expectations for Rhule at Baylor?

Baylor finished 2016 on a six-game losing streak, but was still bowl eligible.

Rhule should keep Baylor going to bowl games in his early tenure, thanks in large part to a cakewalk non-conference schedule. In the next four seasons, Baylor plays just three games against Power 5 teams in the non-conference: Duke twice, and a 2020 opener against Ole Miss. He should absolutely be able to go 11-1 in the non-conference during his first four seasons.

Within the league, the Bears still likely have better talent than Iowa State, Texas Tech, and Kansas, and similar talent to a few others.

Due to limited depth, injury luck will play a large role in Rhule’s success.

If Rhule can win the games the talent level on the team indicates Baylor should win, it could buy him time to slowly build back up Baylor’s recruiting. But this meal will be made in the slow cooker, not the microwave.