Culture is why Matt Rhule is at Baylor. If he's successful in Waco, culture -- his own culture -- will be what keeps him there.
Rhule was clearly prepared to answer questions about Baylor's past during his appearance at Big 12 media days on Tuesday, no doubt largely because he's been receiving them from everyone he's interacted with since January.
"Come visit us," he says when asked about the Baylor scandal on the recruiting trail. "Come meet the players and see if you want to be part of this culture."
As for that culture, Rhule defined it as follows.
"Everything counts," he said. "Whatever you're asked to do, you do it to the best of your ability. Where what you do off the field, what you do in the classroom, how you treat other people is just as important as how you run a curl or how you run a post. We're trying to do that one man at a time. We're trying to make sure our kids know what it means to be a man. That they see that from the way we interact with our wives, with our kids. That we do what we say we're going to do. It's not easy. It's hard. But if you have a team that's smart, that's good in school, if you have a team that's a bunch of grown men that do what they're supposed to do, the football's usually a lot more fun. Football's a lot easier. I don't think any one is more important than the other. Everything counts. Everything's important. That's how we try to run our program, that's how we try to live our lives, knowing that we're not perfect. Knowing that I'm a mess half the time trying to get better and better and better as a coach, better as a father. We understand our kids, they're trying to get better. Every day we're trying to build that culture."
No matter what happens on the field, Rhule will be an effective palate cleanser for when the general public thinks "Baylor football." If his Bears take care of the little things, the football will be pretty good, too.