Call him crazy (or stupid, or idiotic), but Art Briles looks at the Baylor football team – with its recent struggles and its lack of big-name players – and feels good.

Really good, as a matter of fact.

Wednesday, asked whether going to Baylor, a team that has won a combined eight conference games in the past six years, excites him, Baylor’s first-year head coach smiled.

“Yeah, it does,” he said. “Stupidly, it does. If 18 people say ‘no’, I’m looking for the one that says ‘yes.’ That inspires me. Is that stupid, dumb and ignorant? Probably, but : why do something that everybody else has been doing? Jump on the bicycle that nobody else wants and ride it.”

It’s hard to argue with the man, especially given his penchant for overhauling downtrodden programs. At Houston, Briles transformed one of the country’s worst programs into a perennial bowl-bound team.

“I like to walk down a path nobody else likes to walk down,” Briles said. “With our recruits, with our coaches, with our fans, I want pioneers. It’s easy to walk down a path that’s clear and pristine and perfect. But our path’s not that way, and we’ve got to have people that want to make it that way.”