Matt Rhule thinks he knows what he’s getting into.

Baylor was rocked by a sexual assault scandal starting in 2015 that eventually saw the university dismiss head football coach Art Briles as well as the university president and athletic director.

On the field, the program took a nose-dive with interim head coach Jim Grobe.

Because Grobe was only hired on an interim basis for one season, the coaching staff conducted no recruiting activities for their remaining tenure. That left Baylor with one prospect committed at the end of November, after a 7-6 season on the field, and all its coaches on the way out.

Baylor was then tasked with finding a coach who was willing to take on the challenge that lies ahead in rebuilding the program and the culture, and someone who would do it the right way.

That’s where Rhule comes in.

Despite months of controversy and an intimidating task ahead on the recruiting trail, Rhule opted to leave Temple, after two 10-win seasons, to become the head coach at Baylor.

So where does a new coach start recruiting after inheriting a scandal he didn’t take part in and a depleted roster?

“I think you start with one player at a time, and a lot of these kids aren’t committed, but they haven’t been recruited by Baylor in quite some time,” Rhule said. “The positive for me, because of last year, it might take a few years to get the scholarship count back to 85 scholarships. That’s the job and I like doing this because it’s a chance to build the program.”

Since taking over, Rhule has the Bears up to eight commitments, including ESPN 300 wide receiver R.J. Sneed.

The numbers at this point won’t be as important to Rhule as the evaluation of each prospect. That’s been a major focus of his strategy and system that has brought so much success in the past. That means, he doesn’t just want to fill the roster with bodies, but prospects that he and his staff can later develop into contributors to help build Baylor into a championship program.

“That’s been the recipe, to me, for great programs for a long time is recruiting the right kids that fit for you,” Rhule said. “… So we’ll try to get the right people here, then we’ll develop them, whether they’re the No. 1 recruit in the country or a person you’ve never heard of.”

Beyond development, discovery and connections are the next big step.

Since Rhule has spent most of his playing and coaching career on the East Coast, he needed some help in identifying the best prospects in the talent-rich state of Texas. He also needed help building relationships with the high school communities within the Lone Star state.

So what better way to do so than to hire some of those high school coaches. Rhule hired Cedar Hill’s Joey McGuire, San Antonio Ronald Reagan’s David Wetzel and Round Rock Cedar Ridge’s Shawn Bell, all prominent coaches within the state.

“In hiring high school coaches, obviously there’s a tremendous relationship they’ve already built with the coaches across the state, but at the same time, they’re about the same things I’m about,” Rhule said. “I’m going to bring a lot of our guys from Temple, because they’re good at what they do, and then I’m going to augment that with people with Texas ties.”

That move has seemingly already brought him closer to the state’s prospects and has given him an instant relationship with high schools across the state.

Quarterback Avery Davis, who is committed to Notre Dame, played for McGuire at Cedar Hill. Davis says McGuire going to Baylor doesn’t impact his commitment, but he thinks it was an incredibly smart move by Rhule to bring in such a well-respected high school coach.

“A guy coming to Texas and hiring Texas coaches, he clearly wants to know something about Texas football and those high school coaches can help with that,” Davis said. “They trust those coaches … who had success at the highest level. So there’s a little buzz about Baylor.”

That little buzz is all Rhule can ask for after taking over a program with so much negativity surrounding it. His job is now to rebuild and reshape the image of a team and he is up for the challenge to do so any way he can.

“I’m here to stand up wherever I can to talk about the Baylor experience,” Rhule said.

“…Then we’ll hope that pretty soon we can be seen as a place that everyone in Texas has respect for and likes the way we do things.”