Details emerge about departure of Baylor DL Jeremy Faulk

Faulk told Outside the Lines that he was questioned by Baylor coaches on June 1 about an incident he was involved in at Florida Atlantic. He said he was also questioned about an alleged sexual assault that may have occurred in April on the Baylor campus, when he was on the Baylor team. No charges were filed in either case; Faulk, who denies sexually assaulting anyone, said he's never been asked by police to discuss the alleged April incident.

Faulk's departure has angered Jeff Sims, a former assistant at Florida Atlantic and the former head coach at Garden City. Sims, who coached Faulk at both schools, says Baylor is trying to rid itself of anyone who has had an allegation made against him, true or not. And he's disturbed by something he said new Baylor interim coach Jim Grobe told him when he called to ask why Faulk's status on the team was in jeopardy over the alleged April incident.

"Grobe says to me, 'Listen, if he just leaves, he can go on, and we won't stop him from playing anywhere, and this investigation will stop.'" Flabbergasted at the notion a sexual assault investigation might disappear if an accused player were to leave the team, Sims said he pressed Grobe, but Grobe struggled to be more specific before implying that Baylor administrators had made him remove the player from the team.

A Baylor spokeswoman told Outside the Lines the university is reviewing the backgrounds of all incoming athletes who have transferred to the school from other athletic programs.

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The Baylor spokeswoman told Outside the Lines that its reviews of athletes include "pertinent documents from their previous institutions, which should detail any disciplinary actions. Once these records are received, they are used to inform our decisions related to these student-athletes becoming members of Baylor's athletic teams."

Faulk told Outside the Lines that he had exchanged a few text messages with the woman a couple days after the encounter, messages he described as being "random conversation." He said he's trying to retrieve those messages. He provided her name and number to Outside the Lines and said she would corroborate his story.

But when Outside the Lines reached her Thursday, she did not verify his account and instead said that Faulk and the other player "forced me to do things that I didn't want to do against my own consent." She declined to go into any further detail about what happened. She said Faulk texted her a few days later and asked to see her again, and she declined. She said she texted him one more time to inquire about his sexual medical history, and he did not respond.

The woman reported the alleged assault May 5 but told police that she did not want to press charges. She said someone from Baylor's Title IX office contacted her, and she met with someone a few weeks ago, but she didn't want an investigation; she said officials told her they had to do a preliminary investigation regardless. She said she is in counseling but is worried about retaliation and wants to move on.

He said that while he was there, he and a friend got in trouble after they burst open the door to a teammate's room and teased him and his girlfriend -- who were both naked in bed -- and threatened to pull off the sheets. Campus police were called, but no criminal charges were filed. Outside the Lines obtained the police report Thursday; the description of the "suspicious incident" on Nov. 3, 2013, matches Faulk's account.

The circumstances of Faulk's departure from the team and school are unclear: Faulk told Outside the Lines that he was initially told he was expelled from the university. Baylor officials would only confirm to Outside the Lines that he is no longer enrolled in school. Faulk provided to Outside the Lines an email from a Baylor academic support official sent Tuesday morning stating that his withdrawal had been finalized, but Faulk said he never asked to withdraw from school.

Outside the Lines reviewed Faulk's emails, which showed that the same morning he had received the email telling him his withdrawal from the university was final, he received another from the athletic department compliance office saying there "is not a Title IX report at Baylor" involving him. Faulk responded a few hours later by sending an email requesting a hearing and a chance to defend himself anyway. Only then did the Title IX office send him -- two hours later -- an email stating he'd been named as a respondent in a case and had been accused of violating the school's sexual discrimination, violence and harassment policy. The email provided no further details of an incident.

"No one's given me a reason why I've been released," Faulk said. "If I just leave, it will look like I'm guilty, and I didn't do anything."