Kendal Briles has not come up in Tennessee football’s offensive coordinator search. Jeremy Pruitt is blowing a huge opportunity for the Volunteers.
Tennessee football is still searching for an offensive coordinator to replace Tyson Helton, and two separate news reports Wednesday show that Jeremy Pruitt is making a huge mistake. One involves the decision of a coach and another involves where the Vols are looking.
It all started with the news report that Kendal Briles is staying as offensive coordinator with the Houston Cougars. Briles was a candidate for the Texas State Bobcats head coaching job. But by staying at Houston, he is now off the market as a head coaching candidate.
But the next report was worse. Zach Barnett of Football Scoop reported that Pruitt’s top two candidates for Tennessee football’s next offensive coordinator were Chip Lindsey of the Auburn Tigers and Eli Drinkwitz of the N.C. State Wolfpack. If this is true, Pruitt is blowing the Vols’ best chance to have the most exciting offense in football next year.
Briles is the most no-brainer hire anybody could make to run an offense right now. There are literally no negatives on the resume, and anybody who passes up on him is making a huge mistake. Look at what’s happened to teams since he left them.
While he was putting up over 40 points in all but two games this year with the Houston Cougars, Lane Kiffin’s Florida Atlantic Owls went 5-7 this past year without him. In 2017, when Briles was Kiffin’s offensive coordinator, they went 11-3 and won the Conference USA.
Before that, working under his father with the Baylor Bears in 2015 and then staying on after Art Briles’s firing in 2016, he produced high-powered offenses consistently. The Bears made a bowl game both times. Then he left, and Baylor fell to 1-11.
The most amazing stat of all for Kendal Briles is that his offense has put up 30 or more points in the past 23 straight games that he’s called. The guy is an offensive genius, and Tennessee football is making a huge mistake not going after him.
If you wanted to say that Jeremy Pruitt wants more of a pure pro-style, that doesn’t make sense anymore. Chip Lindsey and Eli Drinkwitz both worked under Gus Malzahn’s spread offense. So they use major elements of that.
Meanwhile, Briles uses elements of his father’s spread and Kiffin’s pro-style. It’s the best and most cutting edge offense out there, one that would succeed anywhere. Could you imagine what Biles would be able to do with some SEC weapons?
He’s also versatile based on his personnel. In 2017, Briles focused more on a rushing attack at Florida Atlantic, throwing it 26 times and running 48 times a game. The result was 498 yards a game. Then, in 2018, with new personnel, he went to the air more and threw it 37 times a game en route to averaging 528 yards every outing.
So the most ridiculous argument against him is that his system wouldn’t fit. But there are three other ridiculous arguments people may may make against hiring Briles, and all of them need to be addressed here.
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The first is the fact that Briles just signed a three-year contract with the Cougars. Does anybody really believe that Pruitt and Phillip Fulmer could not get him out of that and pay any money he might owe the university? The Vols have one of the Top 15 budgets in all of college football. Tyson Helton just made $1.2 million, while Briles’s salary before his extension was only $400,000. So the contract argument makes no sense.
Others would question if he wants to leave given the fact that he just turned down a head coaching job. Again, that makes no sense. He turned down an opportunity at Texas State! This is a chance to leave the AAC and join the SEC as an offensive coordinator, which would only raise his profile. It’s completely different.
Finally, the biggest concern for many may have been the sexual assault scandal that got his father fired at Baylor. There were things to potentially implicate him. However, after cleaning house, including firing the president, the school still allowed him to stay on as an assistant. So if they could withstand that after the scandal broke, the concerns are clearly not as bad with bringing him to Rocky Top.
There is no offensive coordinator out there better than Briles. Tennessee football would probably do fine with Chip Lindsey or Eli Drinkwitz, but why not go for the big name? There is a 100 percent chance that Briles would be a smashing success in Knoxville, and there’s also a 100 percent chance that the Vols could lure him there. So by not looking at him, Jeremy Pruitt is really blowing a huge chance to have the most cutting-edge and exciting offense in the SEC.