The man hasn't given an interview in months, but Art Briles is back in the news again this week. The book examining the Baylor rape crisis is out today, and last week Briles's attorney Mark Lanier predicted -- without offering specifics -- that his client would work again in 2018. And now, Florida Atlantic head coach Lane Kiffin and offensive coordinator Kendal Briles were quoted in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel saying they talk to the elder Briles for help with the offense.
Here are the quotes:
“Obviously, he has ideas,” Kendal said. “He wants to know personnel and different guys and making sure we’re getting those guys in the right spots and getting them touches and all that stuff. He’s a football coach, that’s all he’s ever been. He’s definitely involved and we talk daily.”
“Obviously, he’s done unbelievable things on offense,” Kiffin said. “It’s his system that he started years and years ago. Every once in a while, I’ll text or call him and bounce something off of him.”
That story was published Monday afternoon but is just now making its way around the Internet today, trafficking on the "can you believe this" outrage it has predictably garnered.
What, exactly, is the story here?
The offense Florida Atlantic now runs is Art's offense. It's understandable Kendal and his dad would talk regularly, and it's likely that this father and son haven't gone longer than 48 hours -- heck, even 48 minutes -- without talking ball since Kendal could form complete sentences.
The expectation, stated or otherwise, that the Briles men would enforce some sort of invisible conversation wall around the game of football is ridiculous -- especially when you consider that the ouster of Art and his staff was an unjust scapegoating of the football team by Baylor's board of regents, as Art and Kendal do.
And it's not as if Art is on the FAU payroll or standing on the sidelines in Owl colors. Briles and Kiffin are engaging in dialogue about an offense with the man who designed said offense.
If you're bothered by that, you should've registered your outrage when Florida Atlantic first hired Kendal Briles in December.