As TCU seeks to replace record-setting offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, college football’s reigning Broyles Award winner as the nation’s top assistant coach, one name familiar throughout the state of Texas continues to pop up: Kendal Briles.
He’s Arkansas’ record-setting offensive coordinator, a Lone Star State native and a former University of Houston player.
Also of note: several sources tell FootballScoop that the interest between the Horned Frogs and Sonny Dykes, the multiple national coach of the year recipient after leading TCU to the College Football Playoff title-game, and Briles is “real on both sides.”
One source with longstanding Big 12 experience told FootballScoop’s Zach Barnett that “Briles is real” in regards to the TCU vacancy, with another source indicating “It’s real, don’t believe anything is done yet.”
Kendal Briles had a decorated run at Baylor under his father, then-head coach Art Briles, before accusations of sexual assault and an alleged blind eye by the head coach and other university officials unraveled their tenure.
The younger Briles was not directly embroiled in that controversy, and he soon charted a meteoric rise outside of the Baylor shadow. Briles ran Lane Kiffin’s offense at Florida Atlantic University in 2017, bounced to his alma mater, Houston, for the ’18 season and then ran the show at Florida State in 2019.
First-time head coach Sam Pittman made Briles a priority to run his Arkansas Razorbacks’ offense prior to the 2020 season, and, once again, Briles has generated record-setting results for the Hogs.
In the past two years, Arkansas has featured a top-five offense in the Southeastern Conference led by dual-threat quarterback K.J. Jefferson. In addition to the statistical superlatives, Pittman’s Arkansas program has registered signature wins against former longtime Southwest Conference rival Texas, then-No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 14 Ole Miss and a pair of bowl wins against Penn State and Kansas, respectively, to cap the past two seasons.
The 40-year-old Briles, under contract with Arkansas through 2024, made $1.2 million this past season per public records of his contract; he was recently heavily courted by Zach Arnett and Mississippi State to run the Bulldogs’ offense but elected at that time to stick with Arkansas.
Sources have told FootballScoop that Briles is expected to receive a significant bump in compensation if he sticks with Arkansas in what would continue his longest stint at any one stop since beginning his collegiate coaching career with nine seasons at Baylor.