Steven Johnson: TCU wants to hire Kendal Briles, is he really worth the headache?

TCU is zeroing in on its next offensive coordinator.

Reports broke over the weekend that coach Sonny Dykes is targeting Kendal Briles to replace Garrett Riley as offensive coordinator.

A source within program made it clear over the week that no deal was finalized and that in the past 48 hours, the process has come to a standstill. Why? Because when the move was leaked it was met by fierce pushback by the TCU fanbase and from national pundits.

Multiple sources within the program indicated that Briles remains the top target, but the school is hoping some of the blowback will die down before the deal is finalized. If that’s the route TCU is taking, it begs the question: Is the move really worth it?

It takes months, sometimes years to build up goodwill. And Dykes and athletics director Jeremiah Donati built plenty in their first year together that included a national championship appearance, a completely reworked media policy and fan support from the likes of Dez Bryant and Luka Doncic.

While it takes a long time to build goodwill, you can lose it in a blink of an eye and TCU has to tread lightly as the emotions of the 65-7 blowout defeat to Georgia last Monday are still fresh and were only made worse when offensive coordinator Garrett Riley’s departed to Clemson.

Do you really want to compound that with hiring the son of a former nemesis that comes with plenty of baggage? Let’s layout why there has been so much push back against the hire.

On the surface Briles checks many of the boxes Dykes wants in his next coordinator. Deep Texas ties, familiarity with the air raid offense and he’s coached quarterbacks since 2015. But his name is Briles and that’s where the baggage starts.

Being the son of Art Briles, who led TCU’s greatest rival to its best stretch in program history and kept TCU out of the College Football Playoff in 2014, would be enough to make fans less than enthusiastic about the hire. But those are mostly juvenile feelings that come with rivalries in the sport.

That could be overlooked with a charming press conference and with an exciting offense in spring football. But what about Kendal’s involvement in the sexual assault scandal that rocked Baylor and the entire country?

Kendal’s name was not implicated and he actually kept his job at Baylor after his father was fired, but don’t mistake that as a sign of complete innocence.

According to a Title IX lawsuit filed Jan. 27, 2017, Briles, then an assistant for his father at Baylor, asked a Dallas-area recruit: “Do you like white women? Because we have a lot of them at Baylor and they love football players.”

A Houston Chronicle column by Jenny Dial Creech said evidence of Briles using sex as a recruiting pitch go beyond what was stated in the lawsuit.

Dial Creech reported that three players from the Houston area who went on to other universities said that Briles told recruits female students at Baylor were very available to football players. Kendal showed little to no remorse for how the scandal played out in Waco.

Just a few months after his father was let go, Kendal ‘honored’ his father by coaching a game against Northwestern State with the initials “CAB (Coach Art Briles)“ on his hands. That doesn’t sound like remorse.

His ties to his father hasn’t stopped Kendal from landing plenty of jobs and it is worth noting that Dykes already hired a former Baylor staffer with Kaz Kazadi, as the assistant athletics director for football human performance.

Kazadi was one of the most integral staff members to TCU’s rapid turn around with multiple players praising his approach to nutrition and sports psychology. So obviously there can be value to bringing in a coach that has ties to such an ugly situation, but Kazadi was with Dykes for years at SMU before heading to Fort Worth.

There’s also a difference between hiring a strength coach and an offensive coordinator. Briles will be the most visible assistant on Dykes’ staff and that must be considered. On a campus that is almost 60% women, what type of message would that send to them and the women that support the Horned Frogs?

As for the football case for Briles, his track record is elite, but it has begun to cool off the last few years. In his lone year at Florida State, in 2019, the offense improved under his watch, but finished just 73rd in scoring offense and 61st in total offense.

Since 2020, Briles has coached at Arkansas where the offenses have been good, but not great. The Razorbacks have yet to produce a Top-25 scoring offense and Arkansas was middle of the pack in the SEC in most categories despite starting the season ranked No. 19.

Briles has still done some good things in Fayetteville, including producing one of the nation’s top running backs and molding K.J. Jefferson into one of the sport’s top dual-threat quarterbacks.

But are his offenses still producing at the level they were at Baylor, Florida Atlantic or Houston? Not quite which begs the question: Is it really worth the P.R. nightmare to bring him into the fold?

With all the interest I’m sure there is at the TCU offensive coordinator position, is Briles the best the school can do? I don’t think so, but what fans or the media thinks may not matter.