Lane Kiffin talks to Art Briles to 'bounce' things off him

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer
Art Briles hasn’t coached since he was fired from Baylor. (Getty)
Art Briles hasn’t coached since he was fired from Baylor. (Getty)

Former Baylor coach Art Briles is taking on a bit of an informal advisory role with Florida Atlantic.

Briles’ son and former offensive coordinator Kendal Briles is the offensive coordinator at FAU under head coach Lane Kiffin. Monday, Kiffin said that he’s using the disgraced former Baylor coach as a sounding board of sorts.

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

“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.”

The optics of Kiffin discussing offensive concepts with the elder Briles are obviously not good.

Briles was fired from Baylor in May of 2016 after an independent investigation into the way football program staff handled sexual assault accusations. In his time as coach, Art Briles even allegedly asked why a woman who accused former Baylor players of sexual assault was with “bad dudes” from his football team.

But here’s the thing; it was inevitable that Art Briles was going to be available for advice the moment Kiffin hired Kendal Briles as his offensive coordinator. The revelation that Kiffin and Kendal are talking to Art shouldn’t come as news to anyone.

Football coaches bounce ideas off each other all of the time, plus you can’t expect a father not to talk to his son about football, especially if they’re both coaches. And if you’re able to separate Briles’ handling of serious issues of humanity from his football acumen — something that’s absolutely impossible in the real world — his Baylor teams’ offensive statistics were incredibly impressive.

Should Florida Atlantic staff be discussing any potential association with Art Briles publicly? Probably not. But now that they have, there’s no reason to be surprised that it’s happening. This was going to be part of the deal when Kiffin hired Kendal.

More college football on Yahoo Sports:

– – – – – – –

Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!