Sonny Dykes: Kendal Briles shares the 'same vision I do' on offense
When Garrett Riley left Fort Worth to go to Clemson, TCU head coach Sonny Dykes made the decision to hire Kendal Briles as his new offensive coordinator. The two had never coached together but both are the sons of former big-time college football coaches from the state of Texas — albeit coaches with different legacies.
That’s not the only similarity he and Briles share, Dykes said at Big 12 Media Days.
“Kendal coming in, I think he shares the same vision I do,” Dykes said. “I think we come from the same place as far as our football background in a lot of ways. He wants to run the ball. He wants to be a physical offense that runs the football, and I think that’s what I want to be, as well. I think we saw the value in having a tough, physical, hard-nosed run game last year and the success we had up front and the success Kendre Miller had and Max running the ball. All those things were important to us having the success that we had.”
Briles has a lot of experience as an offensive coordinator. He has held the position at five different schools prior to TCU, and has been an OC every year starting in 2015. The 40-year-old coach arrives in Texas after three seasons as the offensive coordinator at Arkansas.
His offense last year with the Razorbacks was similar to the Horned Frogs offense. Both were led by dynamic dual threats at the quarterback position with a star running back beside him in the backfield.
“Kendal shares that same philosophy. I think that the offense will look pretty similar, but it truly comes from a different place,” Dykes said. “Garrett was more of a traditional air-raid guy and had pretty air-raid-heavy or air-raid-centric concepts. Kendal has got a lot of the same things but probably a little bit more wrinkles than we had in the past. Like you said, has a history of playing very fast.
“Our pace of play will be determined by figuring out ways to win football games, and sometimes going slow and protecting our defense is the way to go to give ourselves the best chance to win. Sometimes you have to make those adjustments. You look at Texas last year, we go into that game, two high-powered offenses, and it’s 3-0 at halftime. You’ve got to adapt as you get into those games, and you have to do what it takes to win games.”
Briles take over an offense that had a major breakout in 2022 — Dykes first year leading the program — as the Horned Frogs made it all the way to the national championship game. But the team lost a lot of talent from that side of the ball to the NFL.
Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan is gone at quarterback. Leading rusher Kendre Miller is in the pros too. So are TCU’s top two wideouts in Quentin Johnston and Derius Davis — and All-American offensive guard Steve Avila.
Briles isn’t the only fresh face fans will be seeing on the offensive side of the football come Week 1. But Dykes believes Briles and the group will be able to continue the success built last year.
“He’s a tremendous leader,” Dykes said. “He provides a lot of confidence to that group. I think our players really believe in him. I think they really like the system that we’re running, and he certainly has a lot of experience calling it. Excited to see what it looks like. The big challenge is always to get the pieces to fit together. I really like the pieces that we have. We’ve got some really high-quality young players that I think have a chance to step up. Also some very high-quality transfers, as well. That’s what makes it fun is seeing that stuff come together. You could see the beginning of it happening in the spring and certainly needs to carry over to the fall. Really optimistic about that group that we have offensively.”