Florida Atlantic Football

Florida Atlantic Owls head football coach Lane Kiffin and offensive coordinator Kendal Briles said Sunday that they are both in communication with former Baylor head coach Art Briles regarding offensive principles.

According to Matthew DeFranks of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Kiffin and Briles said they have reached out informally to the elder Briles because of his knowledge and experience running the uptempo offense they are employing at FAU.

Kendal, who is Art Briles' son, said the following about his discussions with his father: "Obviously, he has ideas. 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."

From 2008 through 2015, Kendal served under Art as an assistant at Baylor. Kendal was the offensive coordinator during his father's final season with the Bears in 2015, and he remained in that role during the 2016 campaign.

Baylor fired the elder Briles in May 2016 amid a sexual assault scandal involving Baylor football players. It also resulted in the resignation of Baylor president Ken Starr and athletic director Ian McCaw.

Kendal Briles and Kiffin made it clear that Art isn't a member of the coaching staff, but Kiffin mentioned the relationship he has with the former Bears head coach: "Obviously, he's done unbelievable things on offense. 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."

During Briles' time as Baylor's head coach, the Bears went 65-37 and reached bowl games in six of his eight seasons.

Baylor was annually near the top of the nation offensively under Briles, and it led college football in points per game every year from 2013 through 2015.

Former Oklahoma quarterback Chris Robison announced his intention to transfer to Florida Atlantic for the fall semester.

Eddie Radosevich of Sooner Scoop provided the statement:

Florida Atlantic head football coach Lane Kiffin responded to social media buzz Friday comparing his 2013 exit from USC to Friday's announcement by President Donald Trump that General John F. Kelly would replace Reince Priebus as the White House Chief of Staff. 

Kiffin tweeted a link to a Fansided article comparing the two firings, adding the hashtag "#Feel4U":

The former Trojans head coach was fired at the airport when the team arrived back from a 62-41 loss at Arizona State four years ago. Billy Witz of the New York Times noted he was called off the team bus before the return trip to campus around 3 a.m. local time and informed of the program's decision.

In January 2016, Kiffin called that moment the "lowest point" of his career and said he was completely unaware of the impending termination, per Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports.

"I had no idea at all," he said. "It totally caught me off guard. I got off the plane. I put my bag on the bus. I was going to sleep at the facility. Someone came and said, 'Pat wants to see you.' I left my briefcase on the bus."

Fast forward to Friday, when Politico's Josh Gerstein (via Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times) reported the vehicle Priebus was in got left on the Joint Base Andrews tarmac after the president's motorcade left:

After his bizarre final moments as USC's head coach, Kiffin went on to spend three years on Alabama's offensive coordinator before accepting the FAU job in December.

First-year Florida Atlantic head coach Lane Kiffin hosted a satellite camp on campus Monday and had some fun with reporters in the process.

"We aspire to be like Jim Harbaugh," the coach said of the Michigan coach who famously undertook a busy satellite camp schedule in the past, via Rachel Lenzi of Land of 10. "No, seriously, he does a great job. He gets everywhere, and they [Michigan] have the resources to do that."

ESPN.com shared a video clip of some of Kiffin's comments:

Lenzi noted coaches from Michigan, Tennessee, Oregon, Auburn and Arkansas were all at the camp, and Kiffin said members of the Wolverines' coaching staff reached out to Florida Atlantic's staff about attending.

The NCAA previously restricted Division I programs to a mere 10 June days of satellite camps, and Michigan coaches have attended camps in Ohio, Florida, Maryland and Georgia thus far this year, per Lenzi.

There is a satellite-camp connection between Kiffin and Harbaugh. Alabama head coach Nick Saban criticized the practice when Kiffin was the Crimson Tide's offensive coordinator, prompting this response from Harbaugh:

Kiffin was surely harkening back to the exchange between the two schools when he joked Monday, but aspiring to be like Harbaugh isn't a bad plan. Michigan went 10-3 in each of the last two years under the coach and was in the thick of the College Football Playoff race for most of the 2016 campaign.

Florida Atlantic is coming off three straight 3-9 campaigns, meaning Kiffin is facing a daunting challenge.

Lane Kiffin continues to get an early start on his recruiting, most recently offering a scholarship to a seventh-grade quarterback.

According to Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports, the Florida Atlantic coach provided an offer to Pierce Clarkson, the son of quarterback guru Steve Clarkson.

This is the second long-term recruiting move Kiffin has made at FAU, as he also offered a scholarship to Tee Martin's son, Kaden, per Feldman.

The fathers of both players have a connection to Kiffin from his days at USC. Tee Martin is the Trojans' current offensive coordinator and was the receivers coach in 2012-13 when Kiffin led the program.

As Chris Chavez of Sports Illustrated noted, Scott Clarkson has worked with USC quarterbacks Matt Leinart and Matt Barkley.

Still, Kiffin has been known to be overaggressive on the recruiting trail in the past. He earned a commitment from 13-year-old David Sills in 2010 when he was head coach of USC, although the Delaware native never ended up playing for the Trojans.

While this is one strategy to get a jump on other programs, the 42-year-old coach might not be the best one to execute this plan. Since 2007, Kiffin is in his fourth head coaching job, plus a stint as offensive coordinator for Alabama.

Considering he has not stayed at any program for more than four years, recruiting middle-schoolers could be too ambitious.

While coaching the USC Trojans in 2010, Lane Kiffin famously offered a scholarship to then-13-year-old quarterback David Sills. Now in charge of the Florida Atlantic Owls, Kiffin has gone back to that well.

Fox Sports' Bruce Feldman reported Monday that Kiffin has offered a scholarship to Kaden Martin, the 13-year-old son of USC offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Tee Martin.

ESPN's Chris Low noted this is Martin's first scholarship offer, and plays quarterback like his father did. 

Before joining the Trojans staff, Tee starred as a quarterback for the Tennessee Volunteers. He helped lead the Vols to their last national championship in 1998.

According to Feldman, the younger Martin also has a burgeoning baseball career. He described Kaden as "a promising pitcher in baseball whose fastball has been clocked in the 80s."

Targeting a seventh-grader is a bold move for Kiffin, especially since there's a chance he won't be at FAU long enough to see Kaden join the Owls. Kiffin's USC stint was the longest of his head coaching career, and he didn't even last four full seasons.

Beyond any questions about Kiffin's long-term future in Boca Raton, Florida, there's also the risk inherent in offering a scholarship to a player who's yet to play a down of football at the high school level.

Sills never went to USC and instead joined the West Virginia Mountaineers, where he moved to wide receiver. After transferring to El Camino College to prove himself as a quarterback, Sills returned to West Virginia and is listed as a wideout on the team's official site.

In 2016, Bleacher Report's Matt Hayes spoke to former members of Kiffin's staff at USC who claimed Sills' scholarship offer was more of a ploy to attract attention to the Trojans.

"[Sills] clearly had talent for such a young kid," one staff member said. "Lane's thought was any news was good news. He knew it would be the lead story everywhere."

Another staff member said, "Lane may as well have been P.T. Barnum those first few months [of his USC tenure]."

In offering a scholarship to Kaden Martin, Kiffin is certainly bringing a new level of attention to the Owls program. 

As Lane Kiffin prepares for his first season as Florida Atlantic University's head football coach, he took time to deliberate some of life's greatest quandaries on Twitter.

Over the last few days, the former Alabama offensive coordinator has posed bizarre philosophical questions. Two of his inquiries duplicated mysteries Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside asked a fish and baby octopus to solve last week:

He tagged Chase Moabery, who according to Sun Sentinel's Matthew DeFranks is the son of FAU trustee Abdol Moabery. He responded with more riddles:

Owls fans will hope he figures out another tough conundrum and leads the program to a winning season after three consecutive 3-9 seasons.

[Twitter]

Former Alabama wideout Antonio Carter is suing Lane Kiffin, Florida Atlantic and the state of Florida for fraud, according to Christopher Walsh of SEC Country and Bleacher Report.

Carter claimed he was only offered the job of assistant strength and conditioning coach to help Florida Atlantic obtain a prospect, and the school reneged on its offer once that player agreed to a scholarship.

"The prospect's family had just celebrated New Year's Eve together with Plaintiff Antonio Carter and his family just a few weeks earlier," the lawsuit noted. "It is believed that this relationship between Plaintiff Antonio Carter and the coveted prospect was known to the coaches and defendants at the time he was hired."

Carter has claimed Kiffin assured him he had been hired, but Florida Atlantic then informed Carter that he hadn't passed a background check "due to two prior minor misdemeanor criminal charges."

A.J. Perez of USA Today noted that Carter had four previous arrests under misdemeanor charges, however:

Carter was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia by Tallahassee (Fla.) police in March 2010. He was arrested in November 2010 on a failure to appear on a drug charge. He also had two arrests for operating a motor vehicle with a suspended or revoked license in 2014, one in May of that year by the Florida Highway Patrol and the other by Florida State University police in November.

Carter took pleas and accrued no jail time in each case, as Perez reported.

Carter said both he and his wife quit their jobs and traveled to the campus after receiving the alleged assurances from Kiffin, as Carter was going to assist the school in recruiting for national signing day.

He also claimed he had resolved his misdemeanor charges and sent documentation to Florida Atlantic, but the school never responded. He added that athletic director Patrick Chun refused to meet with him, even after he waited outside of Chun's office for several hours.

Lane Kiffin is reportedly adding a big name to his staff at Florida Atlantic University in the form of his father, Monte Kiffin.

Alex Marvez of Sporting News was the first to report the impending hire. ESPN.com's Michael DiRocco later confirmed it.

The senior Kiffin's coaching title isn't yet known.

Lane Kiffin previously served as head coach at both Tennessee and USC, and his father assisted him at each of those stops as well.

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The 77-year-old Monte Kiffin has been a coach since 1966 and has 29 years of NFL coaching experience under his belt.

He is best known for serving as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive coordinator from 1996 through 2008. It was with the Bucs that he helped popularize the "Tampa 2" defense and led them to a Super Bowl championship.

Monte spent 2016 as a defensive assistant with the Jacksonville Jaguars after working as the Dallas Cowboys' defensive coordinator in 2013 and then their assistant head coach for defense in 2014.

Lane spent 2014 through 2016 as the offensive coordinator at Alabama before taking the head coaching job at FAU.

He has already hired his brother, Chris Kiffin, as defensive coordinator.

Lane is 35-21 in five seasons as a college head coach, and he went 5-15 in parts of two campaigns as head coach of the Oakland Raiders.

The Florida Atlantic University Owls have hired former West Virginia Mountaineers and Florida State Seminoles quarterback Clint Trickett as their new tight ends coach, according to Fox Sports' Bruce Feldman. 

Trickett's Twitter bio has been changed to reflect the move. 

Before landing at Florida Atlantic, Trickett served as an assistant coach with the Eastern Mississippi Lions and was featured on Netflix's Last Chance U. 

Trickett tweeted on Feb. 2 that he accepted an offensive graduate assistant coaching position with the Alabama Crimson Tide, but he's now headed to Boca Raton to link up with former Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, who was named Florida Atlantic head coach on Dec. 13. 

According to CoachingSearch.com's Chris Vannini, Trickett will take over at FAU for Charlie Weis Jr. The Sun Sentinel's Matthew DeFranks reported Weis Jr. left the Owls on Friday to serve as an offensive assistant with the Atlanta Falcons.