Owls winging it

In offensive system, nothing’s written out

FAU plays come without a physical playbook.

BOCA RATON — When DeAndre McNeal was at Texas, he asked offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert for a copy of the playbook. Gilbert didn’t give him one. He didn’t have one to give. There was no playbook.

Gilbert — a descendant of the Art Briles coaching tree and purveyor of the up-tempo, spread scheme popularized by Briles at Baylor — had a scheme, but not on paper.

“‘What do you mean there’s no playbook?’ ” McNeal, now a receiver at Florida Atlantic, asked Gilbert. “‘Look, this offense is so simple, but it’s so hard to defeat that you don’t need it.’ So we don’t need it. It works for me, I like it.”

Kendal Briles has brought the offense to FAU in his first season as the Owls offensive coordinator. He also doesn’t have a playbook, an anomaly in a sport that can sometimes get bogged down with complexity.

FAU coach Lane Kiffin said he’s always had a physical playbook for his offenses, most recently when he was the offensive coordinator at Alabama for the past three seasons. Previously, he directed offenses at USC and Tennessee.

“I think part of that, too, is when you don’t have a playbook,

“Nothing’s ever on paper because that’s how things get out when people end up taking other jobs.” Lane Kiffin, head coach

stuff doesn’t get out,” Kiffin said. “I think that’s part of why they do what they do. Nothing’s ever on paper because that’s how things get out when people end up taking other jobs, using playbooks to show people, stuff like that.”

The system has spread around the country thanks to Briles’ assistants moving on to bigger jobs. Gilbert brought it to Texas and now to South Florida. Dino Babers took it to Bowling Green, then Syracuse. Philip Montgomery brought it to Tulsa. And Kendal Briles brought it to FAU.

The onus to teach the offense falls on Briles. Kiffin said he learned the offense from film study, cutups and drawings.

McNeal said FAU will watch some Baylor film “to see what it’s supposed to look like.” In Art Briles’ past five seasons at Baylor (before he was fired amid the sexual assault scandal at the school), the offense was one of the most productive in college football.

It ranked in the Top 2 nationally in total offense from 2011-15, including leading the nation from 2013-15.

“If there’s something new, we’re going to draw it up,” McNeal said. “It’s so simple, that once they draw it up, you go ‘OK, if it’s this, you have that, if it’s that, you have this.’ It’s just like that.”

McNeal said the receivers’ job in Briles’ offense is simple: get open and get up field. Kiffin has said that receivers have more freedom in Briles’ offense than he’s seen in any offense before.

Baylor’s offense was stacked with speed on the outside. KD Cannon ran a 4.41-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. Corey Coleman was clocked at 4.37 during Baylor’s Pro Day in 2016.

“Of course, Baylor had receivers, they were track stars,” McNeal said. “Everybody that was on

that team that was a receiver ran a 4.4 and under.”

FAU is trending that way with recent additions. John Franklin III transferred from Auburn, where he said he ran a 4.25-second 40-yard dash. West Virginia transfer receiver Jovon Durante should add more speed on the outside, though he would have to sit out a year.

When asked how to tweak the scheme to match receiving personnel, Kiffin said quarterback-receiver chemistry was paramount.

“It is a lot of quarterbacks and receivers being on the same page,” Kiffin said. “Hopefully, we’ve added some speed with our last acquisition. We just got to get guys in the right spots and get guys on the same page because we play in nine days.”

McNeal, 6-foot-1 and 236 pounds, figures to be one of the top receivers on FAU after he caught 42 passes for 640 yards at Fullerton College in California.

“Anybody can draw it on the board, but if you actually see somebody in a game-type situation at top-notch institutions running these actual plays that you’re running here, it’s much easier to accept,” McNeal said.

FAU will not practice Thursday before its mock game on Friday night. Kiffin said the Owls would have meetings and walkthroughs to help simulate a game.