One former Tennessee coach believes the Vols would be getting a "brilliant" offensive coordinator if they hired Kendal Briles.

Florida Atlantic head coach Lane Kiffin, who spent one season at Tennessee in 2009 and more recently had Briles on his staff with the Owls on 2017, hailed the 36-year-old as a play-caller who would bring an explosive offense to Tennessee.

GoVols247 on Thursday first reported Briles, who just completed his first season as the offensive coordinator at Houston, was expected to interview with Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt about the offensive coordinator as early as Friday.

"(He's) brilliant," Kiffin said during an interview with Sports Radio WNML in Knoxville on Friday evening. "He did an unbelievable job wherever he's been. At Baylor, they broke every record there is. Then he came here and one year set every record in the conference. Then he went back over to Houston, where he actually went to school, and did it again.

"I don't know that anybody can say they've done it in that many places in that few years at that high a level."

Briles began his coaching career on his father Art's staff at Baylor in 2008 and worked in a variety of roles on the offensive side of the ball before becoming the offensive coordinator for the Bears in 2015. Baylor led the nation in scoring (48.1 ppg) and total offense (616.2 ypg) in 2015. The Bears ranked sixth nationally in total offense (522.7 ypg) in 2016.

The success continued when Briles hooked up with Kiffin, who was at Alabama on the same staff with Pruitt in 2016, at Florida Atlantic in 2017, when the Owls ranked ninth in the nation in total offense (498.4 ypg) in 2017 en route to an 11-win season including the Conference USA title.

Houston’s offense ranked sixth nationally this season in total offense, averaging 528.6 yards per game, and were fourth in scoring offense, at 46.4 points per game.

Kiffin is confident Briles can take offenses with any talent level and turn it into a successful unit.

"He's proven that over those years at Baylor," Kiffin said. "They were never getting five-star recruits until later on, maybe they were, but initially there were getting two-star players and stuff and would go move on the ball every year. They'd go play an Ole Miss out of conference or something and still light it up."

Though Briles's scheme is a variety of the spread and relies on a fast tempo, Kiffin believes it can translate in any conference because of its balance and pointed to the explosive offenses Hugh Freeze coordinated at Ole Miss and Josh Heupel, now at UCF, produced at Missouri as evidence Briles could bring his offense and put up points and yards in the rugged SEC.

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Kiffin also noted how Briles's scheme thrives on balance, a notion backed up by Houston averaging 300 yards passing and more than 227 yards per game on the ground this season.

"There's a misconception that they throw the ball all over the place," Kiffin said. "He's not the Mike Leach disciple where he's going to throw it 60, 70 times. He runs the ball. They almost always are top 10 in the country in rushing. All those years at Baylor and last year here, we were second in the country in rushing besides option teams. That's a big misconception. Now he spreads the field with big splits with an extremely fast tempo, but they'll run it right at you."

Briles also is a target of Florida State, so Tennessee has some competition if it wants to hire Briles as its offensive coordinator.

"I've spoke to Kendal a number of times on this, and they're both great opportunities," Kiffin said. "It just depends. One's an offensive head coach, one's a defensive head coach. You've got to look at personnel and is that coach going to let you take it and run with it and run your unique system from A to Z when it comes to offense. He's got a lot to figure out.

"He'd be a great fit for anybody. Like I've said to the people involved in this, if you want to score a lot of Saturday and win games, he's a really good fit. I think that's the object."