This wasn't the first time we got to hear directly from first-year Florida State offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, but it was Briles' first extended interview with the local media since joining the Seminoles last December.
And during his 20-plus minute chat with reporters on Sunday, FSU fans got a real taste of why the university's administration is paying Briles $1 million per year to turn around the team's struggling offense.
While covering everything from the goals of his no-huddle offense to his evaluations of key players, Briles said several things that have to get FSU fans excited heading into the 2019 season. Here's a closer look at six that top the list:
1. An offense with no playbook? There's a method to the madness
While speaking with a former Florida State football player this summer, the first question he asked me was how it's possible for Kendal Briles to teach his players an offense without an actual playbook. This guy played under former FSU coach Jimbo Fisher, and not surprisingly, he said the Seminoles' playbook with Fisher was literally several inches thick.
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When that topic came up during Media Day on Sunday, Briles initially kind of laughed it off and said it's only really "a big deal" to the media for some reason. "It's just how we teach the guys," he said.
Briles then offered some insight into the process -- and the reasons behind it -- that really made a lot of sense.
While coaches have long followed the tradition of drawing up schemes and plays on paper and stuffing them into bulky binders, Briles pointed out that the youth of today spend far more time with electronic devices than they do with books. And while we can argue about whether that's a good thing or bad thing, no one can deny that it's reality.
"You see kids on iPads and phones and watching TV, Netflix," Briles said. "They're looking at screens all the time. So that's how we try to teach 'em."
As Briles continued, the whole thing finally started to make sense to me. As a parent with three teenagers in my own home, I have gotten an up-close look at how kids consume media and how they learn. And he's right -- it's screens, screens and more screens. Much of their school work is posted online. The television shows they watch are streamed on their phones and other devices. And they spend a good bit of time either playing video games or WATCHING other people playing video games on YouTube.
Why? Well, if you grew up in the '80s like me, you probably remember the "cheat" books you could buy to learn the secret patterns to win at Pac-Man or other games. These days, kids don't buy those books, they simply watch other gaming whizzes strut their stuff online and then copy what they do.
Now think about how that could be applied to football coaching. You can almost envision a video playbook, where the players actually watch the plays being executed, as opposed to envisioning them by looking at straight and squiggly lines on a piece of paper.
The best part of their approach, Briles said, is that the players get to watch how the plays develop against real defenses. Then they go out on the field and walk through everything numerous times to really get a feel for what will happen in a game.
"It's easy as a coach to sit in an office all day and dream up a bunch of stuff and think that it's all going to be gravy," Briles said. "But there's live bullets out there on the field, and those guys have got to process a lot of information and react."
