UH picks Texas Tech's Briles as top coach By JERRY WIZIG Art Briles, Texas Tech running backs coach the past three seasons, will be named Friday the University of Houston's new head football coach. UH thus concludes its latest coaching search 11 days after it started with the Nov. 24 dismissal of Dana Dimel, who was let go the week before the final game in his third season with the Cougars. Briles, a former UH receiver on the team that won the 1977 Cotton Bowl, was a highly successful high school coach in Texas before joining Mike Leach's Texas Tech staff for his first collegiate assignment. Briles, who will be introduced today at a 2 p.m. news conference at the Athletics/Alumni Center on the UH campus, will receive a five-year contract. Financial terms were not available Thursday. A source familiar with the situation said, "They will be somewhat less than Dennis Franchione will be getting at Texas A&M." Franchione's pending deal as the new Aggies coach reportedly will be for five years at a total of $10-11 million. Dimel was hired from Wyoming in December 1999 for $350,000 a year base salary and guaranteed outside income of $300,000 a year. Briles, who turned 47 on Tuesday, spent 12 years as head coach and athletic director at Stephenville before Texas Tech, winning four state championships including back to back titles in 1998-99, when his son Kendal was the quarterback. In a six year span, his teams were 90-2-1 and set a national high school record of 8,650 yards total offense in 1998 Briles was warmly recommended to athletic director Dave Maggard by Bill Yeoman, his former UH coach, as were several other former Cougars like current NFL assistants Tommy Kaiser (Buffalo), Clarence Shelmon (San Diego) and Robert Ford (Miami). Before Stephenville, Briles was head coach for two years at Hamlin and before that was at Stephenville for four years as an assistant after starting his coaching career in 1979 as an assistant at Sundown. His son, Kendal, an all-state quarterback in high school, was a redshirt freshman defensive back this season at Texas. His daughter Jancy currently is a UH freshman in the pharmacy school. Briles and his wife Jan also have a younger daughter, Staley, a high school junior. --- Not to steal any thunder away from the Aggies, but UH will announce their new head coach tomorrow as well. Interesting, this guy is supposed to be a recruiter, but couldn't even recruit his own son to Tech. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1690846
I think that might have been a job in title only. Leach hired him to recruit. Very successful high school coach so we will see if he can do a better job than Dimel. IMO, UH should have gone after a current coordinator at the D-1 level or someone with head coaching experience. UH can't afford to take a step back.
Should of at least interviewed Grambling's Doug Williams. You are right: the line ain't gonna be out the door tomorrow to buy UH season tickets.
HS coaches turned college assistants, are always good recruiters, obviously because of ties with other coaches/programs, as well as knowing that a 17 year old kid likes to hear.
Dana Dimel recruited as well as anyone could have at UH. The studs aren't going to go there as long as UT and A&M are in the same state and I don't know if I see them leaving any time soon.
I disagree. Yes, he recruited a lot of houston area players. But he lost out on too many higher-caliber area recruits to U of Arizona, of all schools. He recruited better than Helton, but that's not saying much.
Make no mistake...that position was created so A&M wouldn't have to buy out RC's contract in a lump sum. If another school wants to hire him I'm sure that A&M would have no problem letting him out of that contract.
