Click on the photo above to view the video of Neal Brown.
1 CommentBy LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: What makes you and defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot such a good combo?
Stoops: “For our system to be successful — as successful as we were at Florida State — we had to be great up front. D.J. has a background. He’s been with me at several different stops, so his roots of what his core of defensive thought process and defensive system goes all the way back with me all the way to Wyoming. He’s been with me at Wyoming, Houston, Miami, and then we reconnected at Florida State. He had several jobs in between and I also, where I was – I guess I was just at Arizona during that time. So he understands me very well. He understands the core of our system and then he’s very bright so he can bring in new ideas. We always constantly are trying to grow, so D.J. was a great fit for here, especially with his knowledge of the front and my knowledge of the back end.
Question: Are you and D.J. good friends off the field?
Stoops: “We are. We are good friends off the field. Our families are friends. Spending all that time together.”
By LARRY VAUGHT
Kentucky defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh coached one year at East Mississippi Community College and helped the team to a top 10 national ranking and 8-2 record.
He thinks he learned a lot that year that has made him a better coach.
“The thing about it is the junior college kids are for a reason. Some did not qualify academically. Some just weren’t as big as they needed to be and needed to develop,” said Brumbaugh. “The thing I learned is that there are good football players there. Go back and look at all the big-time players who have played in junior college. You go over it and you will find some amazing players that played in junior college. Some just developed late.
“The NFL is full of guys that are just hard working guys that kept going and going. A lot of those guys probably had somebody tell them they could not do it and they prove them wrong. It’s the same in junior college. That gives those guys a second opportunity on life and you always need some added help at certain positions. I can be helpful recruiting junior college kids. You always want to have guys that can find guys to help and you can find junior college guys to help.”
Neal Brown photo by Gary Moyers.
By LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: Why were you so patient with Neal Brown as he was contemplating his future?
Stoops: “It was nothing he could control. One situation rolled into the next. I was all-in with him at that point in time, so I tried to be very supportive of him and help him get through that because I’ve been through it as an assistant coach. Just because I’d been head coach for, what, a week, or a couple weeks at that time, so I understood what he was going through. Just wanted to give him a great opportunity here.”
Question: Any surprises about Neal Brown since you have got to know him better?
Stoops: “I don’t know if surprises, but I’ve been very pleased. I love the way he – he’s got a, and I don’t mean this in any kind of derogatory way towards offensive coaches, but sometimes offensive coaches get this stereotype of being finesse, of doing it this way or that way, but he has a toughness about him that I really appreciate. I think he is very – he has great leadership skills and he has a toughness about him, extremely organized, so I’ve been very pleased.”
2 CommentsBy LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: Considering you did not know Neal Brown, what made you want to reach out to him?
Stoops: “He’s the pride of Danville right now, isn’t he. He’s doing a great job. Initially, once I heard he may have a little interest in the job, then I jumped all over it because of his success, how good of a coach he has been, his success at Texas Tech, and the style of offense. Then when you tie in his roots and his passion to be at Kentucky, it was a no-brainer for me at that time, once we got on the same page and got to talking and I really got to know Neal and really study some more of his football. He’s really a great fit for us.”
Question: Was it natural for a defensive-minded coach to want an offensive coordinator who could score a lot of points?
Stoops: There’s no question. There’s no doubt. As a defensive guy, you always look at offensive coaches that have a system, that have a plan, that have been through the ups and been through the downs, and has been in control of his side of the ball from A to Z. That’s what I liked about Neal. It was very important for me to get a strong person on that side of the ball that has had great experience because my expertise is on defense. I knew I needed to hire the right person on that side.”
UK football coach Mark Stoops sent out this family card during the holidays.
By LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: What role does your wife play in your life because we all know the hours/demands you have on you?
Stoops: “She’s just very supportive. I joked at one of the press conferences or whatever, I pick the job, she picks the houses. She runs the household. She’s just very supportive as far as the role, as far as coaching and where we go and decisions we make with opportunities and things like that. She does a great job of managing the house, taking care of my boys, and she also gets involved – when I was a position coach, we loved to have the players over to our house. This last stop, Florida State, all those guys become very close to her and she gets to know them very well and gets very close to them. She gets involved as much as she can in a supportive role.”
Question: Will she be quiet or yelling at the games?
Stoops: “No, she’ll be more reserved but there will be those outbursts of course at times that I don’t think anybody can control. She’ll be a little bit more on the reserved part of it. At least that’s the way she’s been. You never know though. There’s pressure of the head coach. Maybe she’ll bust.”
3 CommentsBy LARRY VAUGHT
His football coach is not really sure what is his best sport or even what he does best on the football field. All Caldwell County football coach Davis Barnes knows is that sophomore Elijah Sindelar is special whether it’s football or baseball.
“I really don’t know what his best sport is,” said Barnes of the 6-4, 210-pound Sindelar. “This year he did not play basketball, but he’s good there, too. He’s just a gifted athlete. He excels in all three sports. In baseball, he pitches and plays either third base or first base.”
On the football field, Sindelar — who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.7 seconds — plays quarterback. He threw for 2,961 yards and 32 scores by completing 203 of 327 passes last year and ran for 447 yards and seven scores on 65 carries. In the Class AA state title game loss to Newport Central Catholic, he was 21 of 29 passing for 258 yards and two scores and rushed 14 times for 54 yards and a touchdown.
“He improved so much as a sophomore just by being able to see the field better and understanding coverages,” Barnes said. “He developed a knack for picking up and reading defenses. He ran the ball a little bit more this past year, but his pocket awareness was better. He had a good year as a freshman, but just having a year in this offense helped him tremendously.”
He’s been getting what Barnes calls “quite a bit of attention” from college recruiters, including those at Kentucky and Louisville. Murray and Austin Peay have expressed serious interest, too. Of course, he might get even more attention in baseball. Several pro baseball scouts says there is no reason to doubt his draft potential
“I think he’s going to get a lot of looks in football. He had a really good state championship game and a lot of coaches saw him play in that game,” Barnes said. “I think next year, he’ll get quite a few offers. I have really not talked to him about the baseball part. I have sat down with his parents and talked about the football part. They just want what is best for Elijah. They are very open about his future. I think his junior year in baseball will be big.”
Some think his junior football season could be just as big. As good as Patrick Towles of Highlands and Drew Barker of Conner have been in recent years, some veteran high school football analysts believe Sindelar could be the top quarterback the state has produced in 20 years or more.
“There are a lot of good quarterbacks who throw the ball around,” Barnes said. “A lot of people are talking about him. He does throw a nice deep ball with good touch. He’s special, but we’ll see how special.”
Barnes also says he is a “great kid” with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average.
“He’s a student leader with a great and supportive family,” Barnes said. “He’s a young man who knows right from wrong and does things the right way. He’s very coachable, but still has that certain attitude the great athletes have. He can do things on the field you can’t coach. I have a weightlifting class at 6:30 (a.m.), and he’s in that class. He gets his lifting in each morning and that helps him tremendously. But that’s the kind of kid he is.”
Barnes isn’t sure of Sindelar’s summer plans because he plays on a traveling baseball team. He thinks he might opt to attend several one-day junior camps.
“I know probably UK will be one and Louisville probably will be one of them. After that, I don’t know. But he has a lot of options,” Barnes said.
By LARRY VAUGHT
This is part of a series with Kentucky head football coach Mark Stoops based on a recent interview with him that I hope will offer insights into his personality and philosophies that you have not read about before.
Question: Since you once were a high school assistant coach at Ohio’s Nordonia Hills, does that give you a greater appreciation for those coaches and help you relate to them in recruiting?
Stoops: “I think so. I hope so. And along with me coaching and spending some time in high school as an athletic director, I helped out coaching a little bit but also with growing up around it – my dad, my uncles, my brother Ron was a high school coach up to a couple years ago. Now, he’s at Youngstown State but Ron coached in high school forever. I really have spent a lot of time around high school and high school coaches. My dad was a high school coach for 30 years and I just grew up in the gym and like I said, around practices. My high school coaches had a great influence on myself, both as a player and as a coach.”
Question: Was there a time when you thought becoming a head high school coach was a lofty aspiration?
Stoops: “Yeah, there was definitely a time where I was going to school and thinking I’m not sure what I wanted to do in the future and then I went back and had an opportunity to go back right out of college. I was 24 years old, maybe 25, when I started. I was an athletic director at a high school – the school district, the high school and middle school – and it helped out with the high school coaching. But I thought, yeah, yeah, I thought that was a great opportunity for me. I wasn’t sure where I would go from there, but after a few years of doing that, I really missed the college football. I was a GA (graduate assistant) prior to that (at Iowa), so after I got the three and a half years’ experience doing that, I just really felt like I had the pull to get me back to college football.”
Click on the photo of Neal Brown to watch the video.
2 CommentsBy LARRY VAUGHT
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops admits he’s been influenced by different people, but none had a bigger impact on his coaching career and life than his father, Ron.
Ron Stoops taught and coached football for 28 years at Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown, Ohio. During a game in October of 1988, he felt chest pains on the sideline and stopped coaching during the fourth quarter. Mooney won in triple overtime and Ron Stoops watched the final moments before being placed into an ambulance. Not long after the ambulance doors shut, he died at age 54.
The Stoops brothers all starred for their father at Cardinal Mooney. Bob, Mike and Mark earned scholarships to Iowa and played defensive back. From 1979 to 1989, a Stoops brother wore No. 41 at Iowa. Bob and Mike earned first-team all-Big Ten honors. All three became graduate assistants there. A fourth brother, Ron Jr.,had opportunities to play for Division II and Division III teams, but went to Youngstown State and became a teacher and coach.
“He has had the biggest influence on me for sure. He had a great influence,” the Kentucky coach said. “He was very interesting. He was a simple guy, yet he had a great impact on a lot of people. Just the way he always went about his business. He always had a great work ethic. He always had a great demeanor of how he handled students or players he was coaching. He had a great way with the family. He just had a great influence on me.
“He coached high school football and was head baseball coach. He kept score for the basketball team. He was always around the gym. In the summer he had several different jobs. He sold insurance sometimes, but we also painted houses. That was our deal. He owned a painting company. I painted houses. We worked very hard in the summer to make some extra money on the side. He was just a great influence on me. Great man. A man of very, very high integrity and character. He had a great way about him.”
Stoops said all the brothers worked for their father painting houses.
“We could whoop it up right now. I wouldn’t have time to paint this office but oh yeah I could do it — inside, outside, the whole deal. Oh, yeah. I painted for a long, long time,” Mark Stoops said.
Did they get paid for painting?
“My dad was very generous. He paid us and I was the youngest, so by the time I came up, I think that was part of it, why he kept it going and all that,” the UK coach said. As we were coming back from college or on our way to college, just out of high school — made pretty good money. He was very generous. It was hard work. Are you kidding me? We were up there on 40-foot ladders on some old houses on the south side of Youngstown. It was a serious business. It was hard.”
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