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
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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By LARRY VAUGHT
With all the buzz over Kentucky football, is there any chance Mark Stoops is getting a bit anxious for the opening game and wishes it was time to play now?
“No. There’s a lot of work to be done between now and then. We’re not ready. Western would whoop us right now,” Stoops said of the Aug. 31 opener in Nashville against Western Kentucky.
But don’t worry. He says the Cats will be ready Aug. 31.
“We’re not there yet, but we plan on being there. We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then and our players are embracing that process,” the coach said. “They’re enjoying it. They’re looking forward to getting involved in the summer program. They’re excited about that. And then we’ll be in the fall. We’ll be ready.
13 CommentsBy LARRY VAUGHT
Kentucky defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh still remembers playing in Commonwealth Stadium when he was a freshman at Auburn in 1995 and UK had Moe Williams as its star running back.
“I remember him being really good and my coach telling me about him. The first play he told me not to reach. I remember him (Williams) running through the hole. I reached out and he about tore my shoulder off. I can remember that even now,” said Brumbaugh. “I don’t remember much more other than it was a night game. But I remember that first play.”
He’ll also likely never forget his first game in Commonwealth as a UK coach even if it was the spring game because of the fan.
“I have been part of walks before a lot of games, but I have never been down a walk like we had at the Cat Walk before the spring game. That was unbelievable,” Brumbaugh said. “That kind of enthusiasm and passion for the game is unbelievable. I go to Florida to recruit and kids are talking about us having close to 51,000 at the spring game. That is all over. Everybody thinks this is a basketball school, but people here are talking football and supporting football.”
Brumbaugh was an all-Southeastern Conference defensive tackle at Auburn where he started 44 of 48 games and had 291 tackles and three times made the all-SEC team. Brumbaugh signed a free-agent deal with the San Francisco 49ers in 2000, but spent most of his pro career in the XFL with the Birmingham Bolts and in arena football with the Georgia Force and Birmingham Steel Dogs.
Brumbaugh, who was also a member of LSU’s staff during its national championship in 2007 when the Tigers were upset at UK, says his playing time at Auburn gives him credibility with players.
“I think it does. Anytime a guy has gone through the same situation you have, you are more adamant listening to what that guy who has been there doing that,” Brumbaugh said. “I have been in every battle they are going through. The more success that your guys have, the better your selling points are. That is what I teach. I try to drill fundamentals in practice and if I get a good game clip and they see they are basically doing that drill in a game and having success, they will listen.”
Often those spring practice drills included Brumbaugh not only teaching, but participating with his linemen — something they all liked and respected.
“That is just part of what I do. I am a teacher of the game. I am a visual guy,” Brumbaugh, a Florida native, said. “A lot of times if I can do something, they get a better understanding of what I am trying to get done and they understand and learn more. I get more quality reps and once they understand, then I can get quantity (reps). I am young and can still do that now. It might be different when I get older.”
Brumbaugh’s most recent BCS stop was a two-year stint at Syracuse University, where he coached the defensive tackles in 2011 and the defensive line in 2010. Prior to his time at Syracuse, Brumbaugh coached the defensive line at Louisiana Tech in 2008 and 2009.
At LSU, he was assistant strength and conditioning coordinator in 2006 and 2007. That gives him a perspective most college assistant coaches don’t have. He said the lifts he had players do lead to explosiveness needed in the defensive line.
“I can reference those kind of situations. It’s a toughness aspect not everyone can appreciate,” Brumbaugh said. “It’s not easy to play defensive line. It’s not an easy position at all. If you bring a whole bunch of kids to camp and there are balls laying there a couple of sleds, every kid getting off the buss wants a ball to throw around. Hardly anyone will go down and want to punch sleds.
“It’s tough being a defensive lineman. My wife gets on me because I will be walking in somewhere and will just swat something. I’ve always done that and it is natural to me. Walk by me and touch me, I put my hand up. It’s just natural for me to do that. It’s just a reaction thing, something I have done all my life. Those are learned habits. Once you become a defensive lineman, you understand those kind of situations.”
Click on the photo of Neal Brown to view the video.
By LARRY VAUGHT
He came into his sophomore season with seven Division I scholarship offers and now Madison Southern running back Damien Harris says the number is around 15 or more.
That’s how impressive the 5-11, 205-pound Harris, who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds, has been. He ran for 742 yards and 11 touchdowns on just 76 carries in 2011 as a freshman and came back last season to gain 1,911 yards on 160 carries and score 37 times. He also caught five passes for 176 yards and three more scores.
He got more physical last season when he found more time to get in the weight room — he had always played three sports before — and hopes to be even more aggressive this season after learning last year that teams often celebrated just for tackling him.
“A lot of times it can be like that. It gets frustrating. Every time you get tackled, they celebrate like they won a state championship, but it only makes me better,” said Harris. “It makes me not want to get tackled that much more so I can keep them from having that pleasure of tackling me. It is what it is. I have kind of accepted it through the years, so it is not that big a deal any more.”
He proved his speed is a “big deal” at the Class AA regional track meet at Boyle County Saturday. He won the 100-meter dash in and also helped Madison Southern win the 4×100 relay even though he’s still not at full speed. “It has been kind of hard for me conditioning wise. This was my first meet in almost two months where I had surgery on my elbow. That’s why I didn’t run the 200 (meter dash). I had a slight strain in my quad, too,” he said.
He’s not sure what caused his elbow injury.
“I just got to the point that I couldn’t straight in out and was in pain. I didn’t really have a significant injury to cause that,” Harris said. “I went to the doctor and they told me that I had extra bone growing off my elbow and it was causing extra scar tissue and arthritis. Whenever they did surgery, they shaved it down so I could get full extension in it. I will be 100 percent for football now.”
Harris prides himself on being prepared. He says he enjoys watching film and understands the value of blocking assignments and schemes. He also understands he needs a plan for what he wants to do this summer.
“I am going to try to make it up to Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama and maybe even Florida for the Friday Night Lights where you get to play in the Swamp under the lights at night,” Harris said. “I will make a few of those type trips. I am also actually going with one of my linemen to support him at one of his combines up in Chicago. I will be pretty busy seeing what places are about.”
He plans to make a trip to Kentucky “every now and then” this summer. However, he says he is already “pretty close” to UK head coach Mark Stoops, offensive coordinator Neal Brown and running backs coach Chad Scott.
“They are all great guys. I will definitely stay in touch with them and make some of their practices and stuff. I was at the spring game. I will definitely stay in touch with those guys,” Harris said.
He tries not to let his abundance of scholarship offers impact his daily routine.
“I try not to think about it. I want to stay grounded, stay humble. I know that I am not there yet. There are still a lot of things I have to work on,” he said. “It is hard at times to be humble. I am not going to deny it is hard. But I was raised by a good mother and she definitely keeps me grounded.
“My coaches tell me to just try to be thankful for everything I have because it is a blessing to do everything I do. I try to stay humble and thank God for all he’s blessed me with. Focus more on my grades and then what I need to do on the field versus how many offers I have.”
He won’t set individual goals for this season.
“Every year my No. 1 goal is get better and win a state championship. I don’t want to get individual accolades because there are 11 men on the field, not just one,” Harris said. “I definitely try to make team goals instead of me goals. In the end, a state championship with my team is much better than state player of the year. I don’t really have that many goals for myself other than definitely win a state championship. That’s the one goal I want.”
That’s part of why he runs track. He likes to stay in shape, but says he also “loves winning” and pushing himself to win.
“If there is something to do because I think I can win, I do it because I love to be a winner,” he said.
He’s not sure if he can win the 100-meter dash at the Class AA state meet in Louisville Friday.
“It is a tough question. I have been off for a while. but I don’t ever consider myself an underdog. I always consider myself to be not the best but to have the best chance,” Harris said. “You have to go in with that mindset that you are going to win under any circumstance. Not in an arrogant or cocky way. I feel like I still have a good chance to come in first. If I do, it will be great. If I don’t, it will just give motivation to work even harder for next year.”
He has paid attention to how hard the Kentucky coach staff has been working in recruiting and noted how Conner quarterback Drew Barker, a four-star recruit, picked UK over South Carolina last week.
“I am not going to want to go somewhere where I am the only recruit … where other people commit takes into play where I want to go,” Harris said. “If a good quarterback commits to a school, I will look into that. A good quarterback and a good running back duo, that’s always a plus.
“As far as other players at my position, I don’t like to go somewhere another top running back will go. I don’t want to really share with somebody else. I would like to be that guy that gets the carries, that gets the tough yards and stuff like that. I take it into consideration”
He knows Brown’s high tempo offense at Kentucky could create a lot of opportunities for playmakers to touch the ball, something he says appeals to him..
“More carries gives me a better opportunity to show people what I can do. But 30 or 40 carries a game is hard work. Not saying I wouldn’t be up to the work, but it makes things harder versus 15 to 20 carries like coach Brown seems to like for a back,” Harris said. “But that is kind of how our offense is. We like to run 80 or 90 plays a game and if I were to go there, it would be an easy fit for me because I would be used to running so many plays already and I like that offense.”
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