Posts Tagged ‘mitch barnhart’

The Kentucky athletic department has provided a nice behind-the-scenes look as the Wildcats' brass travels from Lexington to Tallahassee to bring their new head coach to campus.  

First: Kentucky athletics staff depart from Lexington to Tallahassee to pick up Stoops. Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart and his staff prepare for the press conference. 

Next: The plane lands at the Tallahassee airport where UK personnel greets Stoops and his family. 

Then: Stoops and co. are ready to board the plane back to Lexington.

Finally: Stoops goes through a debriefing from Kentucky staffers on the football facilities and the plan once he arrives on campus.

Kentucky officially announced Mark Stoops, presently the defensive coordinator at Florida State, as its head coach on Tuesday afternoon. Stoops, in his third season at Florida State, took over a unit that ranked 108th nationally in total defense the year before his arrival.

Stoops instantly upgraded the Seminoles' defense, quickly transforming Florida State into one of the elite defenses in the nation, boosting their total defense ranking to 42nd in 2010, fourth in 2011 and second in 2012. Stoops is a nominee for this year's FootballScoop Defensive Coordinator of the Year award.  

Stoops oversaw dramatic defensive improvements at both FSU and Arizona and is a finalist for national Defensive Coordinator of the Year.

— Kentucky Athletics(@UKAthleticsNews) November 27, 2012

Since word broke, we have reached out to a number of coaches and every one of them thinks this is a tremendous hire. Stoops is regarded not only as a great defensive mind, but as a successful, energetic recruiter.

A Big 12 head coach just called me & said, "Kentucky can't imagine how much energy and enthusiasm Mark Stoops will bring up there!"

— FootballScoop Staff (@footballscoop) November 27, 2012

Like his older brothers Bob and Mike, Mark Stoops' career began as a graduate assistant at Iowa in 1990-91. Stoops worked on Jim Leavitt's staff in South Florida's inaugural football season before moving to coach defensive backs under Dana Dimel at Wyoming. After a one-year stay as the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Houston, Stoops helped Miami to a 35-3 overall record and a national championship as the defensive backs coach from 2001-03. 

Stoops then worked as the defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach for his brother Mike at Arizona, helping the Wildcats improve from consecutive three-win seasons to consecutive eight-win seasons while boosting Arizona's defensive ranking by more than 80 spots. Stoops assumed the defensive coordinator role under head coach Jimbo Fisher at Florida State in 2010. 

"Mark's passion has been evident in the way he coaches and in his love for the game of football," said Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart in the school's official statement. "That passion carried over into our process and his desire to wear the Blue and White.  Our desire to get better defensively and continue to expand our recruiting base helped guide us to Mark.  He comes from a coaching family and has been in big games and big atmospheres throughout his career.  That has prepared him for this opportunity to become head coach at Kentucky.  We welcome Mark, Chantel, Will and Zack to the Big Blue Nation."

"I am thrilled to be named the head football coach at the University of Kentucky," Stoops said.  "My family and I are excited and looking forward to becoming a part of the Big Blue Nation."

For anyone curious for more information on Stoops, Kentucky has created an official Mark Stoops landing page. 

Early Sunday afternoon, Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart announced that the school would make a change in its coaching staff at the conclusion of the season.

"After much conversation, evaluation and prayer, I have determined that it is in the best interest of our athletics program to make a change in our football coaching staff at the conclusion of the season," Barnhart wrote. "I do so with a heavy heart for a man who has served his alma mater for almost 22 years as a player and a coach Joker Phillips has carried the banner for the Blue and White with honor and pride. I have enjoyed working alongside him and am thankful for his friendship for the last decade. His concern for the entire program, his work and teaching of young people, his humanitarian work, and the friendship we all enjoy with him will long surpass the scoreboard. I want to thank him for all of those things on behalf of Kentucky.

The search for a new head coach will begin immediately and will be managed internally. I understand the challenge and significance of finding a new leader for our football program. It will be done with great concern for our student-athletes, students of the University of Kentucky, the Big Blue Nation and the citizens of the Commonwealth. Kentucky Football needs to be and will be a championship contender in the SEC.

"The search for a new head coach will begin immediately and will be managed internally," Barnhart continued. "I understand the challenge and significance of finding a new leader for our football program. It will be done with great concern for our student-athletes, students of the University of Kentucky, the Big Blue Nation and the citizens of the Commonwealth. Kentucky Football needs to be and will be a championship contender in the SEC."

Later Sunday afternoon, Phillips issued a statement of his own.

"I am very appreciative of Mitch Barnhart and Rich Brooks for providing the opportunity to have been the head coach here," wrote Phillips. "Mitch is the best athletic director I've ever been associated with.  He's fair and honest and he's "all in" in terms of student-athletes' well-being.  Rich is the best mentor a young coach could ever have.  I learned a lot from him in terms of plowing ahead.  They are dear friends.   Dr. Lee Todd and Dr. Eli Capilouto have both been very supportive.  I appreciate the Big Blue Nation and encourage the fans to stay behind their team going forward."

Pure class by Phillips in a very difficult time. 

Howard Schnellenberger, the famed head coach at Miami, Louisville, Oklahoma and most recently at Florida Atlantic, recently gave an interview to Larry Vaught at VaughtsViews.com. Schnellenberger provided a myriad of thoughts on what direction Kentucky should go in hiring its new head coach, provided they indeed decide to make a change.

“Miami was going to drop to Division I-AA before I got there and it was about the same way at Louisville,” Schnellenberger said. “Both were on their last gasp. They both called a timeout and tried to analyze what to do and who to bring in. In both cases, they brought in somebody that was bigger than the job. That’s one part of the equation at Kentucky."

Obviously Kentucky is nowhere close to dropping to FCS, but the program has struggled of late. Kentucky football recently dropped below .500 all-time for the first time since 1902. The Wildcats are 1-8 this season and are in the midst of their third straight losing season.

“If they do decide make change, they have to decide what they have done in the past will not get it done,” said Schnellenberger. "Bring in someone with a proven track record and has a reason for wanting the job. If you give me 20 minutes with a coaching candidate, I can convince him why Kentucky is a good job.”

Schnellenberger emphasizes that the ideal coaching candidate not only knows how to win, but wants to win at Kentucky.

“Kentucky has every natural resource you need to be good,” Schnellenberger said. “There should be no inferiority complex at Kentucky. If the university will focus its resources financially, spiritually and psychologically for the development of a great football program with the right guy in charge that brings a lot of confidence with him and a lot of public awareness to the university, then they have a chance to succeed."

According to Schellenberger, Kentucky presently finds itself stuck between mediocrity and success. From 2006 to 2011 the Wildcats bounced anywhere from five to eight wins. 

"The worst thing that can happen to a program is going 4-8, 6-6, 5-7, maybe 7-5," he said. "Just good enough to every once in a while have a winning season. Those are the ones that limp along and there’s no way they will take the next leap up.”

But Coach, does Kentucky have the facilities to compete in the SEC?

“Bull—-. Facilities are the last thing you need," said Schnellenberger. "At Miami we had the worst facilities of any top 100 team in the country and we won the national championship. At Louisville, look at where we were before they got Papa John’s (Cardinal) Stadium and we beat Alabama."

In Schnellenberger's mind, everything Kentucky needs to succeed is already at its fingertips. He thinks an SEC schedule can be used to the Wildcats' benefit in recruiting.

"Kentucky is in the greatest conference in the world. It’s people that make a difference because you have the schedule to sell. You are in the most productive, financially sound conference in all of them. The university is an outstanding academic institution. You are sitting in a great geographical area. And you are fortified by the best basketball team in America.”

If there are four schools in the country that will never be confused as anything but a basketball school, Kentucky is one of them. But Schnellenberger doesn't see that as a negative.

“At Louisville, I used the basketball program," he said. "Can you imagine bringing football players in from Florida and bringing them into Rupp Arena on any given game and see the pageantry and excitement and all that. That is a recruiting opportunity that is unprecedented. Only a few schools have that kind of stage. You have all kinds of stuff going at Kentucky.”

It remains to be see what steps Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart takes with his football program but a stop in Louisville to see the old coach is certainly one of them.

Read the full interview at VaughtsViews.com.