Don Brown has seen UMass football at its best, and he’s got a plan for trying to get the Minutemen program back to competitive status.
Namely, a grass-roots approach.
And Brown, a staple in coaching throughout the Northeast, is tapping into his wide array of contacts as he fills out his staff in Brown’s return to heading up the UMass program.
Multiple sources tell FootballScoop that Brown is adding Valdamar Brower to coach on the defensive side of the ball, and Jeff Moore to coach on the offensive side of the ball for the Minutemen.
Most recently the head coach at The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut, Moore is a UMass alum with previous collegiate coaching stops at both Yale University and Amherst College – the latter of which won a pair of New England Small College Athletic Conference championships.
The Loomis Chaffee School on Thursday morning issued an e-mail that announced Moore’s departure.
Per sources, it is expected that Moore could fill the role of recruiting coordinator on Brown’s UMass squad, as well as coaching tight ends.
A former player under Brown, who went from walk-on to scholarship lineman, Brower had been the veteran head coach of Springfield Central High School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Brower had turned that Springfield program arguably into the state’s preeminent public prep team – with a particularly dominant run across the past three-plus years at Springfield.
Like Brown, Moore also is a UMass grad – having gotten his start in coaching while serving as a student-assistant coach at the school.
Brown was hired by UMass in late-November, as Brown wrapped up his first season as Arizona’s defensive coordinator and following a successful run as the defensive signal-caller for Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines.