Mike Leach

[Matt Dillon]

I certainly hope coach can get things going this year, but after last year I'm just crossing my fingers. Franklin turned Vandy into a team to be reckoned with....but dunno if that whole gig was a roll of the dice with one pretty good class to get that next job on the ladder. Mississippi State was at our level back in the Brooks era.
I just have to wonder if we've had two coaches in a row that were more successful as coordinators than they will be wearing the big hat. This season will show which way we are heading. A more competitive crew would give me some satisfaction.

I agree, on all points, Bill.

[Lighthouse]

I certainly hope coach can get things going this year, but after last year I'm just crossing my fingers. Franklin turned Vandy into a team to be reckoned with....but dunno if that whole gig was a roll of the dice with one pretty good class to get that next job on the ladder. Mississippi State was at our level back in the Brooks era.
I just have to wonder if we've had two coaches in a row that were more successful as coordinators than they will be wearing the big hat. This season will show which way we are heading. A more competitive crew would give me some satisfaction.

I agree also Bill. As usual, you're spot on.

[Old School]

Franklin turned Vandy into a team to be reckoned with....but dunno if that whole gig was a roll of the dice with one pretty good class to get that next job on the ladder.

Franklin did two big things, IMO.

First, he used Stanford's formula, selling a very high-quality educational opportunity to recruits, most of whom aren't going to make a living playing football. It worked and he got better players as a result. If a kid is set on playing at the best or most high-profile school that will take him, or having the best chance of playing with All-Americans or winning a national championship, then a Vanderbilt, Mississippi State or Kentucky is never going to land him if Alabama or Ohio State wants him. But if a kid has a different perspective and wants the best future he can have and he sees the quality of his undergraduate education and the postgraduate and professional opportunities it brings as part of that, then Mississippi State, Kentucky, Ohio State or Alabama aren't going to land a kid that a Vanderbilt or Stanford offers. (IMO Stoops has done a pretty good job of finding a sweet spot in all of that: offering the SEC spotlight to kids from up north, offering chances to start as a freshman and play four years to kids that wouldn't get it at Ohio State, etc. Franklin was similarly successful with his approach at Vanderbilt.)

Second, he also was a very sound coach, who made his players very fundamentally sound, and who had them playing well as a team, executing well, doing what they did best whenever it would work, and going with the next best option if it didn't. He coached smartly and his players coached smartly; they knew the playbook on both sides of the ball and made few mistakes. He got the most out of his kids and made the most of his opponents' mistakes and weaknesses.

IMO Stoops has made great strides with the first but still has a lot of work to do with the second.

I don't know if Franklin will have the same success at Penn State. I'm not sure he can sell the same sort of education opportunity there better than coaches at Michigan, Indiana, Northwestern or other Big Ten schools including Ohio State can. The program has great tradition, but not so much recently, and I don't think that right now he has more to sell football-wise than many of his Big Ten rivals do.

Mississippi State was at our level back in the Brooks era.

Dan Mullen was a great hire for that program. He has recruited well, and parlayed those classes into wins against schools who, on paper, have better teams. Like Franklin's kids at Vanderbilt, Mullen's players learn the playbook, hone their fundamentals, execute well and avoid mistakes. He has fielded very potent offenses, and pretty stout defenses too. He has made the most of the players he's had, and significantly upgraded the level of talent.

Stoops IMO has upgraded the talent at Kentucky. He has as much as Vanderbilt did during Franklin's successful years there (probably more), but probably not as much as Mullen has had at MSU. The sharp execution, sound fundamentals, absence of mistakes, etc. have not been where they got at Vanderbilt and State. That sort of improvement is needed. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes longer to instill when you follow Joker Phillips at Kentucky than when you follow Bobby Johnson at Vanderbilt or Sylvester Croom and Jackie Sherrill at MSU. But it still should happen by Year Four.

[Lighthouse]

Do you think having different OC's every year will hurt the progress?

[40bill]

I don't know. It seems all the OCs have had some history in the passing game. It just seems something hasn't quite clicked. Although he certainly failed as a head coach, Joker Phillips was one of several coordinators under Brooks, and the offense suddenly flourished.

I would kind of reverse the question because we've had the same defensive coordinator from the jump and still are anticipating that the offense will have to keep them off the field or win shoot outs to have success.

[johnkyblue]

You don't think a bunch of NFL good receivers helped out Joker, which he did have something to do with, granted, do you?

[Old School]

I think any time you change your OC, there's a negative effect - not necessarily a net negative effect, but a negative effect. Players get used to their coach and they have to adjust to a new one, learn how to understand and communicate with him, etc. If the playbook changes, that takes time and adjustment, at the expense of other things. If the scheme changes, then everyone must learn new roles, often new techniques, etc. in addition to new plays and a new coach.

I say it isn't necessarily a net negative because if you have a very effective OC, someone who knows how to use his personnel well, someone with a playbook that works, someone who does a good job teaching the playbook to his players, someone who calls good plays, someone who instills good technique in his players, someone who gets them to focus and execute, the positives that come from that will far outweigh the negatives.

A great example of that was mentioned above. Ron Hudson was a terrible, ineffective offensive coordinator at Kentucky. Joker Phillips replaced him - in midseason! - and the same players all of a sudden started producing improved results. Similarly, despite having Tim Couch, Curry and Uzelac fielded perhaps the worst offense in Division I-A in 1996. Hal Mumme came in with a roster that might actually have been weaker on that side of the ball (lost David De La Perralle, Norman Mason, Chad Spencer and, temporarily, Quentin McCord) and had one of the two or five best offenses in the country the very next year.

From time to time on here some of us kick around what we think UK need to succeed in football. I happen to think we need a head coach who employs an unorthodox, unusual offense that is difficult to prepare for and defend against. I think that because it is very unlikely UK will consistently field football talent that ranks in the top half of the SEC. Moving the ball and scoring points is something you can accomplish with a weaker roster but a stronger scheme. I don't know that it necessarily has to be the Air Raid or some variant of that; it worked in part in 1997 and 1998, and in the first half of 1999, because it was so novel then. Mike Leach still makes it work with 2 star rosters, but if someone else out there, like Mumme, comes up with something new and imaginative and unusual that works, I hope UK would be on it quickly. It's harder to compensate for roster weakness on defense. For all of Mike Major's faults as a DC, I think Mumme had the right idea given what he had. When you're playing 220 pound DEs in the SEC, sure, blitz a lot, aim for turnovers and sacks at the risk of some big plays; if you have a thin group of undersized 1 and 2 star kids lacking in speed on defense (like he did) and an offense that works, throw the dice on defense and get the ball back to your offense one way or the other. (I still think it would've been fascinating to see the result if Mumme had hired Joe Lee Dunn as his DC.)

Maybe, just maybe, the answer at UK is pieces of what we've seen in the past.

Head coach: either a seasoned veteran who can, eventually, pick good coordinators, like Rich Brooks, or an up and comer who does things in a very new, unusual and effective way, like Hal Mumme. Problems, though, with the first choice include that you're not likely to land a seasoned, veteran, successful head coach at UK that often, and that some of them (like Bill Curry) did well because they had a school whose name did a lot of their work for them, and who don't have much imagination. With the second, is that new up and comer likely to land many good, effective assistant coaches? If so, will they stick around?

Assistants are a big part of it, too. Curry's 1993 team had good assistant coaches. They left, and for the most part Curry did a pretty poor job with a lot of his hires for coordinator positions and a lot of positional coaches after that. I think Mumme would've been well served with more experienced veterans, at least some of them, and Mumme + Dunn could've been something really special.

OC: someone who has his players on the same page, executing plays well, choosing a scheme that fits them, and calling plays that are effective. Joker Phillips did that as OC. Mumme and Leach did too.

DC: this is tougher, but I tend to think that as long as you're fielding 11 guys who, collectively, aren't as athletic (strong, fast, agile, etc.) as half of the teams on your schedule, you go with someone who effectively employs an unusual, high risk-high reward scheme, and who gets guys to buy into it, focus, and execute. I'll name Joe Lee Dunn a third time.

Assistants: you really need guys who connect with the kids, get them focused, get them conditioned, get their technique down, get them to cut out the errors (turnovers, penalties, missed blocks, etc.), get them clicking with their teammates. Joker Phillips did that as WR coach (well enough that he went on to do it in the NFL). Tee Martin was, IMO, a pretty good WC coach. Randy Sanders was great at all of that as QB coach. Guy Morriss did it as OL coach. Mike Summers did it as good OL coach. Mark Nelson did it as special teams coach. Ron Caragher did it as RB coach.

The 2006 and 2007 teams that fared well had a really good staff on the offensive side of the ball. Joker Phillips, despite what came later, was a very effective OC. Ron Caragher coached RBs well in 2006 and is now a successful head coach. Larry Brinson was a good RB coach in 2007 after Caragher left to be a head coach. I am drawing a blank on who the OL coach was in 2006 and 2007.

Anyway...yes, UK will need really good coaches to rack up wins - not just a good HC, but good, effective coordinators, and good position coaches. That need is probably more acute at a place like UK where you're not putting 11 4 and 5 star kids on the field at a time. I think part of what will make coaches good for UK is having an unusual scheme. Alabama's playbook isn't going to work at Kentucky; Bill Curry painfully proved that. You need a head coach with an unusual vision, coordinators who do things differently than most programs, and position coaches are critical because you're generally putting 3 star kids up against 4 and 5 star opponents in SEC play. Kentucky's coaching staff needs to be like a poker hand full of good cards; just a couple of good ones won't do the trick.

One last Joker Phillips note: yeah, he had some good WRs. They weren't projected to be that good when they were coming out of HS. They weren't very productive before Joker became OC along with being the WR coach. Were they all diamonds in the rough that sailed unseen past recruiting analysts? Did they all become better players because they had a solid position coach? Maybe some of both, but there are a lot of very talented guys, and a lot of 4 and even 5 star kids who don't get into the NFL, and I have to think the coaching those WR enjoyed had something to do with it.