New Book About Hal Mumme's Influence on the College Game

[Joneslab]

Hall Mumme's name just popped up on my Twitter timeline, and it wasn't tweeted by anybody associated with UK but by Scribner press and the Wall Street Journal.

Turns out there's a new book out about Mumme, Mike Leach, and the Air Raid. But it sounds like Mumme is the main focus of this.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-perfect-pass-s-c-gwynne-1475166931

[Blue Heaven]

He wasn't your typical coach, but I liked him and he made it fun to be UK football fan.

[TrueblueCATfan]

He wasn't your typical coach, but I liked him and he made it fun to be UK football fan.

I agree too.....

[Uncle Dave]

HOLD ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mumme coached 95 games and lost...........64 of them. 2 out of 3 games he coached, he lost, and there's a book out glorifying this guy?????? L-M-A-O!!!!! I'll respectfully pass.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/coaches/hal-mumme-1.html

[KevinHall]

No doubt he could coach offense but he never heard of the word defense. The SEC soon caught up with that and if he had stayed longer he would have put up even more L's. I think this article gives him way too much credit. I think there were others before him that revolutionized football. Like Lavell Edwards and Bill Walsh. He just followed in their footsteps.

[Spiritof96]

No doubt he could coach offense but he never heard of the word defense. The SEC soon caught up with that and if he had stayed longer he would have put up even more L's. I think this article gives him way too much credit. I think there were others before him that revolutionized football. Like Lavell Edwards and Bill Walsh. He just followed in their footsteps.

The SEC figured it out be halftime. Also, as soon as he didn't have a world class QB it wasn't so revolutionary.

[Joneslab]

I think Mumme should get a little credit for building Kentucky out of the depths of the Curry era. He sort of did what Stoops is trying to do right now.

But he was involved in Claude Bassetgate, so the end of his tenure probably looks worse than it should have. The SEC might have caught up as well.

But the book seems to not really be about Mumme the coaching genius, but rather Mumme the part-inventor of a new style of football.

[Owllycat]

People who write the articles use their own opinions about their topic. The book does sound interesting to read, which I might. Even if his record wasnt that good, his coach style was unique by far.

[Old School]

People only remember Mumme's time with Couch, but he also took UK to a bowl game with a wholly inadequate QB named Dusty Bonner. That team was 4-4 in the SEC. That post-Couch team beat a ranked Arkansas team that went to the Cotton Bowl, in addition to LSU and South Carolina, and a pretty decent Vanderbilt team that would've gone bowling but for its loss to UK.

Even with Couch, he beat some SEC teams with a roster with only one player (Couch) that the opposing team would've offered a scholarship to. That isn't an exaggeration.

Mumme took vastly inferior rosters and played competitive games against better teams and beat some of them. He set records for offensive production. His teams didn't do well on defense, but with what he had on hand, they wouldn't have done well on defense no matter who the coach was. Many defensive coaches who coached under Mumme disciples, such as Will Muschamp, Kirby Smart and Dave Aranda, have done well.

Other coaches took notice and came to learn from him and his system. They still do. Acolytes like Dana Holgerson, Sonny Dykes, Neal Brown, Chris Hatcher, Mike Leach and others went on to be successful head coaches, as in turn their assistants such as Art Briles, Mark Mangino, Kliff Kingsbury did, and the third generation like Josh Heupel, Lincoln Riley and Seth Littrell might. And a lot of other schools and head coaches adopted Mumme's scheme.

Lots of schools run Mumme's scheme now, or a scheme developed from it. An even higher percentage of high schools do also.

The author of this book isn't the first one to advance the idea that Hal Mumme's innovation was very influential in college football.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11547946/why-nick-saban-college-football-afraid-hal-mumme

[johnkyblue]

No doubt he could coach offense but he never heard of the word defense. The SEC soon caught up with that and if he had stayed longer he would have put up even more L's. I think this article gives him way too much credit. I think there were others before him that revolutionized football. Like Lavell Edwards and Bill Walsh. He just followed in their footsteps.

Sam Wyche too. The defense for the Outback Bowl team wasn't that bad. It gave up a lot of yards, but it would get a lot of turnovers, too.

[Spiritof96]

Sam Wyche too. The defense for the Outback Bowl team wasn't that bad. It gave up a lot of yards, but it would get a lot of turnovers, too.

I was at that game watching Joe Pa kill us three points at a time. Seems like we had a NFL tackle false start 12 times cause one of their ends was absolutely working him...

[Lighthouse]

If I remember correctly a comment made by one of our coaches was about how weak our kids were in comparison to Penn St. After that, it came out some our kids couldn't bench press 200 lbs.

[Spiritof96]

If I remember correctly a comment made by one of our coaches was about how weak our kids were in comparison to Penn St. After that, it came out some our kids couldn't bench press 200 lbs.

I don't believe ANY UK football player EVER couldn't bench 200lbs.

[Matt Dillon]

Losing James Whalen didn't help any either.

[Sam K.]

People only remember Mumme's time with Couch, but he also took UK to a bowl game with a wholly inadequate QB named Dusty Bonner. That team was 4-4 in the SEC. That post-Couch team beat a ranked Arkansas team that went to the Cotton Bowl, in addition to LSU and South Carolina, and a pretty decent Vanderbilt team that would've gone bowling but for its loss to UK.
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/sto...raid-hal-mumme

Old School, I think you are being quite charitable towards Hal. I believe Dusty was NOT "wholly inadequate", although I will acknowledge he lacked strength throwing the long ball. His award at Valdosta (POY, I think) along w an impressive camp with the Atlanta Falcons that drew a nice compliment from Dan Reeves bears evidence to this. As far as Hal's 4-4 record that is better that most of UK's Conference Records. However the teams he beat that year were not all that good IMO with the exception of Arkansas.

Eastern Division
#12 Florida x		7	–	1					9	–	4
#9 Tennessee		6	–	2					9	–	3
#16 Georgia		5	–	3					8	–	4
Kentucky		4	–	4					6	–	6
Vanderbilt		2	–	6					5	–	6
South Carolina		0	–	8					0	–	11
Western Division
#8 Alabama x$		7	–	1					10	–	3
#13 Mississippi State		6	–	2					10	–	2
#22 Ole Miss		4	–	4					8	–	4
#17 Arkansas		4	–	4					8	–	4
Auburn		2	–	6					5	–	6
LSU		1	–	7					3	–	8

I enjoy your posts by the way.