Rich Brooks? In light of our last handful of coaches, and how hard it is to build Kentucky football, really, how good must he have been? Serious question...
How good of a coach was...
- Thread starter truckbrandon
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Brooks, IMO was the best coach, who did it the right way, since Bryant.
What I heard was the players loved him. They respected him mostly because he could position coach any of the positions on the field, offense, defense or special teams. CRB had a wealth of football coaching knowledge.
He always seemed to coach-up the players. The last 2 guys have severely lacked in that department.
Can we hire Brooks back a la Bill Snyder and retain Vince Marrow somehow?
I really doubted him during his first couple of seasons. Now, I think it's very clear why Oregon named their field for him. I haven't been optimistic about the program since he retired.
He resurrected a moribund program at Oregon, and was a head coach in the NFL. Stoops' resume consisted of being an assistant coach in college.
Brooks was a good organizer, delegator, developer of talent, and teacher. He had most aspects of being a head coach completely covered. I'm not sure he was the type of coach to "out-coach" or "out-smart" a great opposing coach the way Meyer, Saban, etc. do. I also don't think he was the best recruiter.
As for developing talent, never seen anyone like Bill Snyder. That guy is a maximizer of talent. He'll squeeze every ounce from the mostly dry oranges he gets as recruits. Brooks could squeeze quite a bit but not every ounce.
As for developing talent, never seen anyone like Bill Snyder. That guy is a maximizer of talent. He'll squeeze every ounce from the mostly dry oranges he gets as recruits. Brooks could squeeze quite a bit but not every ounce.
He was our best coach since the Bear easily. Just think if we had the new stadium, and the new training facility when he was here.
He took 2 and 3 star talent, and got them to play at a 4 star level, he also had very good assistant coaches, who were good teachers and developers of players !
He took 2 and 3 star talent, and got them to play at a 4 star level, he also had very good assistant coaches, who were good teachers and developers of players !
As good as Brooks was, he is responsible for a lot of our recent pain. He pulled a "Tubby" on us his last few years at the helm. He was very lackadaisical on the recruiting front and left us very thin on the talent scale.
Joker was not head coach material, but the program he took over was not in the shape that most people believe.
Joker was not head coach material, but the program he took over was not in the shape that most people believe.
Brooks was a decent coach at UK. But compared to Joker and Stoops, he is Vince Lombardi.
Why retain Morrow? He is the D-line coach, The d line has been horrid since he has been here
Brooks left Joker with Hartline, Cobb, Matthews, Locke, King, Trevathan etc. The cupboard was far from bare. Besides Joker and Randy were the recruiting co-ordinators and they were still there.
He's the tight end coach and recruiting coordinator, and if you haven't noticed recruiting is the only thing we can do.
my mistake, I had a brainfart. I understand what you are saying, But we now have the finest facilities in the country, recruiting should be a lot easier, no?
Brooks was a solid and capable coach, who did a nice job of organizing the program.
He also went 3-5, 2-6, and 3-5 his last three seasons in the SEC.
He beat UL those last three years. So it least some of his success could be attributed to UL being on a slight downturn. Of course you play who's in front of you.
The season we beat LSU was a lot of fun. Really though, we had similar years under Claiborne, and Mumme, and Morris.
Brooks climbed the mountain all the way to a respectable 4-4 in conference, then slipped back down a bit.
People wanted to build statues for the guy. A coach with one non-losing conference record in 7 seasons.
Says a lot.
He also went 3-5, 2-6, and 3-5 his last three seasons in the SEC.
He beat UL those last three years. So it least some of his success could be attributed to UL being on a slight downturn. Of course you play who's in front of you.
The season we beat LSU was a lot of fun. Really though, we had similar years under Claiborne, and Mumme, and Morris.
Brooks climbed the mountain all the way to a respectable 4-4 in conference, then slipped back down a bit.
People wanted to build statues for the guy. A coach with one non-losing conference record in 7 seasons.
Says a lot.
Claiborne did some nice things too. Took over when the program was near dead, and got UK competitive pretty quickly. Had best year on record since the 70's. Program got stagnant near the end but teams were usually hard-nosed and competitive even though weren't deep.
I can still remember hearing and reading all the UK fans comments wanting Brooks to retire, so Joker would bring in some young blood and we could take the"next step" - we took it alright.
Brooks won 17 SEC games in seven years. 10 of those wins were against Vanderbilt and the two Mississippi schools. Yes, he did upset LSU when they were ranked #1 and he pulled a couple of upsets over UGA but he was also 0-7 against division rivals Flurduh, USCe, and Uthug. The latter is why Brooks never really got UK football over the hump. Don't kid yourselves that he was a great coach. He just looks great by comparison with some of the awful losers UK has hired before and after him.
Great comments so far.
During the 2004 off-season, Coach Brook's daughter posted on one of the older, now-defunct UK message boards in defense of her father. Some of you may recall she worked for CBS at the time as a camera-person, who coincidentally also covered our basketball games. I recall Gerald Fitch crashing into her during an out-of-bounds play when she was on the crew assigned to Rupp in 2004. Nice-looking gal. At any rate, she posted a somewhat emotional defense of Coach Brooks back then over a couple days. It was an interesting read. However, 2005 football season rolled around. Same old UK football.
2006 came. I believe Cats were off probation by then. Brooks' 4th season with the Cats started by suffering a blow-out loss to the Cards. UK football then proceeded to go 7-4 for the rest of the year. Cats beat Vandy, UGA, and even Miss State Bulldogs in their house. Finished the year by winning the Music City bowl.
Coach Brook's record over his last 4 seasons (2006-2009) with the program speaks for itself. Football went 30-22 and won 3 straight bowl games. Cats were even ranked a couple times. Those were certainly the good old days for the program. I'll gladly take those kinda numbers any day.
During the 2004 off-season, Coach Brook's daughter posted on one of the older, now-defunct UK message boards in defense of her father. Some of you may recall she worked for CBS at the time as a camera-person, who coincidentally also covered our basketball games. I recall Gerald Fitch crashing into her during an out-of-bounds play when she was on the crew assigned to Rupp in 2004. Nice-looking gal. At any rate, she posted a somewhat emotional defense of Coach Brooks back then over a couple days. It was an interesting read. However, 2005 football season rolled around. Same old UK football.
2006 came. I believe Cats were off probation by then. Brooks' 4th season with the Cats started by suffering a blow-out loss to the Cards. UK football then proceeded to go 7-4 for the rest of the year. Cats beat Vandy, UGA, and even Miss State Bulldogs in their house. Finished the year by winning the Music City bowl.
Coach Brook's record over his last 4 seasons (2006-2009) with the program speaks for itself. Football went 30-22 and won 3 straight bowl games. Cats were even ranked a couple times. Those were certainly the good old days for the program. I'll gladly take those kinda numbers any day.
No, because kids commit to play for coaches they like/respect/believe in. I hate it when this happens on here but I'll do it anyway. ...make a basketball analogy. Gillespie and Tubby in his last couple of seasons had terrible times recruiting. We can go back and forth about the state of Rupp Arena, the Craft center, whatever but the obvious point is Kentucky then, and especially now, has always had amongst the best basketball facilities. Kids didn't like them and they didn't come. Brooks at least had the advantage of having a lengthy resume that he could get some diamonds in the rough to come here and sell them on his abilities to coach them up. Stoops had his FSU and Miami days but he's gotten too many bad L's under his belt here that barring some miraculous turnaround this year his recruiting days are over too and that's the death knell. Kids only want the facilities to shoe that there is a commitment to the program and because we all like nice things but even more than that they want to know that they can be developed into a next level player. If the high school field at Murray State will get them there they'll go there over getting clobbered and forgotten at Kentucky.
We were also 12-20 in conference those last 4 years. Does that also speak for itself?
When "the good old days" involve losing 2/3rds of your conference games...ya know, never mind.
He was CEO! He delegated authority! He held you accountable! He motivated by example!
And we've gone 25-49 since Brooks left, with one bowl loss in Joker's first season, and have suffered 6 consecutive losing seasons.
Which record looks better?
Begin.
They are both terrible. Some fans have resigned themselves to terrible being ok.