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Instead of a normal Q's Take, I thought today I would update you all on some stuff going on both in front of and behind the scenes at the moment for GT football. As I said earlier in the week, Brent Key has been interviewing DB coaches and those interviews include both what I would calls safety/nickel coaches and a few guys who would coach the overall secondary. Ricky Brumfield as of now is the CB coach and special teams coach. That cat is out of the bag because he was being introduced to kids at the JR Day that way. Again I tend to shy away from putting stuff like that out there, but kids have been sharing it in their post-visit interviews so there we are. Brumfield can coach just about any position in on either side of the ball except OL/DL and QB so he will do whatever Key needs him to do in addition to coordinating special teams.
Movement with jobs is still going on and some guys are getting paid not to coach this year and are waiting to see how the dominoes fall with other jobs so for Key who is being extremely picky about his final staff hire, that is probably not super helpful right now. He interviewed about 10 guys last week per my sources and will interview more this week with an eye toward the safety position. Some of the people interviewed per my sources were not fit at GT for various reasons. There are some wild stories about things coaches find out once they start digging in on guys. I've covered some very strange ones in my career, especially at other schools including a coach who was accused of sleeping with prospects' moms on home visits, so you have to be really careful when you dip outside your normal area of hiring and Key seems to be casting a very wide net.
The most obvious person to hire would be Lyle Hemphill but he was named the DC at James Madison last month. Hemphill both coached Santucci and served as his first boss when Santucci was a GA and later a position coach under Hemphill. They were co-DCs at Duke last year and were on the Wake Forest staff together as well, but he has a DC job. Hemphill is also in an area he is comfortable with.
People will ask me about Jason Semore as well, the same thing as Hemphill, guy has a DC job now, I'm not sure it is a step up to come back as a position coach. Semore is a guy I could see coming back to GT in a few years when he has some seasoning as a DC under his belt if the job is open at that time.
My sources have told me Key is being very picky with his staff this year after learning more about being a head coach and seeing people work under him and grasping how people function under him and how hard some are willing to work compared to others in all aspects of the job. It is not just a job that you punch a time card for. They live in each other's pockets for six months out of the year so personalities and effort in recruiting weighed heavily in the changes he made along with coaching and other factors.
On the support staff side, I expect some movement soon with some interesting hires to round out that side of the ball as Key wants to have a strong analyst group and he is still working on some very cool names in that regard.
It is grind time for the new GT staff. Key will fill out the final spot when he finds someone he really likes. So far he has not been able to find the right person for the job. He is not in the mode to settle so you have to appreciate that he is willing to keep grinding. The JR Days are going very well and they have a lot of talented kids coming in and the proof of concept of the first season plus 8 games is selling well.
Instead of a normal Q's Take, I thought today I would update you all on some stuff going on both in front of and behind the scenes at the moment for GT football. As I said earlier in the week, Brent Key has been interviewing DB coaches and those interviews include both what I would calls safety/nickel coaches and a few guys who would coach the overall secondary. Ricky Brumfield as of now is the CB coach and special teams coach. That cat is out of the bag because he was being introduced to kids at the JR Day that way. Again I tend to shy away from putting stuff like that out there, but kids have been sharing it in their post-visit interviews so there we are. Brumfield can coach just about any position in on either side of the ball except OL/DL and QB so he will do whatever Key needs him to do in addition to coordinating special teams.
Movement with jobs is still going on and some guys are getting paid not to coach this year and are waiting to see how the dominoes fall with other jobs so for Key who is being extremely picky about his final staff hire, that is probably not super helpful right now. He interviewed about 10 guys last week per my sources and will interview more this week with an eye toward the safety position. Some of the people interviewed per my sources were not fit at GT for various reasons. There are some wild stories about things coaches find out once they start digging in on guys. I've covered some very strange ones in my career, especially at other schools including a coach who was accused of sleeping with prospects' moms on home visits, so you have to be really careful when you dip outside your normal area of hiring and Key seems to be casting a very wide net.
The most obvious person to hire would be Lyle Hemphill but he was named the DC at James Madison last month. Hemphill both coached Santucci and served as his first boss when Santucci was a GA and later a position coach under Hemphill. They were co-DCs at Duke last year and were on the Wake Forest staff together as well, but he has a DC job. Hemphill is also in an area he is comfortable with.
People will ask me about Jason Semore as well, the same thing as Hemphill, guy has a DC job now, I'm not sure it is a step up to come back as a position coach. Semore is a guy I could see coming back to GT in a few years when he has some seasoning as a DC under his belt if the job is open at that time.
My sources have told me Key is being very picky with his staff this year after learning more about being a head coach and seeing people work under him and grasping how people function under him and how hard some are willing to work compared to others in all aspects of the job. It is not just a job that you punch a time card for. They live in each other's pockets for six months out of the year so personalities and effort in recruiting weighed heavily in the changes he made along with coaching and other factors.
On the support staff side, I expect some movement soon with some interesting hires to round out that side of the ball as Key wants to have a strong analyst group and he is still working on some very cool names in that regard.
It is grind time for the new GT staff. Key will fill out the final spot when he finds someone he really likes. So far he has not been able to find the right person for the job. He is not in the mode to settle so you have to appreciate that he is willing to keep grinding. The JR Days are going very well and they have a lot of talented kids coming in and the proof of concept of the first season plus 8 games is selling well.
