Coaches Office with Coach Neal Brown

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Coach David Buchanan coach Chuck Smith, two legendary high school
football coaches. This is the Coach's Office, a behind the

(00:33):
scenes look at Kentucky high school football.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
All right, welcome to the Coach's Office behind the Scenes
with Chuck Smith and David Buchanan. This is off see
episode one. So this is our kickoff episode for our
off season program, Off Season number three. I'm Chuck Smith.
I'm joined by co host David Buchanan, podcast editor slash

(01:14):
storyteller Mike Yoakum. Our YouTube version of this podcast is
at tacopt dot C, dot O, dot P and if
you get on there and you hit like and subscribe,
it helps us out. We also have some like two
to three minute segments on there, so if you don't
have a whole hour to watch, you can just you know,

(01:37):
tap into one of those two or three segments minute
segments and you'll get a lot out of it. It's
coaches answering some of the questions that we ask them.
We were kicking off our off season with a bang.
We got our We got former University of West Virginia
head football coach Neil Brown as our guest coach Tonight

(02:00):
couldn't be more proud and excited to have Neil on
our show. He's one of my former players. And then
we're also going to discuss some of the open jobs
around the state. There's several open right now, and we'll
we'll discuss some of those, not all of them, but
some a little bit about Neil before we bring him on. Neil,
as I said, he's a Boyle County graduate. I had

(02:22):
the privilege and honor of coaching Neil in high school.
He played his college football at the University of Kentucky
and also at U Mass. He's had many different coaching stops.
He climbed the ladder pretty fast. He was at U Mass,
he was at Sacred Heart, he was at Delaware, he

(02:43):
was at Troy, he was at Texas Tech. He was
at Kentucky before later being hired back at Troy again
as the head football coach. And he was hired probably
thirty four, thirty five years old. He became a head
football coach, you know, at Troy University. So he really

(03:03):
climbed the ladder pretty fast. He did an outstanding job
at Troy. I think he was thirty five and six
in his years there at Troy. Then he later becomes
the head football coach at West Virginia University. So his
overall record is seventy two and fifty one, but listen
to his bowl record. His bowl record is five and one.

(03:24):
That's pretty impressive. Now, I mean, he's going to give
us some insight on how he's pulled that off, but
that's pretty impressive. He was the Sunbelt Coach of the
Year in twenty seventeen. Neil has experienced with great success.
We're really excited to have him on our show. David,
you want to bring Neil one?

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Hey, I do real quickly, though.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
I also want to thank Kelly Wilkins with five S fundraising.
Kelly's sponsoring this episode. At Anderson County. We were able
to raise twenty thousand dollars this year, doubled what we
had in the past.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Our goal was ten thousand.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
So I want to think at Kelly for his help
and encourage anybody listening. You want to make some money
to get ready for this coming season. You know this
is Kelly's the guy to go with. But hey, coach Brown,
he thank you so much. And I feel like I'm
speaking for most of the high school guys in Kentucky,

(04:19):
and we are all so proud of you, and not
just the success that you've had and how well you've
climbed the ladder, but always done with integrity and character
and doing things the right way.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
So this is an honor for us.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
And you know, I've loved Hoully County High School since
i was four years old. So this is really cool
to have one of the greatest rebels of all time
on our show today. And hey, thank you so much
for joining us.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
Well, Coach, I appreciate it. I appreciate both of you.
I need to have Coach Smith, I need to have
David give me that that intro to my kids. That's
what I need my kids to hear, because they think
I'm lying.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Anything.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
Anything I tell them about high school, they think I'm
lying to them. So uh, now, I appreciate both of you,
and you all know this and probably most of your
listeners do. But I'm I'm a product of educators, Kentucky educators.
My dad was a former coach and a high school principal.
He's still in education business. He can't get out, and

(05:26):
uh that's probably good to keep him busy. Mom was
an elementary school librarian. Uh, both are Three out of
my four grandparents were teachers. My my dad's dad, my
grandfather was a very successful high school coach at Wortsboro
and there was a principal and superintendent there. Both my
wife's parents are teachers. So that's uh. The education system

(05:50):
and and and coaching in the state of Kentucky is uh.
Is really I grew up with it. I'm very proud
of that, proud of that background.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
And then before I ask you the first question, I
was going to tell you, if you ask my dad
what was one of the best decisions he ever made
as a coach, it would be that he hired your
father in law back in nineteen sixty nine at Bull
County High School. My dad is a big more Salent
Stewart fan, and he we can get going on stories

(06:23):
on your dad and your father in law probably fill
the whole show.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
But eight.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
So it it's okay, we got a lot we want
to ask you. We did good to narrow it down
to the seven questions we've got, So I'm going to
get you started here. Something I'd never heard of until
Trisper went to the UK. The middle eighth, the last
four minutes of the first half and the first four
minutes of.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
The second half.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Why is that time slot significant and how should coaches
approach that part of the game to help their team
be successful.

Speaker 5 (06:56):
Well, it's something that we obviously spent a lot of
time on here, and I think let's let's start back
about all right, the why behind it first is the
statistics show in college football. I can only speak of
college football. In college football, the winner of the middle

(07:19):
eight gives you over an eighty percent chance of winning
the football game. And if you look at it over
and I haven't looked at this year's daddy yet, but
for several years in a row, Alabama and Clemson were
two of the schools that were in the top five
win in the middle eight, and the course for a
certain number of years there, those two programs were at

(07:40):
the top of college football. And so I think, like
from a situational standpoint, and I'm a big believer in
is you've got to educate your players in situational football
in the classroom and then during practice, and you've got
to do it in a way where you teach them
what it is when it's the last four minutes of
the first half first for first four minutes of the

(08:01):
second half, and then you got to explain why it's
important and you give them those statistics. Then you go
out and practice and you practice and you allow them
fail and then you learn from failure on that. And
basically what we did is from a middle late perspective,
we practice the two minute into half in the first

(08:22):
four minutes of the second half quite a bit. And
what we did is we always had a situation at
the end of the half, all right, well you get
the ball. So a lot of those times are sudden change.
Is it could be a turnover. You get the ball
back on a turnover, so you stop practice, and we
had a sudden change period of practice. You sound the horn,

(08:42):
you come out and as the head coach, you walk
out there and say, okay, guys, there's a minute ten left,
all right. From a defensive perspective, is the offense just
threw an interception and now they have the ball on
the minus forty, all right. And your jib from a
defense is you got to put out the fire. Your
goal is to get off the field without allowing points

(09:06):
before the hat. The flip side of that, now, offense
is the defense just got a takeaway. Now you've got
the ball on the minus forty one with a chance
to steal points before hat. And there's a significant difference
from an offense perspective between an end of half situation,
a two minute into half situation, and a two minute

(09:26):
into game situation and the end of game situation. You
need to know first of all is hide are you behind?
If you're behind how many points? And in those situations
sometimes you're going to have to put the ball in
jeopardy because you've got to go make a play in
particularly if you're behind well in the half. I always
talk to our quarterbacks about you're really playing with house

(09:47):
money here. Okay, what we have to do first and
foremost is take care of the football and then let's
go steal points going into the hat. And that's what
that's what we practiced it. And then the up side
of that, when you're coming out of the halftime, what's
it always started with some type of kick, right, So
we would always come out of a break in practice,

(10:07):
especially in fall camp or spring, and we would always
start with our out of the break. We would start
with either a kickoff or a kickoff return, and then
we would play that drive a lot, and so I
think you just train your guys, but is you can
Football is such a momentum game, and if you can,
if you can steal the momentum going into half, and

(10:29):
then you can maintain that momentum as you come out
in the second half, that really sets you up for
success as the game goes.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, that's right, that's good.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
That is And you know, it's funny looking back on
thirty two years, I can remember in the first half
stuff big wins, scoring at the end of the half,
the flip side, huge losses, horrible losses, not getting it done,
a drive ending on the ten with no points, for example.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
So it's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Hey, that that was great, and that's gonna be really
good for our listeners.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Hey, hey, Chuck, I'll be quiet. Let you get the
next one.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, and we'll kind of skip around here a little bit.
Neil with the with the uh, you know the content
of the question. But you know you were a three
sports star and you need to tell your kids. Let
your kids listen to this part, because you were a
legit three sports star in high school. You play football, basketball,
and baseball, and you but you also spent your career

(11:28):
recruiting you know, uh, high school kids to play football
for you. So what are your thoughts on, you know,
kids specializing you know, in the sport you know, when
you were recruiting, did you want a kid that that
was a kid that specialized in just you know, football,
or did you want, you know, a kid that played
multiple sports?

Speaker 3 (11:47):
You know? What? What are you? What are you?

Speaker 2 (11:48):
What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (11:50):
Well I want to answer this in a three part way. Okay,
So the first one is from my personal experience. Okay,
and for my person experience, like I wouldn't trade it
for the world. What I was able to accomplish, and
what I mean by that was being able to play
three sports, no accolades or anything like like that. Like,
I wouldn't trade I absolutely loved it. I loved sports,

(12:13):
and you both know this. But I grew up and
my dad was either coaching baseball or football. My uncle
was a basketball coach, and so depending on what type
of time of the year it is, I was in
either in a full fieldhouse in football, I was in
the gym for basketball, or I was in a dugout
for baseball. And that's how I that's how I grew
up and I wouldn't trade it for all for anything.

(12:34):
And I was able to do those three sports from
the time I was probably four or five years old
all the way through my high school career, and I
wouldn't trade that. You know, some of the most special
memories I have is we won the region at Boyle
County and basketball for the first time ever and going
to play in Rep.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Aerena.

Speaker 5 (12:51):
We were fortunate enough to win the baseball region twice
and we played in the state in the in the
state baseball tournament, and so those are really special and
I look back at that and being able to play
three sports. It takes up a ton of time, but
that's all I knew, and I wouldn't trade it. And
so the second part of that as I attack it
from a parent perspective, because I'm going through it right now.

(13:15):
You know, I've got a junior in high school, I've
got an eighth grader, and I've got a third grader,
and starting my son who's in third grade. He plays
three sports, and I hope he does. I hope he
maintains it for a long time. And my goal as
a parent is regardless of where we live or what
type of youth or travel sports he's involved in as

(13:37):
long as he wants to do that is to make
it possible. And I've got an eighth grade daughter who's
who plays middle school basketball, middle school softball, and she
plays soccer, and she plays travel soccer and travel softball,
and she should play all three of those at the
high school level. And again, my goal as a parent
is to continue to give her opportunities to do that,

(13:58):
because I think it's really really important from a developmental standpoint,
and I think there's no replacement for competition reps. And
that leads me into the third perspective I look at it,
and that's from a recruiting and from a football perspective.
Is this the way we always looked at it. If
if we had player A and player B and they

(14:19):
were equal, and player A you played football and football
only for his entire high school career, and player B
maybe ran track, maybe played basketball. Well that what that
told me is, man, there's a lot more development probably
happening in player B. I'm gonna player B. And the
other thing I'll say from a recruiting standpoint is just
the opportunity to evaluate. You know, a lot of the times.

(14:41):
In recruiting, what you're trying to figure out is where's
the lowest amount of risk. And if you go and
you get live evaluations. Let's say if you're recruiting a
receiver or a tight end, Well, you may go watch
the play football and you go to a game. Well,
depending on what happens, maybe the quarterbacks struggle, maybe he's injured,

(15:02):
maybe it's wet. You might the quarterback or the receiver
or the tight end, they may not touch the ball much.
They may get three or four targets, and it's really
hard to evaluate what their level is if they're not
getting the ball. And that's not the high school coach fault.
They're trying to win the game. Well, and they'll say
that that skill player, that offensive skill player, he goes
plays basketball. Well, there's all kinds of movement skills in basketball,

(15:28):
all right that show or project into football. You know,
do they have body control, what's their quickness look like?
Can they get off the ground. And I'm talking about
physical tools, not that this is a competitive stunt. And
so I'm a huge believer in the opportunity to evaluate
and minimize risk. If a guy plays more than one

(15:50):
sport man then you're you're lowering your risk and on
missing on that player. And nothing probably irritates me more
during the process when, whether it's a coach or a
kid or a parent says all listen, guys, listen, he's
not gonna play basketball this year. We're just gonna put
him in the weight round.

Speaker 6 (16:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:08):
And I'm sitting there thinking in my head, man, like
why you got a short You got a finite amount
of time for you go to play high school basketball,
and man, those are some huge Like I remember winning
the regional championship in McCurry Central and Sterns, Kentucky, and
that place was packed and they were right behind our bench.
And let me tell you something that prepares you. You

(16:30):
go play in a gym that's full of three thousand
people and that's tight. Well, guess what, it's the same
as playing in Death Valley. They're just one hundred more
of them there, but they're not even louder. And so
and I think too, is like there's and I say
this again, there's no replacement for competition. And you can't

(16:50):
you cannot tell me that a student athlete is not
better served by going and playing in stressful, intense competitions
in basketball or having to go at one on one
competition and wrestling or in track and field. You can't
tell me they're not getting more out of that experience

(17:10):
in the weight room. I'm a weight room believer in
but you can't tell me they're getting more because you
can do both. You can do both, and you can't
tell me that that they're getting the same amount of
preparation just in the weight room. I just don't think
that exists. So I'm a huge component. I wouldn't take
my personal experience back. I loved it. I'm very grateful
for the opportunity to do that. I hope my kids

(17:32):
play multiple sports. And if i'm recruiting, like i'm I'm
strongly drawn to people that play multiple sports.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah. And and the way in the way kids are,
the way the schools are set up now where they're
just about all of them can lift weights during the
school of day, there's really nothing holding you back from
playing multiple sports if that's what you want to do well.

Speaker 5 (17:53):
And here's the thing, it's an adult problem, it's not
a kid problem. And that's what that's what that's what
we've got to you know, Like there's major problems like
your kid, all your kids are old enough now or
their past. But you sports, there's a ton of positives
to it, there's ton negatives to it. And the adults
got to get along and they got to make it work.

(18:14):
And when you get to the high school level, you know, hey,
it's about win. You got to win, but you also
can't lose fact that you're in the developmental phase of
young people. Fourteen to eighteen is a huge developmental phase.
And the adults got to get along, and the administration
at school levels got to get be involved and make
sure that players are students that are playing multiple sports.

(18:37):
Girls and boys are given that opportunity and the adults
aren't getting in the way of it.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
Yeah, yeah, And I tell you what the I just
hope the youth sports can hang in there and continue
to be developmental and I it's that that's a struggle
right now.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Hey, one question.

Speaker 5 (18:56):
Let me let me give you an example of the students.
I think this is good for the high school coach
to see it from a college perspective. All right, we
have a we had a player at West Virginia. He'll
be a junior next fall, but his a kid named
Rodney Gallagher. All right, Rodney Gallagher was a dual sport.
Played basketball growing up. He was actually on Brownie's AAU team,

(19:19):
and then as he went through high school, it became
evident that his best sport was going to be football.
He played quarterback, but he was an athlete. And and
here he's he's from Uniontown, which is down the road
from Morgantown. But they played in the Whipio. The Whipill
was Western Pennsylvania anyway. So in basketball, you go, you

(19:41):
play your division, you make to the whippild finals where
they play the whippild basketball finals at Pitt's Gym. Well,
he goes up there and he plays point guard, handles
the ball the whole time. I think there's a lot
to be said when you watch somebody play basketball but
they're not wearing a helmet, the crowds right on top
of on. You understand how they handle their body language,

(20:02):
all that kind of stuff. It's it's a lot easier
to see in basketball than it's football. Well, the short
story of this, he goes up and hits two free
throws with under one second to go to win the
Whipil Championship. Well, in my mind, He's sitting in a
gym probably with eight or ten thousand people in there.
All eyves are on him. He goes up, calm boom,

(20:22):
one two, they win the whip. You'll well, in my mind,
as a football coach, I'm like, well, that kid can
play as a freshman because they ain't gonna be too
big for him. Because you got twenty two players on football,
you know you can hide a little bit sometimes, and
basketball you should. You know what I mean. You shooting
free throws everybody's and so like, that's an example that

(20:43):
I would use because I remember coming back to our
staff and going, listen, guys, I watched this last night
on the live feed. There's no question that kid can
play for us a freshmen. So let's start making plans
for that. So carry on. I just wanted to I
feel strongly about that.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Hey.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
I like that Harry Lewis one night hit eight out
of eight free throws to get to the region tournament.
And I've always been very proud of that. And I
agree with what you're talking about. Hey, if you would
describe the influence of Mike Leach that he had on
you in terms of both your offense but also your
approach to leading a football team.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
I think so Coach Leach was my freshman year receiver coach,
and then I had a relationship with him all through
his life. And I think the main thing that sticks
out to me about Coach Leech was two things I
learned and I probably didn't really understand. I was learning

(21:47):
this when he was coaching me and as our relationship,
but as I reflect on that, as you sent me
that question, and it gave me a time to kind
of ponder on it. Two things. Number one, it's okay
to be different, it's okay to do it and the
best way that you he fit and not trying to
be somebody else. The second thing is man. He asked
a ton of questions and just the power of being curious.

(22:08):
And I can remember that he would we would be
in a meeting, something would come up. I can remember
him asking me tons of questions about horse racing. And
because my grandparents, my grandparents go to the racist, I
can remember them take me to every horse park from
Ellis Park the turf Way in the state of Kentucky.

(22:29):
My grand my dad's mom was tight, she was cheap,
but she would she would bet horses and so like
some some really fond memories of me growing up or
going to the horse track with them, and so I
knew that now I've got way too much stuff going
on now, I don't know it like I did then.
But I remember him just asking me questions about it
because it's all new to him that he was in

(22:49):
Kentucky for the first time. He was learning about it.
And the horse racing sticks out to me because that's
the questions he was asking me. But he was asking
questions constantly, and and those are the real takeaways from him.
It's just it's okay to be yourself. There's different ways
to accomplish the same goal. And then just the curiosity.
But I think it's important too. And I was thinking

(23:09):
about this, you know, from a coaching influence, you know,
I appreciated coach Leech, but really from a football coaching influences,
I really mine are four people, and one of them's
on this called Chuck Smith. And really he taught me
how to do hard things.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
He can tell you.

Speaker 5 (23:27):
When I went to Boill County, you know, football was
three out of three for me, and I thought it
was gonna be a basketball guy and quick growing. So
that kind of that kind of went away, but he
taught me how to do He and Chris Pardu who
taught me how to do hard things about it, and
that really set me up for everything that I've done since.
And UH and did a great job of really teaching motivation,

(23:52):
how to get young people motivated to do something really
hard and do it in a team manner. And then
the second one for me was Tony Frank and he
was probably had the most influenced on me from an
offense perspective, is because he really took the time early
on when I was a player and then early in
my coaching career to teach me the why. All right,

(24:13):
why are we doing this?

Speaker 7 (24:14):
You know?

Speaker 5 (24:15):
Because I would ask sometimes and you get to you know,
some people would say, well that's because that's what that's
why we're doing it. He would have really explain to
me the why, and he gave me some really good
opportunities early in my career. The third one is Larry
Blakeney who just got inducted or just got found out
that he was getting put into College Football Hall of Fame,
and his was all about man he treated the players.

(24:39):
And I can remember being an assistant coach under him
and him saying, hey, I can go out and find
anybody do your job. I can't go find somebody to
score touchdowns. It's hard to do that. I'm sitting there
and like I remember that and going, well, I don't
know about all that. But then the older I got,
I'm like, yeah, you can find a lot of people coach.
The elite players are really really hard. And then the

(25:01):
fourth for me was was was Mark Stoops because I
came to when I came to Kentucky in the fall
of twenty twelve as an offensive coordinator. My coaching career
a little bit at Texas Tech, but for the most
part it had been we've been successful, you know, and

(25:21):
I don't think you really tested until you're not very successful.
We went there and coach Smith knows this, like in
December twelve, like we went in twenty twelve at Texas Tech.
We went from having one of the top two or
three offenses in the country. And then I remember going
up and going to Lexton for the first time and
my wife Brooke Brooke and our two kids at the time,

(25:43):
we're back in love it. I stayed at my parents'
house in dan One, drove up to Lexton on the
first day and the GA and I Tyler Sargent, who
coach Smith knows as well. We watched the guys that
returning and I remember calling Brooke about lunchtime and going, oof,
I don't know about that. I know you said you
wanted to come back, but oh, it's gonna be it's

(26:03):
gonna be rough here and uh. But what I learned
from him is where he would work for Jimbo and
Jimbo work for Sabing is just the structure of the
program that and I thought I was ready to be
a head coach, but I really never failed in coaching,
and so we had to work and and get through

(26:23):
some lack of talent, some other things like that and
resources at that time, and there was some failure involved,
but I also learned some structure and so which was
really important for me at that time and really set
me up for that success that we that we had
at Troy as a head coach.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
It's a good answer, Hey, thank you.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, Hey, Neil. My next question for you is just
kind of an offensive question. It's being an offensive guy
like you are. If you were going into the game
and you knew you couldn't win, in the trenches. From
an offensive perspective, what would your game plan be and
how would you attack that defense to give your kids
the best chance to win.

Speaker 5 (27:04):
Yeah, so I've got there's there's really two thought processes
on this, and uh, I think it goes back to
who your quarterback is. So so early in my career,
if you would have asked me this, I would have said,
because we really made our living throwing the football there
and that was a differentiator for us. It's throwing the football.
So I was said, man, we want to play basketball

(27:25):
and grass. We want to spread people out, We want
to get the ball out of our hand fast, and
those are either in quick screens, our screens to your
running back, our jail breaks screens, or we want to
move the pocket and give our own offensive line a
better opportunity to protect. Or you just want to be
able to catch the ball and throw a lot of

(27:46):
quick game stuff. And if you have a passing quarterback
and you have really good skilled players, I think that's
still a good answer. Now, as I've kind of aged
through this and probably matured, I think in the games
different is now. I look at it and this is
kind of who we've been the last two years and

(28:07):
we've been successful offensively. Is it's kind of this new
age what I call New age option football and really
wanting to split the defense. And the best way I
can say this is, okay, so there's it's a numbers game,
and this is gonna be really simplistic. But on defense,
you have eleven guys, and everybody on defense, all eleven
on them can tackle. Right On offense is you only

(28:31):
got nine blockers. So you got the quarterback who can't block,
and you got the guys carrying the ball who can't block.
So you're playing nine on eleven all the time. All right, well,
how do you how do you even up the numbers offensively?
And then how do you create conflict? And so the
answer for me now at this point in my career

(28:52):
is is you've got to be able to split the defense.
And there's different ways to split the defense. So you
can have a run play with a perimeter screen and
so the defense has to defend the run play and
the perimeter screen. You can have a run play with
some kind of quick game pass what everybody's calling an RPO.

(29:14):
Some of them are run pass pass run, but where
you have a run play with some kind of quick
game concept. And so the defense has to play both
the pass and the run, or you can have a
movement passed with some kind of power run, some kind
of gap run where again you've got an option to
throw the ball or you've got an option to run

(29:35):
it inside. Defense has to play both, or you can
have read game. And what I mean by that is
you can have and if you watched the Eagles, uh,
they did this quite a bit in their in their
divisional round win this past weekend. As we film this

(29:56):
this past weekend when they beat who they be, I
forget anyway, the Eagles did it. Jalen Hurts hit a
touchdown and on this and what they did is they
ran GT counter to the left with the running back
or excuse me, they ran GT counter to the left
with the quarterback and they brought their back to the right.

(30:17):
And so if we're looking here is he sitt there?
The quarterback reddit the end got up the field, took
away the running back, he ran the GT power and
he was out. Okay, And so that's option football. But
you're splitting the defense. So you've got an outside perimeter
run and then you've got to interior run and what
that does is you're reading a defender. So now that's

(30:40):
one defender you're reading, So now it's nine on ten,
and then what you're trying to do is you're trying
to get the free hitter as far away from you
as you can. And so in my and dealing with
most high school football coaches, very few people have the
ability to have a quarterback that man can just get
the ball out, make good decisions, and have enough skill

(31:01):
players where you can beat them throwing the football. Some do,
but most don't. So I think the answer now and
the way the games play now is is how can
you play option football and give where the defense you're
putting people in conflict and the defense has to play
all right, different plays within the same play. The other

(31:22):
thing I think, too with the run game is if
you're playing a severe matchup, issue is you've got to
make any type of your shot plays what I call
run action pass. So if you're going to run some
kind of eleven or twelve personnel, whether it's inside zone,
whether it's counter outside zone, you need to have some

(31:44):
kind of shot either two men or three man concept
that looks just like the run play, and you've got
to be okay, understanding that your protection may not be
as sound as you would like it to be, but
you have an opportunity to hit a home on and
you've got to be able to take calculated risks, especially
if you're an underdog, or especially if you're a team

(32:06):
that can't block as well. You've got to take calculated
risk and saying, Okay, hey, they're gonna play the run.
All we got to do is make up the pass
play look just like the run, and then we've got
a chance at a one on one down the field.
And so I think either or you play the cat
pass game or in the run game, is you you
give your quarterbacks some options where you've got different plays

(32:29):
built in the same concept.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, it's really good stuff. Uh that's a really good answer.
But it's really good stuff. And I don't know how
the defensive stop the offenses anymore. That's why these scores
are so outrageous, uh, in games, because you know, I mean,
it's got it going on really well.

Speaker 5 (32:48):
Is the thing that you have to do in today's
football to me is defensively And you know you've forgot
more defensive football than I know, But you've got to
be able to shed blocks, and you've got to be
able to You don't always have to make the play
to make the tackle in space, but you've got to
be able to slow them down. And that I think
one of the biggest conflicts in football with at high

(33:10):
school or college level now is is, man, how do
you practice tackling and do it in a safe way?
Because this is a contact game, So you've got to
practice contact. And then you've got to like the way
the game's played on offense. Now, from a defensive perspective,
it's more important now than ever to be able to
make one on one tackles. Yeah, and so how do

(33:31):
you how do you practice that and do it in
a way that's safe.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Well, you got to get off blocks and make plays.
That's the way it's always going to be. But you
also you're going to have to be aggressive defensively too,
because you know, because of all of the different you know,
things the offenses can do with the r p O
s or you know the double plays you know of uh,
you know reading reading the play and you know running
two plays and one really yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
And tell you what else if they don't you had
a handle on ineligible receivers downfield with the offensive lineman.
I mean, it's just gonna get worse and worse, because
I mean that's basically a lot of times that rule
doesn't even exist anymore.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
The reality of it is.

Speaker 5 (34:13):
Yeah, then you gotta from a defensive perspective too. Is
what I would tell listeners is they've got to make
a decision and they've got to mix it up in
the game. How you're gonna play the mess. So if
I'm the red defender, you know, whether they're reading a
three technique, whether they're reading the end, whatever it is is,
you cannot play it the same way every time. And

(34:33):
you got to remember you're playing the quarterback, not the
other coach and so, and you know you've got to
you've got to you've got to play. You've got to
give it, give read. You know how you're gonna play it.
You got to give a pool read and then you've
got to mess charge and you've got to mix those
up within a game where you can you're not just

(34:57):
playing on your heels all the time.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
Right right, It's good? Well, ayuh, next question for you. Your
Bowl record was five and one. What strategies did you
follow to have that type of success?

Speaker 3 (35:10):
In the postseason.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
Well, I think, for you know, most of them it's
because our player made plays. I don't know if it
was I don't know if it was anything that we
were doing coaching perspective wise, I will say this, I
think I think more people are doing this now. But
it was always important to us two make it a fun,

(35:34):
rewarding experience.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
You know.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
And I always talk to our guys about four goals.
First goal is to win the game. We're playing the
game we're playing to win. The second one is we
want to have an enjoyable experience, and we wanted to
try to give them as many gifts or experiences. Part
of that enjoyable experiences is you practice later. And one

(35:57):
thing that we did is man I would put the
I'd put the practice showing the practice beforehand, and we
wouldn't stop the clock at all, And so we always
would stagger our practice. We would have everybody that's gonna
play in the game, and I tried to keep it
between an hour and an hour and fifteen minutes, and
man I would keep a running clock and we didn't

(36:19):
stop it. In the minute that thing hit, we were
getting them out. And then we would keep our younger
players and scrimmage and so and we didn't go. We
didn't do with younger players. It was scrimmage and we
tried to make it competitive and keep scoring during our
Bowl prep. But anyway, we wanted to win, have fun,
enjoyable experience. The third thing is we wanted to honor
our seniors. And so what we tried to do is

(36:42):
is we really made it a point. We would pick
a senior or maybe two depending on time, and we
would try to honor those each day, and then we
would really do something the night before to really honor
those those guys that were leaving the program. And the
last thing was just we were We would constantly talk
about how this was prep for next year, for the

(37:03):
next season, and how we could use this as a springboard.
And we would always try to figure out ways to
get some guys we thought we were going to be in fact,
maybe they played a minimal role or an average role
during the season. How can we put them in a
role that really where they felt like it was going
to catapull them into next year. And so that's what

(37:24):
we talked about. You know, we had four goals and
I would put those goals in front of them every
single day, every day before we practiced in our team meeting.
Let's say, hey, guys, we're going to golden ones, win
them too. We wanna have enjoyable experience. Thirds we're gonna
on our seniors boards us. We're getting ready for next year.
And and so we did that, and we didn't beat
them up, we didn't overpractice. We were always freshen those games,

(37:47):
regardless of we were playing two weeks after the regular
season or five. And we gave them down time too.
I think that's important. You got to give um some
time to go home and and and be away a
little bit, you know that. I think those are the
reason why we were successful.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's a good answer.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
We could have played for him, couldn't we, David, No.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
It sounds pretty good. That sounds better than full gear
at one hundred and time with French.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Heye deal. My last question for you is, if you
choose to be a head football coach again, is there
anything you do differently? You know, you know, what would
be your non negotiables?

Speaker 5 (38:23):
Yeah, I would, Uh, Well, first of all, you know,
I want to and I believe I will be a
head football coach again. And I'll say that I'm enjoining this.
I'm calling it kind of sabbatical. I'm enjoying this. You know,
I don't think anybody wants to get fired, but I haven't.
You know, it's been a it's been a good learning
experience for me. You know, as I look back at

(38:44):
our time at West Virginia, I really think Tim will
be a friend to that. You know, there's some things
that we didn't do good enough, but there are all
things we did really well and and a lot of
times here we were able to maybe outperform our resources
and and so but as I look back, you know,
I think there's some things that you know, let me

(39:06):
say that. Some things I'm really proud of that we
did here is I think the infrastructure is really good.
And I'm talking about the bricks and mortar and just
the infrastructure of the program and all the things that
go in to be in a high level power forward program.
I think we established those. Our processes were really good,
our organization, all those things are really good. You know,

(39:28):
As I look back, and this was a this was
and I would encourage people to do this that are
in between jobs. As I go back and I really
kind of go through the entire six year tenure at
West Virginia is what I've done in the in the
previous weeks and said, Okay, what have we done, what

(39:49):
did we do well? What do we need to sustain
at the next at the next step, and where do
we need to improve? And I think about that offense, defense,
special teams. I think about that from all the different
whether it's recruiting, scouting, strength, conditioning, nutrition, et cetera. Then
I think about it from a people perspective too, And
really the biggest thing is where we got to the

(40:12):
last two years is should have done things earlier and
the tenth the entire tenure would have been different. We
should have we should have created an identity. Talking about
offense a little bit. You know, the last two years
we've been a running football team, and two years ago
we were the number one rank power for running football

(40:33):
team in the country. This year we were in the
top fifteen, I believe, and we did that with a
dual threat quarterback. You know, on special teams. The last
two years we really established who we wanted to be.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
You know.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Defensively, went didn't play well enough, and that's part of
the reason that I'm on here with you guys, rather
than out recruiting today as we just didn't play very
well on defense. And then the evaluation process is, you know,
how do you how do you know? To me when
you think about evaluation, there's a physical component, there's a
mental component, and there's a character component. And I thought

(41:10):
that later in my tenure here we did a better
job of evaluating all three. Where we made some mistakes
either from a character mental, physical, made some mistakes earlier,
and the processes we're using at the end, I wish
we would have used earlier, some of the order structure stuff,
you know, like I thought in the last two years,

(41:30):
you know, we went to a general manager model with
a scouting department of recruiting. You know, those are things,
and we were still a little bit ahead of the curve.
But man, if we did it maybe eighteen months earlier,
we'd have been even further down the road than we were.
And then just some delegation, you know, like the last
two years, you know, I really went to this philosophy

(41:52):
of all right, of doing from a head football coaching perspective,
do what I do best, and then delegate to experts
in other fields, where early here I probably tried to
have my hands in too many things, and so I think,
you know, the tenure would have been a little bit

(42:13):
different if I would have hired experts or delegated to
those experts at a better rate earlier. And so that's
what that's what I've been kind of is some of
the stuff that we got to the last two years.
I really felt like if we would have done it earlier,
then we have been more successful over a course of
six years. Like things happened this year. We were six
and six. You know, we lost some close games, we

(42:34):
had some injuries. You know those are going to happen.
But if we had done some of the things I
just mentioned earlier, we'd been able to withstand a six
and six year. So hope that answer you.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah. I think sometimes it's good to step back and
you know, kind of like what you're doing. You know,
you don't like how you got there, but you know,
you step back and take a look at what you've
done and what you think you could do differently. I
think that help sometimes.

Speaker 5 (43:01):
Yeah. I couldn't. I couldn't agree more. You know, you
get over the the public public ness of getting fired
and the failure piece of it, But there's a lot
of good in that too, Yeah, there is, and you
learn from things and like I said, that's what I
wouldn't trade this time, just trying this time that I
have to reflect the time that you know, I promise

(43:24):
you there's a I'm a lot healthier now than I
probably was six months ago, and it gives you some time.
The next time you get the opportunity, you're gonna do
it better and so I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Hey, so, Neil, I've got the last question for you.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
You know, with NIL and transfer portal, and you know,
Chuch done a really good job of having college coaches
talk about this when they come on and uh, you know,
we've heard a lot of successful coaches comment on how
different the dynamics are of coaching college football now going forward,
having a transformational approach work, you know, which I've heard
coach Saban talk about, which is empowering, helping others well

(44:04):
that still work as a big time college football coach.
Or have we reached a point that it's going to
be a transactional model, meaning we're going to use people,
going to di scard them and that's going to be
the model of a successful football coach at the collegiate level,
at the highest levels going forward, how do you see
that playing out?

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Well, I think the first thing is we've got a
change perspective, right, and so just like offensive defensive philosophy
is a change over the course of the last fifty
years or so, I think we have to change what
the expectations are, what we think the role of a
head football coach is. And if we're constantly stuck in this, well,

(44:47):
this is what it used to be, where we're never
going to move forward because things aren't going back now.
Hopefully we get some more organization and there's more structure
within the model we have right now, but things aren't
going back to what they used to be. So I
think as coaches is collegiate, especially college at the power
flod level head football coaches, we're doing ourselves a major

(45:08):
injustice because there's a lot of complaining and people don't
want to hear people that are making thirty four or
five ten million dollars a year complain. That's just it's like, hey,
they figure it out, right, And so I think from
and I'm talking about my fellow coaches at this at
the power four level, we've got to quit complaining about it,

(45:30):
understand and figure out ways to make it work. This
way I think about it. So in today's day and
age is we got three three aspects. We got recruiting,
we got development, and we got retention. And so recruiting
is still about relationships, you know, because we're in a
professional model in a lot of ways. But in professional

(45:51):
sports you draft and then you have contract rights to
those guys you draft. That's not the way it's working
at this level.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Now.

Speaker 5 (45:58):
You with what happens is is you want okay, is
you're going to go out and recruit, meaning they have
to choose you, and so to do that, relationships is
still a big part of it. The development piece is coaching,
and so all the the ways that guys have motivated,

(46:18):
the guys have taught, the guys have coached, those really
aren't that much different. The only thing that's different is
everything's public.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Now.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
You got you gotta think about every time that you're
in front of a team, every time you have a
one on one conversation, every time you're coaching in practice,
you got to think that something's getting videoed or somebody's
taking a picture. That's just you got to work in
that realm, but coaching other than that, there's not a
whole lot of difference. And the third piece is retention. Well,
retention to me is a combination of recruiting development because

(46:48):
the retention pieces it's relationships. They got to feel like
they're getting coached, you're getting better, you know, from an
individual basis and within their scheme and being productive. But
then the retention piece that's that's different is the business
side of it, which is which is financial. So to me,
it's a mixture of both. You're not going to have
just a transformational coach that doesn't embrace the business aspect

(47:12):
of current college football. And you're not going to have
success with a straight transactional guy that just looks at
it as player A, B, and C and it's all
about finances. It's those that can kind of be a
combination of both. Those are the ones that are gonna
have success in this day and age. It's going to
be people that can adapt, either adapt or die in

(47:35):
this in this role is you got to there's gonna
continue to be real changes, There's gonna be continued, it's
gonna be changing. I think it's gonna happen for the
next three or five years before things really settle down,
and so you've got to be able to adapt. You've
got to be really relational and understanding and getting to
know your players because you've got to get to know

(47:56):
not only for what buttons to push on the field,
but who's helping them with they're off the field decisions.
The only way you get to know that is to listen.
And the only time you're going to listen and get
knowledge is you got to invest time in those guys.
And then you've got to continue to coach them at
a high level. So you got to continue to be
an expert and your feel offense, defense, special teams, whatever

(48:17):
the players playing. And the third thing is you've got
to have really good checks and balances and how you're
going to pay your players. And so I don't think
that it's one or the other. You're not going to
be transformational transactional. It's going to be a combination of
both to be successful in this current climate.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
That's a great answer, excellent answer. Hey, Now I got
a question just to follow up there's but I think
your answer was great. But how you know what would
a recruiting meeting look like nowadays? And when you sit
down at the table, or you're saying, hey, so many
scholarships are going to high school kids, and this many

(48:55):
scholarships are going to the portal kids. Is that how
it works?

Speaker 5 (49:00):
So I think what for most programs, what you're looking
at is about a third turnover each year. Right, So
if you're dealing with eighty five, you know the easy
number to work with, which is not perfect, but approximately
thirty percent thirty guys on your roster is going to
turn over, right, And so what you've got to look
at is where do you have immediate needs? Well, immediate needs,

(49:22):
you gotta, you gotta, you got to go to portal
for those immediate needs. Listen to a special high school
football player. And then okay, so how many immediate immediate needs? Well,
we need a starter at whatever need key backup. So
let's say that's either ten or twelve, and then you
set your high school numbers based off that. Yeah, and
then your high school numbers are still based on what's
in your room. Okay, And that's that's the way we

(49:46):
did it. I think that's the way most people are
doing it. When you go through it. The only thing
that I would tell you that's different and this is
is you know you used to be when it's just
you're filling out your roster through high school recruiting, you
would say, okay, he we're gonna take five offensive linemen,
and man, here's the guys we have ranked, and if
we if we get to a certain point, man, we'll

(50:07):
just take the next best guy. Now what what we
did here? And I think this is the way a
lot of people do it is to say, okay, hey,
all right, we want to take five offensive linemen. These
are the ten that we feel really good about helping us.
And if we don't get one of those ten, you
know what, we're just gonna hit hold and we're gonna go.
We'll try to find a developmental player in the portal

(50:28):
that has three or four years rather than reaching on
a high school player. The problem with high school and
this is this is really and I think it's unfair
to high school coaches because high school coaches, now it's
in if you're still living this, you're not only you're
only uh have to be responsible wins and losses, but
you're also the parents have this this uh uh, it's

(50:52):
really a belief that's unfounded and it's not backed. Is
that you're supposed to help them get into a scholarship now, right,
which right now, for a high school player, it's harder
than it ever has been. And because not only do
you have portal guys that are taking these scholarships, a
lot of places that are doubt are reducing their number
of scholarships. Now you have this junior college rule all

(51:14):
of a sudden that the guys this year are gonna
have junior college You're just now having these guys that
are finished off the COVID year where they're playing six
and seven years of college football. And there's a lot
of Division two programs that have dropped football recently, and
several junior colleges have dropped scholarship football. And so this
there's been there's never been a tougher time to earn

(51:36):
a scholarship at the high school level because from the
college coaching perspective, what are you looking for? You want
experience production? Right, Well, if it's easier to get experienced
production from a transfer guy than projecting that in a
high school player, yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
That's a great point.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
And I've tried to communicate with our parents, you know,
sort of the mindset of you know, my job is
to work like crazy.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
To get an evaluation and.

Speaker 4 (52:02):
After that, you know, it'll come down to their video
and uh, you know, we're we're just now building.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
That hasn't been too but too too big of an issue.
But one thing I've really tried to do is when
we have had we have had some guys get offers
off of a tough season, and just try to really
help everybody understand in this climate with as you said,
the JUCO the transfer portal, and if you've got multiple
offers to play college football, that's that's a pretty good
situation for a high school kid right now.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
So we're thankful for that. Neil.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
You've been super and there are great things ahead for you.
And uh, hey, hey, thanks for taking time for us today.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
You've been excellent.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (52:42):
I appreciate it, and uh hopefully we make some time
to do this again. But appreciate, appreciate you all and
appreciate what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Money great, Neil, thank you.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Yep, Hey, that that was excellent, really really was. Yeah,
crews a wealth of information.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
Uh yeah, yeah, it's I'm glad we're doing these little
things when we're breaking it up because we've got a
lot of clips from him that it'll be really good
standing on its own.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
So it's good, good stuff. But anyway, so let's keep on.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
Going, uh, discussing the biggest coach move changes for twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
What do you got? What do you think? Oh?

Speaker 2 (53:26):
I think that you know so far you've got you
know you got Steve's Steve's don't breaker to Danville. You
know he Steve has been. I think Steve is an
excellent coach. I think he's a very very good coach
and one of the better coaches you know around. He
was at Casey. He's had success ever where he's being Casey.
I think a couple of times. He's been at Geared,

(53:46):
been at the There, he was even at my old
high school, Jay Town, ever in high school. But this
is really, in my opinion, Steve's first shot at I
don't know, a state championship DNA program. You know, Danvil
was a state championship They got that state championship DNA
they do. I know they've been not very good, really

(54:09):
horrible the last couple of years, but regardless, they've got
some DNA in their program that's championship level. I'm anxious
to see how it works out for him. I'm a
fan of his. I think he'll do a great job there.
I think he's an excellent football coach. And of course,
Adrian Morton was one of our guests on here, and

(54:30):
you know, he kind of he did a great things
at Ballard and the kind of disappeared for a year
and now he's back in, you know, on the scene
with Eastern High School in Louisville and Middletown. You know, man,
they hit a home run with him. I don't know
how they got him to, you know, to come out
of retirement or whatever he was on. But he's a
great coach and I think he'll do an excellent job

(54:51):
at Eastern. And then Philip Hawkins, who is at you know,
Brian's Station, had done a great job at Brian's Station.
He was that Apollo before that. He was one of
our guests as well. And coach Hawkins is gone to
Henry Clay. And he switched to Henry Clay, which was
a surprise to a lot of people, you know, in
the state of Kentucky. Home run higher for Henry Clay.

(55:15):
I mean, they couldn't have done any better. And then
the other job that was really interesting that just turned
over was Oldham County. Oldham County hired Jamie Reid, and Jamie,
you know, was at South Odham. He was at the
crosstown rival. So that's really going to be interesting how
that turns out. But glad to have him back in

(55:37):
the coaching ranks. He does a great job, did a
great job at South Odhlman. He's going to make South
Oldham a better football program. It's really interesting, David. There's
twenty five job openings in Kentucky. Twenty five job opening
now there's only two hundred and twenty football playing schools
and twenty five head coaching job. There's a couple of
big jobs still open that hadn't been filled to my knowledge, Owensboro, Henderson, Glasgow.

(56:01):
There are some big time jobs that still haven't been
filled yet.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Yeah, I agree, and you did a good job running
those down.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
I'm going to talk a little bit about I think
an excellent higher but one that also somewhat fascinating to
me is coach J. T.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Haskins at Brian's Station.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
And the reason that that got my interest a little
bit is because he's going back to his old high
school and I got to go back and coach in
my hometown, even though it was a merge. As a
merger wasn't the exact same high school. And I think
you go back to your hometown. I think it is
a great experience and an opportunity, but I think it's

(56:38):
tough also, I really do. I think it is tough
going back somewhere where you grew up. And I think
he's going to do a really good job, and I've
got a lot of respect for him. I tell you,
somebody that I think probably ought to write a book
on coaching your hometown is Chris MCing to me at Pikeville.
Chris is just absolutely hilled it at pike Ful High School. Uh,

(57:02):
and it's done a great job there. But you know,
I think coach Haskins will do a really good job.
But I will be curious to see how it plays out.
You know, As I said, I I love by seven
years at Mercer County I did. Uh, But coaching in
your hometown's a tough gig and uh, I think he'll
do great.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
I wish him the best. So are you ready? Uh?

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Now, this is part right here that Mike could cut out.
But should we go ahead and do the Uh we're
at one iron six minutes right now. Do we want
to go ahead and do the tough topic and then.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Hey, let's save it. That's a good point. Let's save it.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Okay, so we can come back and wrap it. We'll
wrap it up and mac Mike can cut that out
right there if he wants to. Are you all right
with that or do you want to?

Speaker 3 (57:46):
I think that's a good idea. Yeah, okay, I think
it's a real good idea, all right.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
And so just just to get back on track here,
you know, I think there is a you know, a
time that we need to, you know, sit back and
think about how you know, lucky we are because one
of our fellow coaches in the state of Kentucky, Philip Haywood,
was in an accident and hasn't you know. And I

(58:13):
think he's got some good reports, but this pretty serious accident,
and you know, he's he was a great person, one
of our guests on here, and you know, we we
send out some prayers to coach Philip Haywood.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
Absolutely, and I can tell you when uh that all
came about on Saturday. There are a lot of people
reaching out and uh, a lot of people you know,
wanted to check on coach, so UH coaches in our
prayers and UH, you know, we're we're very thankful to
have one of the biggest high school football coaching leg
legend in the United States as a Kentucky guy, and

(58:49):
we're thankful that that's Philip Heywood.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
And we appreciate all the listeners. I think you got
a lot out of tonight's show with Neil Brown. Neil
was just absolutely fantastic. Uh. I think a lot of Neil.
You know, he's he's just done a tremendous job. And
if you listen to his interview and his answers, you
know why he's had so much success at an early age.
He's done a great job. I appreciate the listeners turned in.

(59:14):
You got anything for our next off season?

Speaker 4 (59:16):
David, Yes, Our next guest, UH is going to be
on Thursday, February of the sixth. It will be coach
Chris Fisher, who, if you're on Twitter, does the Texas
high School Football Chat Twitter link and he's I've got
he's got that going It's a pretty pretty.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Cool thing he's got going on.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
But he's going to be our guest in February and
We're excited to have him, and I would want to
encourage our listeners.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
You know, at this point, we.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Got three uh seasons, We've got two off seasons in
just like you brought up Coach heywood Man, We've had
some great guests. Coach Stonebreaker has been a guest, Coach
Hawkins has been a guest. And I hope I have
some listeners go back and check out some old episodes
and I think I think you'll really learn from them.

(01:00:09):
And you know, we're going to try to keep sharing
things on YouTube where we cut it down by topics
and get up a little more focused. So hope you'll
be back with us on Thursday, February sixth. And you know,
I know we've said it, and I want to reemphasize it.
We're working really hard to do a great job for
our listeners. We know that you all are the one
that makes this go and we want it to be

(01:00:30):
we want it to be exactly what you're looking for.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Yes, and please stay tuned and listen to Mac's historical segment.
You'll love it. You absolutely love it. Thanks for tuning.

Speaker 8 (01:00:41):
In sports, and in particular, high school sports are woven
into the fabric of Americana. High school sports are part
of the DNA of communities across the country, and that
is certainly true in Kentucky. Fans know the stories of
the big names, but there are many names and many
stories that have been lost to history. This series highlights

(01:01:06):
those forgotten. He rose. Our story takes place August twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy five. That was the date that changed Kentucky
high school football. Breathett County had a new first year
head coach by the name of Dudley Hilton, and an

(01:01:26):
hour away at Prestonsburg, they had turned to their native
son in Tates Creek assistant Philip Haywood to take over
the black Cat program. On that August night in nineteen
seventy five, the two future coaching icons squared off at Prestonsburg.
Two William Goebel touchdowns led the black Cats to a

(01:01:47):
twenty to six win over Breathett County, the first win
in a career for Philip Haywood that has seen him
win four hundred and ninety games, appear in fourteen state
title game, and win eight state titles. He would take
Dudley Hilton a few more games to get that first win.

(01:02:08):
He got that first win in an eighteen to twelve
win over East Carter in.

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
The eighth game of the season. That win over.

Speaker 8 (01:02:16):
East Carter was the first of his four hundred and
forty three wins. And of course he's had five appearances
in the state title and he's won three of them. Now,
I'm not sure what the attendance was in Prestonsburg on
August twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five, but I'm betting that
over the years, as Philip Haywood and Dudley Hilton became

(01:02:39):
the two all time winning his coaches in state history,
a lot of people swear they were at that game.
Oh and that coaching class of nineteen seventy five went
on to make forty five appearances in state title games
and they won twenty four state titles. Is it the

(01:03:01):
most consequential and influential year in Kentucky high school football?
Who knows, but that ripple effect from nineteen seventy five
is still going strong.

Speaker 7 (01:03:13):
Todayss as.

Speaker 6 (01:04:48):
Spe sssssst at tod