In the days and months following a 38-24 Kentucky loss to Louisville to close the season, marking a second straight late season collapse, Mark Stoops has made numerous changes to his coaching staff. There are five coaches gone from 2015 and six new coaches in for 2016 as the Wildcats look for their first bowl game since 2010. You may need a program to keep up with all of the changes so let’s start with the ones who won’t be on the sidelines this fall.
Looking at Kentucky Football Coaching Changes
Shannon Dawson- Dawson came to Lexington from West Virginia replacing Neal Brown as offensive coordinator. This was his first opportunity calling plays and to be quite honest sometimes it showed last season. Many times it seemed he and Stoops were never on the same page, and Dawson’s attitude and sometimes strange play calling put off many True Blue Fans.
Dawson is now the offensive coordinator at Southern Mississippi who in a nice bit of irony will come to Lexington on September 3rd to play the Wildcats.
Tommy Mainord- Mainord was the wide receivers coach for the Cats and his biggest claim to fame may be coming up with the “YAHTZEE” twitter hashtag every time UK picked up a recruiting commitment. The wide receivers were supposed to be a big positive for the Cats but in 2015 the group was plagued by dropped balls and inconsistent play. Mainord is now the receivers coach at North Texas.
Chad Scott- Scott was the running backs coach for the Cats in 2015. Stoops moved him to wide receivers coach for 2016, a position he has never coached. Scott left and returned to his alma mater North Carolina where he will be the tight ends coach.
Derrick Ansley- Ansley was defensive backs coach for Stoops and now holds the same position at Alabama. With a chance to learn under the best in the business in Nick Saban, you can’t really blame him for leaving.
Andy Buh– Buh served as outside linebackers coach last season and was promoted to special teams coordinator for the 2016 season. On Monday, it was announced Buh was leaving Kentucky to be the defensive coordinator at Maryland. For anyone who has followed Kentucky football over the last couple of years the special teams game has been, at best, a total disaster. It will be interesting to see who Stoops’ hires to replace Buh. After having no special teams coach last season, having someone in charge can only improve the units in 2016.
Looking at the newcomers to Stoops’ staff for 2016.
Eddie Gran- Gran, who will be the associate head coach of the offense, was hired away from Tommy Tuberville’s staff at the University of Cincinnati. Under Gran, the Bearcat offense ranked ninth in the nation in total offense. The Wildcats on the other hand were 97th. By bringing in Gran, Kentucky fans are hoping for a return to the pass happy days of the Air Raid offense where the Cats gained yards and scored points in bunches. However, Gran has stated he is a run-first guy and with the talented backfield the Cats have that could be a good thing.
Darrin Hinshaw- Hinshaw also comes to Kentucky from Cincinnati and will be co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Hinshaw raised some eyebrows when he said to the media, ““I don’t know what they’ve done in the past, but their footwork wasn’t where it needs to be.” Whether that was a shot at Dawson or just a way to light a fire under quarterback Drew Barker it was an interesting quote. Gran and Hinshaw recruited Barker to Cincinnati so they are pretty familiar with him.
Lamar Thomas- Thomas comes to Kentucky from Bobby Petrino’s staff at the University of Louisville. He will be the wide receivers coach and as mentioned earlier that was the one part of the team that was a big disappointment in 2015. Thomas is also known as a major recruiter especially in Florida, a place where the Wildcats haven’t had much luck in recent seasons.
Steve Clinkscale- He is the third coach to leave from Tuberville’s staff at Cincinnati. Clinkscale will be defensive backs coach, replacing Ansley. He is from the same hometown as Stoops, Youngstown, OH and is great friends with tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow.
Three more newcomers to the coaching staff will be filling newly created positions. Brian Landis will be the defensive quality control coach. Landis had previously been the safeties coach at Eastern Kentucky.
Tommy Mangino will be the offensive quality control coach. Mangino is the son of former Kansas head coach Mark Mangino, who was rumored to be in the running for the offensive coordinator’s job at Kentucky.
The final new position will be Louie Matsaksis, who will be the special teams quality control coach. Matsakis formerly was a administrative assistant at Kansas in 2015 but has coached special teams at numerous schools in the past.
The quality control coaches do not count as one of the nine assistant coaches and they will not have any on field coaching responsibilities.
In what is arguably Stoops’ most important season in Lexington, on paper at least he has made great strides in improving his coaching staff. Whether it pays off on the field we will find out in September.
Kentucky fans can get a look at the 2016 team on Saturday April 16 when the Spring Football game will be televised on Saturday April 16 at NOON on the SEC Network.
