UK alum Tom Leach has been the play-by-play “Voice of the Wildcats” for the football Cats for 12 years and 9 year’s for men’s basketball. He is a four-time winner of the Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year award. Tom offers an entertaining and insightful perspective into UK athletics. Column entries will be posted twice per week through April. Read Tom’s full biography
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Tony Barnhart not only knows football, he’s an expert on the Southeastern Conference, in his role as the national college football correspondent for CBS Sports and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. So it’s noteworthy when he heaps praise on outgoing UK football coach Rich Brooks.
“He changed the culture of Kentucky football, from one that aspires to hopefully compete to one that is definitely going to compete and started scaring the heck out of people. I think you look at that but I think you look at the touch of class he brought to this program (too),” Banhart told tomleachky.com “Every single week, you knew you had to be ready to play Kentucky because if you weren’t, you were going to get beat. There were a lot of ‘firsts’ at Kentucky during coach Brooks’ time there and that’s something folks can be proud of.”
Brooks himself acknowledged that he didn’t achieve some of the things he wanted most–ending the streaks against Tennessee and South Carolina, taking the Cats to a bigger bowl. Coaches are like that. They focus more on the gut-wrenching losses than the memorable wins. But Barnhart says “football people” have a great appreciation for Brooks’ coaching ability.
“I think people who understand football understand what an incredible job he’s done. It’s a tough job for a lot of different reasons,” he said. “For him to come into that atmosphere and make them consistently competitive is not an easy thing to do. You’re not far enough north or far enough to sometimes get the players you want but to give him and his staff credit, they went places and got players.
“Football people know how good this guy is. He brought a level of intensity to Kentucky football that they definitely needed,” Barnhart added. “There’s a toughness about Kentucky football that wasn’t there before.
“When you play a Rich Brooks team, you know they’re not going to beat themselves. They’re just not going to roll over and make a whole of mistakes. You’re going to have to beat them,” he continued. “That’s been the hallmark of Kentucky teams in recent years–if you weren’t ready to play, you were going to get beat.”
Barnhart says UK president Dr. Lee Todd and athletics director Mitch Barnhart deserve credit for standing by Brooks after 2005 when it looked the experiment of bringing this old guy out of retirement from Oregon wasn’t going to work out.
“There’s a huge lesson here. I think it’s a very important lesson, that if you’re got the right man as the head coach, then you stick with them. Are you recruiting players, are you coaching them up, are you doing what you need to academically? If all of those things are in place, the lesson is ‘if you’ve got the right guy, then give him enough time’,” Barnhart said.
“Joker Phillips takes over a program where the bar has been set higher. He can’t let the program slip and he won’t let the program slip. He understands the kinds of athletes it takes to compete in the SEC. I think the challenge for him is to take that foundation and build on it.”
Barnhart says the 2007 college football season was perhaps the craziest ever. He says one reason why he believes that is that he found himself traveling to Lexington, KY for three games–LSU, Florida and Tennessee. Barnhart says Big Blue fans should look at that season when considering where Joker Phillips can take their program.
“The standard is 2007. Look at what that team did and the players that were on that team. There were a lot of really good football players on that team. That’s the benchmark that Kentucky is shooting for–to put a scare into every team they play,” he said. “That 2007 team was capable of beating anybody in the SEC and that’s what they’ve got to achieve.”