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Neal Brown – a former UK wide receiver – returns to Lexington as offensive coordinator after three years at Texas Tech. (TTU Athletics)

It’s not quite being met with the buzz of Mark Stoops’ hiring, but Neal Brown’s return to Kentucky as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach has generated quite a bit of excitement. Brown is one of the hottest young coordinators in the business and his arrival is the start of Stoops fulfilling his promise of fielding an exciting offense.The official news broke on Monday afternoon, so the media have had plenty of time to absorb it. Let’s take a look at what people are saying:What getting Neal Brown mean’s for UK football (John Clay, Lexington Herald-Leader)

The Neal Brown hire also shows that UK is serious about hiring an SEC-quality staff. Brown is interviewing for second-level head coaching jobs now. If all goes well, he will get one of those jobs in the near future. And the guess here is that he didn’t come cheap, nor should he.After all, he might be the most significant assistant coach hire Kentucky football has made in a long, long time.

Brown together with Stoops a perfect fit for Kentucky football program (Larry Vaught, vaughtsviews.com)

His work at Texas Tech was noticed by more than Stoops. He was interviewed for head coaching jobs at Louisiana Tech and Southern Mississippi. He likely could have got more interviews this week because of his reputation as one of the nation’s rising young offensive minds. At age 32, he’s already shown he can produce big numbers and wins.Stoops’ brothers both believe in this offense. Bob Stoops hired Mike Leach — a Mumme disciple and coach at Texas Tech before Tuberville and Brown arrive. Mike Stoops hired Sonny Dykes — another Mumme disciple — as his offensive coordinator at Arizona when Mark Stoops was the defensive coordinator.

Tim Couch excited to bring Neal Brown back to UK (Kyle Tucker, Louisville Courier-Journal)

ON NEAL BROWN COMING TO UK: “Oh, I’m excited about it. A lot of people wanted to get Neal back in Kentucky, bring that offense back to Kentucky, and I was definitely one of those people. I’m excited to see him back and I know he’s excited to be back home and get a chance to coach where he played. That’s always a special thing for a player to come back and be able to do that. The biggest thing is the players should be excited – the offensive players at Kentucky should be excited. The quarterbacks, wide receivers, running backs, they’re all going to see the football a lot. They’re all going to catch a lot of passes and hopefully we’ll score a bunch of points.”

Recent coaching hires have fans buzzing (Clay, Herald-Leader)

Yet, following the path of his older brothers, Stoops wanted an offense “that puts defenses in difficult situations” much as Mike Leach’s offense did for Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Sonny Dykes’ offense did for Mike Stoops at Arizona.Brown should be able to do just that for Mark Stoops at UK. His Texas Tech offenses ranked among the nation’s top 15 in total offense and top seven in passing offense all three years he was in Lubbock. Consider that this year, Kentucky’s offense ranked 113th out of 120 FBS schools.

 Father and family relieved Neal Brown is now officially UK offensive coordinator (Vaught, vaughtsviews.com)

“He is a very confident person. I am very proud he is not an arrogant person. He believes that what he is doing will result in good things,” Tom Brown said. “He really likes Stoops and really feels like UK can be headed in the right direction. I just think he felt like this was the right time to make this move.”

Media members aren’t the only ones with good things to say about Brown. Check out a few of the best tweets in response to Monday’s news:

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