We’re 36 days away from Kentucky’s football opener Sept. 5 against Miami of Ohio in Cincinnati.
The countdown continues.
Today we look back at Hal Mumme’s contoversial and combative staff. The coach’s four-year reign ended badly with not only probation, but with rifts within the football offices.
Whatever happened to those guys?
Here is a where they are now (sort of) with regards to Mumme’s initial staff in 1997:
- Hal Mumme (head coach): In first year as head coach at McMurry, a Division III shool in Abilene, Texas.
- Tom Adams (defensive ends): Adams passed away on August 2, 2006 at age 48 from cancer. He had been a defensive assistant at Baylor.
- Mike Fanoga (defensive tackles): Outside linebackers coach at Wyoming.
- Tony Franklin (running backs): Offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee.
- Tim Keane (cornerbacks): Retired in 2007 after being defensive backs coach at Memphis.
- Mike Leach (receivers): Head coach at Texas Tech.
- Mike Major (defensive coordinator): Assistant football coach at Wharton High School in Texas. Coached the school’s basketball team last two seasons, but stepped down after this past year.
- Guy Morriss (offensive line): In first year as head coach at Texas A&M-Commerce, an FCS Division II school.
- Darrell Patterson (safeties): Running backs coach at Rice.
- Claude Bassett (recruiting coordinator): Defensive coordinator at Seguin High School in Texas.
- Sonny Dykes (graduate assistant): Offensive coordinator at Arizona.
- Chris Hatcher (graduate assistant): Head coach at Georgia Southern.
John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky and graduate of UK, he covered UK football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two sons. You can e-mail him at jclay@herald-leader.com.
looks like alot of these guys used hal and UK as a stepping stone to some great high school jobs…hal could find good coaching talent ,huh?
Greg- Did you read the post? There are a few coaches who are excellent at their jobs that were on Mumme’s Staff. We all know Hal was an arrogant and defensively incompetent coach, however I beg to disagree with your opinion.
There are exactly TWO coaches from his staff that are now working at High Schools: Mike Major, who was obviously given a lackluster group of defensive players at UK since Mumme apparently didn’t even ACKNOWLEDGE the defense in the locker room and barely had a word to say to the group on the practice field. Major was most likely a mediocre coach to begin with so it’s understandable that he’s in the High School Ranks.
The other “High Schooler” is the “Fall Guy”, Claude ‘under the table’ Bassett. He’s lucky to have a job in football at all, pee-wee included. He set back UK Football at LEAST 5-7 years as far as recruiting and working on moving up the VERY DIFFICULT SEC Ladder. I’m sure Mumme had an idea that Bassett was doing some shady things but I really don’t think Mumme, as eccentric as he is, was aware that obvious recruiting violations were happening. (Especially since the violations were pretty much out in the open).
Look at the coaches that have succeeded from Mumme’s staff:
Mike Leach: A carbon copy of Mumme offensively yet he’s had much more success that Mumme in a Big Time Conference with a school that has never done much athletic wise.
Guy Morris: He probably made a mistake by leaving UK and taking the Big Bucks at Baylor but even though I’ll admit he coached High School for a year or two it was just something for him to do while preparing for his future. An excellent coach in my opinion.
I’m not going to go down the whole list but I’d like to mention Chris Hatcher, Sonny Dykes, Darrell Patterson, Tony Franklin and Mike Fanoga. Look for Hatcher and Dykes to be head coaches at MAJOR schools in the next 5 years. In my opinion Hatcher made EVERY QB (Especially Coach) much better and Dykes is a great leader and will have an excellent shot in the next 5-10 years to coach at a big time School like Oregon State after paying his dues at a smaller school. I actually think Chris Hatcher could end up in the SEC at TENNESSEE or GEORGIA. It might take 7-10 years but I think Hatcher is one of a handful of EXCELLENT Young coaches.
Correction: I meant to say Chris Hatcher did a great job developing “COUCH”, not “COACH”. As in Tim Couch. Too bad Couch had a horrible experience in Cleveland with NO Offensive line, which in turn led to Couch’s shoulder problems from getting pounded into the ground a record amount of times. I also don’t think Chris Palmer helped much (Cle. QB Coach when Couch was there). He could have ruined Johnny Unitas or Peyton Manning if he had the chance.
1 more thing and I’ll go to bed….. What if Couch was drafted by the Bengals? Does anybody think that would have been a totally different situation? Akili Smith didn’t learn the NFL Playbook and struggled because of it- Coach was competent when it came to the Playbook but he never had time check more than his 1st or 2nd option, then either get: A) Violently sacked (Most of the time from behind), B) Dump it off to a RB, or C). Throw it up for grabs.
He always seemed to go 18 for 28 for 135 yards since he had to throw the ball to his running back after scrambling away from the unblocked defensive front.
He put together a heck of a staff! http://www.wedgeorgia.com
Notice the number of Division III and high school coaches on that list…Very telling.
Just thought I would correct something in this article. Texas A&M-Commerce is a Division II school, not FCS.