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Question: Do you feel like a genius for how well the Mark Stoops-Neal Brown connection has worked for UK football?
Couch: “I feel lucky. I think it has been great. I am just glad it was able to work out the way it did. Kentucky was just starved for an exciting brand of football again and I think they have showed how hungry they were by bringing 50,000 people to a spring game and saying this is what we wanted to see. We wanted Neal Brown’s offense back in Kentucky. Then you pair that with a defensive mind like coach Stoops and the staff that he has built and I think it is a recipe for success.
“How quickly is that going to happen? It is going to take some time. There are a lot of holes to fill. You are talking about year one of a program and you are installing a new offense, new defense. You are switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 (on defense). It’s a big adjustment for the players and the schedule doesn’t do any favors. It is probably the toughest schedule in the country.
“It is going to be a slow learning curve for these guys. But I am so excited for the future of this program. If you look two, three, four years down the road with the way coach Stoops and his staff are recruiting, if they can continue at that level there are going to be some exciting times for Kentucky football.”
Question: Can incoming freshmen skilled players thrive in Brown’s offense?
Couch: “If they are good, this offense allows them to step in and play right away and that’s kind of the beauty of the deal. It is not a very complicated system to run offensively. Lot of sight adjustments and hot reads that you have to do off the blitz drills is built into the offense. There is not a big learning curve. You just have to know your assignments. There are not a lot of plays. There are a lot of formations that kind of dress it up and make it look different to the defense, but offensively everyone is on the same page because they know exactly what they are doing.
“It should be a nice transition for the young guys coming in. I know some of the young guys coming in actually ran a similar type offense in high school, so it will be a nice easy transition for them and hopefully they can get on the field and get used to the speed of the game and physicality of the SEC and play right away.”
Question: Looking back now, how far ahead of the offensive curve was Hal Mumme when he was your coach at UK?
Couch: “It has really been unbelievable. Doing what I do going around and calling college football games, I get a chance to talk to so many offensive coordinators who have told me that the system they run is a version of what Hal was doing in 1998 and 1999. They are all running it and it is spread all across college football.
“Now a days you see a very athletic guy playing quarterback like a Johnny Manziel or Robert Griffith III or any of those guys who are running a similar offense but they bring the mobility side to it which adds another dimension to the offense. You get guys spread out like that and you get a guy who can run and throw, it makes a big difference and is hard to stop.”
Question: What if Mumme had brought in a defensive coordinator like Mark Stoops? How successful could he have been?
Couch: “I think we would have definitely had different results at Kentucky. Any time you are going out and putting up 35 or 40 points a game against some of the best teams in the conference, you should win some of those games, and we did. But we lost some that we should have won. I think it is a great combination when you look at Oklahoma with coach Stoops’ brother Bob and they won a national title with (former Mumme assistant) Mike Leach as offensive coordinator. It is a great combination. It can work and win games and hopefully it will win games at Kentucky.”
Question: Did you see any scenario where recruiting could go this well?
Couch: “No, I never envisioned it this quickly. I thought it would happen over time because I knew coach Stoops and his staff would be dynamic recruiters and would grind the recruiting trails hard. But never did I imagine before he ever coached a game that he would get this type of excitement about Kentucky football and get recruits and fan base excited. He has exceeded everyone’s expectations.”
Question: Back when Brown was a walk-on receiver at UK and sat with you on bus rides, did you ever think of him as a future coaching star?
Couch: “Neal and I were good buddies. He actually came back with me to my hometown a couple of times and he was a good friend. We hung out a lot. It’s exciting to see the success he’s had so early. To be able to go out and be a younger guy but still command the respect of the players is great. I think they all feel like they can relate to him and that’s a good thing that he has that kind of youth on his side. He can relate to the young guys well and he has an exciting offense that they all want to play in.”
Question: Did you realize then what a great football mind he had?
Couch: “You just never think that way. It really is hard to imagine one of your teammates going on to be a coach. You know them as a 19- or 20-year-old kid and we were doing 20-year-old kid things and it’s hard to imagine him going on to be a coach. I am proud of him and what he has been able to accomplish and just wish him nothing but continued success.”
Question: What would be your best story with Brown from your college days together?
Couch: “I have to think about that one. I can’t think of just one.”
Question: What would be one story he would not want you to tell?
Couch: “I have got a couple of those. Neal and I and Nolan Devaughn and a couple of guys, we had a good time. I am just glad we played in an era with no social media, no Twitter or camera phones or we would be facing some of these same questions a lot of guys are facing right now.”
Question: Do you still stay in touch with him regularly?
Couch: “I do. I talk to him all the time. He told me to enjoy Media Days and stuff. We keep in touch regularly.”
Question: Would you like to get more involved with the program now?
Couch: “I am always willing to help the program. Anything I can do, I will. I grew up there. Kentucky means more to me than I just played there. I grew up a Kentucky fan my whole life. Anything I can do to help the program whether on a committee to get a coach or talk to players or whatever the case may be, I am all in.”
Question: How have you stayed in such good physical shape, especially with two children now ages 8 and 4?
Couch: “I try. I still work out every day. I got in a certain routine with my training and eating when I was playing. When I finished playing I didn’t know what to do with myself because I had all this free time, so I was just on routine. I would wake up, train and eat healthy and I just stayed with it. So far it is working for me.”
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