A Discussion with the Broyles Award Finalists

Five top assistant coaches, including two headed to the BCS Title Game, on football and life.

Broyles Award

Left to right: Bumpas, Strong, Andersen, Parrish and Wilson.

Ed's note: Oklahoma offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson won the 2008 Broyles Award.

Legendary former Arkansas football coach Frank Broyles is over 80 years old, but he's sharper than some 30somethings. When he gets on the phone from the Broyles Award ceremony in Little Rock to honor the nation's top assistant coach, we call him "Mr. Broyles." He laughs. "Coach Broyles is fine. I don't know who Mr. Broyles is."

His observations are amazingly lucid—"the best coach I ever coached against was Bear Bryant, but people have gotta talk about Bud Wilkinson; the guy coached 13 years at Oklahoma and lost one conference game"—maybe none moreso than this: "Assistant coaches are, mentally and emotionally, often the backbone of a team. No head coach can be great without a great staff. Typically, these guys often get recognition only locally, so this award tries to take it to a higher level."

The Broyles Award has been around since 1996. With five new finalists in Arkansas right after bowl game announcements, we talked life and football with 'em: does knowing that five of the seven winners between 1998 and 2004 are now head coaches ever make it hard to stay focused? One note of import: these answers are presented in a roundtable-type format, but the interviews were conducted individually, not as a group.

ESPN: Talk a little about what getting nominated for the Broyles Award means to you at this point in your coaching career.

Kevin Wilson, Offensive Coordinator, Oklahoma Sooners: Just to be recognized for this is an honor. It's a really neat event they got here. It's funny, a few of us were here back in 2000. That year, I was at Northwestern, Charlie (Strong, defensive coordinator of Florida) was at South Carolina, Gary Patterson was at TCU and he's the head coach there now, and his assistant Dick Bumpas is nominated this year. So we all know each other. I have great respect for these guys.

Stan Parrish, offensive coordinator, Ball State Cardinals: I'm the oldest guy here. You know, I've worked for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Michigan Wolverines in my coaching career, and you usually think that if you're gonna get nominated for an award like this, it will come when you're at one of those types of places. So to be nominated for the work we've done at Ball State, I was shocked, but it's so neat. I always think the best things in life are unexpected.

Dick Bumpas, defensive coordinator, TCU Horned Frogs: It surprised me, completely. It's very, very flattering.

Gary Andersen, defensive coordinator, Utah Utes: It's absolutely a huge honor, just to even be here with these other guys.

Charlie Strong, defensive coordinator, Florida Gators: Huge honor, certainly. I have great respect for the award and the other guys who are nominated.

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When this thing rings, everything can change.

ESPN: Is it hard to be a top assistant at a BCS-level school, because you have to be singularly focused on your game plan for that week, but at the same time, hear about head coach openings? How do you balance your current job with what could be the next step?

Bumpas from TCU: I'm at a point now in my career where I'm extremely happy where I'm at. I'm not really a part of that anymore. When you're younger, and maybe it's something that you do think about more, you have to be very careful not to make it a distraction. In the course of a college football season, any distractions like that are going to disrupt your rhythm.

Andersen from Utah: What's funny is, when I got the call about being a finalist for this, I was in my office and I had just interviewed for the Utah State head job. The Utah SID calls me and says, "Congrats." I go, "WHAT?!?" thinking she might have some insider information. Then she tells me about this award, which is just great. In my life, one of my goals is to be a head coach of a program, yea, and I haven't gotten it done yet. It can be a distraction, especially during bowl game season when you're hearing about jobs opening and this and that. The key is, you gotta communicate with your players and your other coaches, just be honest with 'em about what's going on. Ours is a business where if you're doing something good, you're going to be on some radar screens. If your phone isn't ringing, you might have a few problems with what you're doing.

Strong from Florida: I don't let it consume me. You have to stay focused on the task at hand. Every week my job is to get Florida's defense to play the best it can play. You focus on the season, and what happens happens. I've had the honor of being around some great coaches in my career, from Jackie Sherrill to Lou Holtz to Steve Spurrier and now Urban Meyer, and the one thing they all have in common is how much they care about the kids they get in the program. That's the biggest thing.

"You have to be very careful not to make it a distraction."

Wilson from Oklahoma: I don't wanna speak for the other guys, but I think at most bigger programs, you kinda put that stuff aside. At Oklahoma, it's an unique situation. We don't even talk about jobs; there's a complete lack of rhetoric. I think the Sooner coaching staff has had a few guys get jobs after a season, and no one knew they were ever talking to the place that hired 'em. There's no name-dropping in our offices, though. Other thing is, most college jobs that come open, the people hiring for them have a profile they're looking to fill. You might have been a coordinator for a while, and a good one, but they want someone who's been a head coach. Sometimes it seems like the same guys getting fired from jobs are just getting recycled back into the system. You just go out and focus on your job and let that stuff take care of itself.

ESPN: Coach Strong and Coach Wilson, when you guys got to Little Rock, did you crack any jokes about the BCS Title Game?

Strong: I have great respect for Kevin Wilson. I haven't even watched that much tape of Oklahoma's offense yet, but it's going to be a great challenge to slow 'em down.

Wilson: (laughs) We've been so involved with the last few games of our seasons, the bowl game stuff hasn't even set in yet. We had the Okie State game after the Texas Tech game, then the Big 12 title game. They had Florida State and the SEC Title Game. Like I was saying, Charlie and I were here in 2000, up for the same award. I've known him and I really respect his work with that defense. We're just going to have fun until game time, and then it's all business and you're trying to win the game.

ESPN: You each want to say something about your bowl game?

Parrish from Ball State: (playing in the GMAC Bowl, January 6th on ESPN vs. Tulsa) Well, it's an easy game to sell (laughs) and it's great from a fan standpoint. You have two explosive offenses there. It's going to be a great game.

Bumpas from TCU: (playing in the Poinsettia Bowl, December 23rd on ESPN vs. Boise State) Whew, it's gonna be a tough game. Boise State is a great team. They got a lot of talented players, and they come from everywhere. They're always shifting and moving their guys around. It'll be an exciting game.

Andersen from Utah: (playing in the Sugar Bowl, January 2nd on FOX vs. Alabama) I have a lot of friends on the Florida coaching staff, and they had a great respect for Alabama going into that SEC Championship, so I know what we're up against. They're very talented, and a very physical team. We're not the biggest team, especially around the DT slot. All I can say is, we're gonna be dodging and weaving a lot. If we're sitting in the A/B gap all night, we'll be knocked off the ball.

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