Mack Brown just finished his Signing Day remarks with standard recruit video and praise, along with an early sales pitch for juniors. Today was different in one respect, as Brown had more to say about turning over almost an entire coaching staff, while holding together a recruiting class and football team after a poor season.
Brown said that, since his a key part of his search occurred during the holidays, he and his wife Sally were essentially a two-person football operations staff. He said that for the first time he made flight, hotel and meal arrangements personally and was responsible for greeting coaching candidates at the airport.
Brown has spent a few pressers already speaking about what went wrong and how he went about keeping his team updated and his recruits on board, but, with all signatures secured he could speak a little more candidly today. His theme for players and recruits seemed to be "trust me" as he tried to assure recruits that they would like his new staff members. He said that a room full of defensive recruits watched a monitor read "Muschamp to Florida" as he entered a room prepared to inform them that the coordinator who had recruited them as recently as that morning was already gone. He asked them to wait until he had a new defensive coordinator in place before considering new schools. Manny Diaz must have passed muster, as none of the defensive recruits left, and Brown didn't recall that any made additional visits.
↵He lauded Bennie Wylie in particular among his new hires and noted that his recommendations included Rick Perry and long time strength coach Jeff Madden. He also reiterated that he likes the fact that Bryan Harsin's offense has used two backs at times and is willing to play a power game when necessary.
↵The entire PC and transcript will be available here later in the day. In the mean time, Burnt Orange Nation tweeted all of the highlights from the presser here.
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