Mic'd up with Indiana strength coach Mark Hill
Interesting mic'd up session here with Indiana head strength and conditioning coach Mark Hill.
Coach Hill talks about why he believes in combining different weight room philosophies to fit his style, and his day to day duties as a strength coach beyond his responsibilities in the weight room.
The Scoop on What You Missed This Week
We had a great time at the DFO conference this week. Can't wait to do it again next year.
The Starting Five: Our five (okay, six) best stories of the week.
- Speaking of the DFO conference, here are our dispatches from inside the meetings: How to Plan a Bowl Trip and How to Build a New Facility.
- The College Football Hall of Fame welcomed its newest members on Tuesday. We counted 29 current coaches with a good shot at joining the Hall some day.
- Note to current Texas Tech players: Kliff Kingsbury knows what you want to do during your down time and he does not approve.
- Got $11 million laying around? If so, you could be in the market for Nick Saban's vacation home.
- Mike Leach had a great point about what separates the SEC from the Big 12 and Pac-12, and you can see for yourself the next time you go to Orange Julius.
The Film Room: Each week we post great videos from all levels of football across the country. Here's a sampling of the best from this week.
- If you're a high school position coach, this is a great way to set expectations among your players.
- Mic'd up: Texas Tech running backs coach Mike Jinks, N.C. State cornerbacks coach Richard McNutt and Washington State defensive line coach Joe Salave'a.
- Great 2013 season trailers for Ohio State, North Texas and Dartmouth.
- Saving the best for last, Stanford linebackers: #PartyInTheBackfield.
News, news, news: We had to change this sub-section due to the events of this week.
- The world could exist as is for another 4,000 years and we'll never see another coach as successful as Larry Kehres.
- Congratulations to Wayne Hardin and Bill McCartney, the two newest College Football Hall of Fame coaches.
- The Mountain West will have 22 games on ESPN properties this season. Why that's a much needed step forward for that conference.
- UCF could be adding black helmets this fall.
- Arizona released 13 new uniform combinations this week.
- There's a better than 50 percent chance your state's highest-paid public employee is a college football coach.
The Minnesota Vikings are leaving the MetroDome and turning to the Gophers for help
When a major sporting event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics comes to town, lots of people rent out their homes to earn some extra cash. Starting next fall, the Minnesota football program will join that group of people.
The Minnesota Vikings are finally leaving the MetroDome, but their new $975 million stadium won't be ready until 2016. Rather than try to squeeze a few more years out of their old barn, the Vikings are going to borrow the Gophers' home for the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
The Vikings will pay to utilize the four-year old TCF Bank Stadium, while also footing the bill for new turf, putting heating coils under that new turf to winderize the playing surface and adding 4,730 temporary seats to the 50,000-seat venue. The Vikings will also contribute $125,000 to nearby neighborhoods and businesses and, on top of all that, pay the Gophers $250,000 per game while splitting concession, advertising and other revenue. All in all, the Vikings will pay Minnesota up to $3 million per season.
If that doesn't sound like a lot in today's age of $25 million media payouts, look at it this way - the Big Ten's entire take from the 2011 bowl season was $47 million, or $3.9 million per team. Or you could look at it another way: Minnesota paid its entire coaching staff $3.3 million in 2012 according to USA Today.
"This partnership benefits the university, its neighbors, the Vikings and all Minnesota football fans," school president Eric Kaler said Thursday.
For schools like Minnesota, life is often hard when you're overshadowed by an NFL team in your own home town. But, with the monetary contributions, the stadium improvements and the added exposure of having their stadium on TV for eight NFL Sundays a year, we think Jerry Kill and co. will be happy to rent their place out of a little while.
Inside the Annual DFO Meetings: How to Build a New Facility
It takes a village to build a new football facility, as Utah football operations director Jeff Rudy has learned. Major input and help on the Utes' new home came from every wing of the athletic department, the athletic director himself, Kyle Whittingham, coaches, players, university administration, outside construction and graphics firms.
Announced in March of 2011 as a $16 million, 57,640-square foot facility, the project has nearly tripled in size and doubled in cost since then and Rudy has been at the center of the building every step of the way. Slated to open in July, the cleverly-titled Football Center will stand at 149,000 square feet with a cost of nearly $32 million.
As Rudy shared his experience to a room of his peers Monday at the annual DFO conference, he said the first order of business was to identify what your program needs in its new house. For Utah, that meant they had to have, for example, more meeting space, more offices and an expanded Hall of Fame area, a cafe, increased security measures and a more ADA accessible facility.
The next step is picking a location. Some in the athletic department wanted to build an entirely new structure. Athletic director Dr. Chris Hill thought that, since the department had recently expanded the weight room, they should stay where they are. Lo and behold, Utah is leveling its old facility and staying put.
Once those lines were crossed, it was time to pick a contractor and build the thing. For Rudy, that meant meetings, meetings and more meetings. Meetings on top of meetings. Meetings about meetings. There were lots and lots of meetings no matter the time of year, which meant Rudy was essentially working two and a half full-time jobs once fall camp started. This is the time you want to get everything finalized because, as Rudy said, "change orders will be the death of your project."
In those meetings, it was decided the front of the facility would be a glass box with a large video screen that could show highlights and other clips recruits and visitors would find interesting at all hours of the night. "The building had to recruit when no one's around," Rudy said. Ultimately, the glass box would prove to be impossible to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, so they had to give it a roof. Even with a roof, the facility will still be a 24/7 recruiting tool. "We were looking for the 'damn' factor, not the 'wow' factor," said Rudy.
Eventually it became time to build, which meant everyone had to get out of the old building and move into a temporary facility. As the team broke for spring break, Rudy instructed the coaches and other staff members to mark what they wanted moved to the temporary facility by Friday, March 9, and when they came back on Monday after spring break, everything would be in their temporary offices. The coaching staff has worked from those trailers-turned-offices for over a year now.
The much-anticipated move in date is now just weeks away and the Utes can't wait to settle in to their new home. Thanks to everyone involved in Utah Athletics tireless work over the last two-plus years, they feel that Utah's Football Center will be the best college football has to offer. That is, as Rudy laughed, "until the next one comes out."
Video: BTN's inspirational look at Kirk Ferentz's community contributions
Kirk Ferentz is one of the few faces of continuity in the coaching profession today. With that comes a great responsibility in the community that you coach in. Part of the reason that coach Ferentz is such a well liked person in the state of Iowa (and beyond) is due to his continued involvement in Iowa Cty and the surrounding communities.
The Big Ten Network took a great look at the impact that Kirk Ferentz and his wife Mary have made on the Iowa community, and more specifically, the nearby University of Iowa Children's Hospital. Not only does coach Ferentz make sure that his players take the initiative to help brighten a child's day (which in turn creates a more well rounded players) with frequent visits, but back in 2006 the Ferentz family donated over $400,000 of their own to the hospital, and on top of that proceeds from Iowa's Ladies Football Academy raised over $330,000 in 2012.
That's a lot of coin making it's way back to a very important cause.
The most impressive part about the new hospital might be the fact that some rooms will overlook Kinnick Stadium, an idea that really has coach Ferentz, and kids everywhere struggling with illness, excited about the new building.
Take ten minutes out of your day at some point today and watch this video. Trust us on this one, you'll be glad that you made the time. As the off season progresses, we'll do our best to bring more stories like this to your attention, and make "Feel Good Friday" a weekly occasion.
Video: Very disciplined high school boot camp
In order to compete for a state title in the state of Texas, you have to have more than just a talented roster. You also need to have something to set you apart, something that helps your team believe that they can compete with the national powerhouses that call the Longhorn state home.
Cedar Hill HS uses a boot camp to develop that mental and physical edge. The edge that they develop during the off season helped them earn a spot against Katy HS (TX) last season in the state championship game, where they fell just short of bringing the title home after a thrilling victory in the state semis. Both of those games are highlighted at the beginning of the clip to help eventually set the stage for the boot camp.
Notice the organization, discipline and clear standards that have been established by the coaching staff at Cedar Hill for this boot camp. Everyone knows exactly what they're doing, where they're going, what is expected, and the kids seem genuinely invested in getting their work in and doing it the right way.
This movie themed 2013 promo is really good
North Texas relased their movie themed 2013 hype video last night. After watching it, we figured it would be a soild way to start off your Friday morning.
Enjoy. This one is pretty good.
Your state's highest-paid public employee is likely a college football coach
The highest-paid state employee in all 50 states works inside that state's university system. Often times it is a coach, but not always. In places where major college football is not emphasized (New York, Massachusetts, Maine) or not played (Alaska, South Dakota) the highest-paid employee is a college president or a dean, or in Nevada's case, a medical school plastic surgeon.
In the other 40 states, the highest-paid state employee is a college coach. In basketball hotbeds like Kansas, Kentucky and Indiana, the hoops coach draws the biggest check. In New Hampshire, it's the hockey coach.
Now with those caveats out of the way, according to research from Deadspin, in every other state in the country the highest-paid state employee is a college football coach. College football wins out in 26 and a half states (Minnesota was a tie between football and basketball). In SEC country, Big 12 country, Big Ten country, Mountain West country, the Pacific Northwest and even Hawaii, football coaches came out ahead.
See how your state shakes out below.
(H/T Deadspin)
