LSU Football Offensive Coaches Establishing Bond, Chemistry Ahead of Spring Ball
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With a practically brand new coaching staff, hardly any of whom have worked together in their careers, one of the most important steps is building that chemistry as a staff from the ground up.
Head coach Brian Kelly has prior working experience with recruiting and special teams coordinator Brian Polian, safeties coach Kerry Cooks as well as offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. Outside of that, it's new personalities, styles and ideas that this staff has spent the majority of the last several weeks getting to know.
As an offensive staff, it's important to all of these coaches to get a variety of schemes and philosophies together to build the best possible play book that's both versatile and easy to pick up. Denbrock has worked closely with receivers coach Cortez Hankton and quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan and couldn't be happier with the process in building a successful offense.
"The thing that I've found about him [Hankton] and Joe and me is that there's a lot of alignment. That helps speed the process up," Denbrock said. "The communication, the willingness to accept others thoughts and ideas is something all of us share and will make us that much better."
Offensive line coach Brad Davis returns as the lone coach who was on the previous staff and has quite the task ahead of him in practically rebuilding this o-line from scratch. There are many new players in this group who will come in and immediately compete for playing time, making the development of this group one of the stories to follow in the spring.
Davis says that the last few weeks has been a great bonding experience for all of the coaches on staff with the primary objective being to put together a sound play book and terminology the players can understand.
"Right now we're in the process of installation and finding a way to put all of our ideas collectively together, finding way to effectively communicate that to our players and obviously take that into spring and execute," Davis said.
One the highly respected and most sought after assistant coaches in the country coming off a national championship run at Georgia was Hankton, who ultimately chose to return to the state he grew up in. For him what made the job offer at LSU so attractive was not only the ability to be close to family in Louisiana but also the opportunity to serve on Kelly's staff because of the responsibilities that come with the job.
"As a young coach when you aspire to be an offensive coordinator or a head coach you always think about the guys who can help promote you but also help you grow," Hankton said. "Knowing his background and his history and everything he's done with coaches at every spot he's been made it a very attractive opportunity."
"I think Cortez, the credibility and accomplishments as a coach, when he stands in front of the wide receiver room and says 'this is how you should get in and out of your cut' there isn't much debate," Denbrock said. "On top of that his knowledge of the passing game is tremendous."
The coaches were all in the same boat when asked the common question of what to make of the talent in each of their respective rooms. While the players and coaches have spent time really getting to know each other during this period before the spring, none of the new staff outside of Davis will know exactly what this team is capable of until they get on the field starting March 24.
Hankton says the first goal is setting a foundation with all of the players in terms of expectations and the development process.
"We know that we're a work in progress. We haven't stepped on the grass yet from a football perspective but we're excited about the opportunity," Hankton said. "We know this is gonna be a daily deal, we're gonna work to be the best we can be. But it's all about setting a foundation first and foremost. Building good habits everyday and those are the things that will translate on the field and help us be a championship team."
