Former Kentucky high school coach had hand in UK’s hiring of Chris Collins
Chris Collins called Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops “a legend in the game of football” when it comes to defensive coaching. He’s long been an admirer of his work, so making the leap from Georgia State to work under him as UK’s new defensive backs coach was more or less a no-brainer.
Before going through the interview process — during which Collins’ wife, Kiara, gave birth to their first son, Christopher Collins III — Collins had no direct ties to or previous dealings with Stoops. A colleague at Georgia State, inside linebackers coach Brian Landis, did; Landis, who played at Georgetown College, was a quality control assistant under Stoops prior to becoming the first head coach at Frederick Douglass High School in 2017.
“Landis, my guy — he bleeds Kentucky blue by the way — he comes into my office and goes, ‘You know, Coach (Steve) Clinkscale is leaving (UK), would you be interested?’” Collins said during a Zoom news conference Friday. “And I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Literally that was the conversation. Long story short, I guess he reached out to a few guys here and got a pulse for what the situation was and what Coach Stoops and Coach (Brad) White were looking for. I gave ‘em my information and from there they did their due diligence, calling around and asking different people and all those things.”
In a Thursday news release announcing the hire of Collins, Stoops said that while picking apart candidates he grew “more and more impressed with him” each time they spoke. Stoops cited his energy and enthusiasm, which came through during his debut with local media.
That enthusiasm is, at least in part, attributable to youth: At 32, Collins immediately becomes the youngest member of Stoops’ staff (receivers coach Jovon Bouknight, 37, is next on the list). It’s a quality that should continue to serve him well on the recruiting trail, too; he was Georgia State’s recruiting coordinator and figures to take on a heavy load for the Wildcats in that department.
Clinkscale, who left for Michigan, made a name for himself by pulling talent out of the Detroit area and northern Ohio. Collins while at Georgia State predominantly recruited Georgia, south Florida and his home state of North Carolina, which in recent years has produced high-level prospects with whom UK has been in the mix but ultimately never landed.
Recruiting boils down to relationships, said Collins, and he’s eager to start building them on UK’s behalf. With on-campus recruiting allowed again by the NCAA as of June 1, one might believe Collins is behind the eight ball as a late hire; however, because of his virtual availability over the last year, he doesn’t think he’ll miss a beat this summer amid the transition.
“It doesn’t matter the level, you wanna get guys and wanna be with families that are good people, that want to continue to get better, want to be challenged to be better, you know what I mean?” Collins said. “So I’m excited about moving that to the next level in terms of the SEC. But at the end of the day they’re still people, and those relationships are really important.
“And to build relationships, it takes work. To build trust, it takes work. I’m excited about doing the work.”
