UTPB Coach’s Show – Episode One

ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – And good evening everyone and welcome to the Chris McCullough show. I’m your host, Monty Montgomery, and with me as the star of our show, the reigning 2023 head coach of the Lone Star Conference football champions and the 2023 Lone Star Conference coach of the year, Chris McCullough. You like the way that sounds, coach? Absolutely.

It’s football season. It’s football season. We have officially started as of right now.

Man, I just, all this time since Bemidji State, man, I’m ready to get out there Saturday.
Ready to go. I’m even ready to put on a helmet, coach, and nobody needs to see that.

You’d have to get a forklift to get me up. But let’s do a short review of the 2023 season.
Unprecedented.

You came in and took over a program that had a maximum of five wins in a season. And
you came in, you worked your magic. We go 10-2, 8-0 in the Lone Star Conference, make
the first round of the NCAA playoffs.

How did you do that? Well, if you told me when I took the job in January of 2023 that we
would go 10-2 and win the conference, I’d probably look at you and tell you you’re crazy.
But it was a day in, day out mentality of just going one and up, doing what we could to
just win the day. I thought we did a really good job in that spring recruiting class, both
with high school kids, with transfers, having the number one transfer class in the country
leading into fall of last year.

It was just one of those special things that the team kind of gelled together around its
leaders. The Kenny Hertzers, the Hayden Kellys, the Matt Zubiatis of the world. When
you have a locker room full of guys like that, it kind of takes care of itself when it comes
to the off the field stuff and the team chemistry and all that.

So it was one of those special moments and special years that you’ll never forget. But
just the play on the field matched kind of that intensity of the team chemistry that was,
bar none, the best I’ve ever had. And we had a great group of coaches, great group of
leaders that helped us get to that point of 10-2.

Obviously, we didn’t end the season the way we wanted, but winning that conference
championship on our own turf against Central Washington, who wound up finishing as
the number eight team in the country, it was a special feeling. So you had an
unbelievable amount of player accolades, conference, region, All-Americans. Let’s review
real quick.

How many All-Conference, Lone Star Conference players did you have? Yeah, so we had
19 Lone Star Conference, I guess, All-Conference guys. But we also had the wide receiver
of the year in the conference. We had the defensive lineman of the year in the
conference, the linebacker of the year in the conference.

So we had some of those individual accolades as well, along with having three All Americans. Don Varela from the defensive line, Hayden Kelly at linebacker, and Kenny
Hearns at quarterback. And all three of those gentlemen have gone.

Two of them are still with you on the staff. Tell us what Kenny and Hayden are doing for
you now. Yeah, well, when I took this job, Kenny came with me, and it was an
understanding between the two of us that the moment he was done playing, he was
going to join my staff.

So when we lost to Bemidji that Saturday, Kenny Hearns was in the office on Monday
morning starting to do his recruiting test and get ready to go for us to hit the road the
next week. So that one was a sure thing. And then kind of after the game, just talking to
Hayden Kelly and both Matt Zubioti about what’s next in their life.

They wanted to coach, and I found a way to get them on staff because I think they were
great leaders as football players. And if I can teach them up on the coaching side of
things, that leadership that happens in the locker room as a player can easily translate
into this coaching world. And they’ve done a phenomenal job.

Kenny Hearns is now the youngest offensive coordinator in the country, co-OC with Blake
Crandall, who was our receivers coach last year. And he’s done a phenomenal job of kind
of taking over the quarterback room. I’ve coached quarterbacks for the last six years,
and not having that position anymore allows me to be a better head coach and be a
better game manager and manager of offense, defense, special teams, and allows me to
walk around and get to know some of the defensive guys a little bit better than I have in
the past.

But Hayden Kelly’s been our linebackers coach. He’s done a phenomenal job. Luckily,
Jake Scharr, our defensive coordinator, has kind of helped him along the way, right?
Hasn’t completely taken the ropes off of him yet, but every day, Hayden’s getting a little
bit more and more responsibilities.

And Matt Zubioti has now taken over our running back room and our tight end room and
done a since he started. Well, there’s not anybody better, in my opinion, Matt Zubioti
doing that. He was a great running back when he had to run in games and tight end.
He knocked several All-Americans on their backsides. I saw it with my own eyes, coach.
Absolutely.

So, well, let’s look a little bit at the 2024 outlook. You’ve got a target on your back. Last
year, UTPB, again, the most wins we’d had in a season was five.
We were competitive, but we just didn’t have that ability to go through and pull off a lot
of the games. Now you have. Everybody dislikes us immensely for our success last
season.

How do you prep not only your team for having the target on the back, but your staff and
yourself for that, please? I would actually say this, with having the target on your back, I
think that second half of last season, we probably already had the target on our back,
right? UTPB’s not supposed to do what they were doing last year, scoring 96 in the
opener, going two weeks later, scoring 86 on the road at Southwest Baptist to a team we
had lost to the year before. Yes, we did. Just every week was something new that UTPB
just hadn’t done.

Beating Angelo at Angelo’s homecoming. Stuff like that, where years past, that was not a
thing that was even thought of, and we did all that. So that second half of the season, we
had the target on our back, right? I think going into this year, the one thing that I’ve
talked about the most is, after you win a championship, can you do it over? And what it
takes to do it over is not necessarily the same work as you did the year before, but you
have to do that much more because that target is on your back.

It’s harder to sustain that level. Yeah, and that’s what the successful head coaches, the
Nick Sabans of the world, the Kirby Smarts of the world, the Davos Swinnies of the world,
is year in and year out is success. It’s not just a one-hit wonder, right? So that’s what
we’re trying to do as a staff, is make sure it wasn’t a one-hit wonder.

But what happens when you win a championship is there’s this little ounce of entitlement
that creeps into minds and creeps into the work ethic of your guys and the team. And
that’s the one thing that I’ve been the most concerned about, is making sure that
doesn’t happen, which at times, you feel like it has happened, right? You get a whole
new team, a whole new group of transfers, which was, again, top three in the country as
far as the transfer portal, and these guys haven’t been a part of this culture, or haven’t
been a part of this winning culture. So you have to slowly get that out of them, that
sense of entitlement of last year was last year.

It’s 2024 now, it’s a whole new football season, a whole new football team, and quite
frankly, a whole new coaching staff. So you’re continuing to have to re-implement your
culture every single day and hold the standards every single day. I think our leaders
have done a pretty solid job of helping along those lines, but every day is a new
challenge and you got to continue.

As you get a better football team, there’s more individuals that want the rock, or want to
make plays, or be the guy on the field. And the better you get, you sort of face more
issues when it comes to that. So I’m trying to get the eye out of the team and make it a
we team.

And we’ve been working on that every day, and I think over the last two weeks of fall
camp, every day has gotten better. And this week has probably been our best week of
practice since I’ve taken the job here last year. So I’m pretty proud of where we’re at
right now, but you never know until you step on the field Saturday what that really is.
Get hit in the mouth and find out what happens? Absolutely, hopefully we’re punching
people in the mouth and not the vice versa. Okay, when we come back, we’re going to
talk a little bit about your philosophy as a team, family with two L’s. And here in a
minute, we’re going to take a break and we’ll be back on the other side.

This is 95X presentation of the Chris McCullough Show. And we’re back here with Chris
McCullough Show, Monty Montgomery, your host, Chris McCullough, the star of our
program. And Coach, before we went to break, we mentioned about talking about your
core philosophy, which is family, and that’s spelled with two L’s.

Would you please explain that to everybody? Yeah, when you see that on social media, I
promise you it’s not a typo. I know how to spell. I know I’m from Palm Bluff, Arkansas,
but I promise you I have a college degree, I know how to spell.

So no, family to us is an acronym, stands for focus, accountability, mentality, inspire,
learn, love, and yes. And we get into each one of those letters and words in our program.
But the key thing is focus on your why, right? Accountability.

I think every championship team has to have accountability, whether it’s self
accountability, coach to coach, coach to player, player to player. You have to have all
those pillars of accountability, championship mindset and everything we do. Inspire
those, this next generation to want to play this great game, right? I think every year
we’re going to talk about rule changes here in a second.

Every year football changes and it’s like this game is trying to go to more of a flag
football format. So inspire the next generation to continue this great game going, right?
And then learn and love. You learn from everything you do.

I think on the football field, love, being vulnerable is something we don’t talk about
enough, but as we grow up as men, young men, young professional leaders, all these
things, we’ve got to learn how to love and be vulnerable. Whether that’s in marriage,
whether that’s with your kiddos, in life in general, I think you got to love. And then yes,
find a way, no matter what, find a way.

So that’s what family is to us. So with that philosophy, you use that when you go out and
recruit players. Talk about some of the guys that you’ve brought in for this year on
offense and defense.

Yeah, well, just starting on offense, I think it all starts in the trenches, right? So Wright
Tackle is a transfer from Cisco, a very talented player. I think he’s going to be all
conference guy for us. Brandon Jones at Wright Guard was a junior college player.
We registered last year, Tyler Ball. And then our left side of the offensive line is kind of
staples for us. Max Johnson, Ramon Diaz, and Tristan Willis actually had a red shirt last
year transferring in from East Central, but he’s ready to go.

And he’s another guy that will be all conference guy. Tied in, Brock Johnson is an all
conference guy coming back. Probably one of the best personalities.

Goofy personality. He’s kind of weird, but I love him to death. And then that receiver,
right? You’ve got four all conference guys back.

And receiver of the year. And receiver of the year with Jeremiah Cooley, who’s going to
have every opportunity to play at the next level. But then you bring in Jawan Mason,
who’s an all conference guy from Midwestern State.

You bring in a Josh Little and Jace Wye from East Central, who have known this offense
for three years now. So it was like plug and play, and they immediately knew what it
was. You got Corey Harris back, all conference guy.

Cam Tyler, who didn’t play enough snaps last year. Very, very talented. Got a transfer
from Eastern New Mexico, Tyler Cleveland, who’s going to be a special running back.

So the offense is just loaded with both returners and guys coming back. Now defense is a
little bit different. Before we go to the defense, Dylan Graham.

I don’t even need to talk about him. You guys will see Saturday. This kid is special, man.
Obviously, Kenny Hart’s our player of the year. Dylan Graham took the back seat to him.
He redshirted.

In the day of the transfer portal, he would have left, right? But this kid is different. And I
can’t say enough great things about Dylan Graham and his play on Saturday. Everybody
who is here for the 2022 season watching us win five games, he’s a little bit different cat
now.

And you’re going to see that he’s going to be… I’m marking my words today. He’ll be the
most-earned player of the year. I want our fans to know Dylan Graham, he redshirted
last year, and he took it upon himself to work out with the redshirts and the freshmen
every day, doing strength and conditioning.

He’s gotten bigger, durable, stronger. I mean, it’s just amazing the dedication he’s had.
And he is special.

He’s going to be fun to watch. Let’s talk about the defense. Yeah, so just returners.
Jalen Rockmore, all-conference linebacker. Tristan Exline is probably the best linebacker
I’ve ever coached. And I just coached a four-time All-American in Hayden Kelly.

And Hayden Kelly coaches this kid, and I’ll tell you, he is special, special. So those two,
kind of man in the middle, but it all starts in the trenches, man. Frank Muvapolo, back,
all-conference guy.

Actually missed three games last year. Coming back, probably the best I’ve ever seen
him look. He’s pretty special.

And then you’ve got Malik Allen at the other edge, who, his work ethic, his drive this
offseason was different than any defensive player I’ve ever seen. He is completely honed
in on the leadership role, but his work ethic was unmatched this offseason. But then you
bring in some transfers up front.

You got Austin Williams, Jalen Williams. Not brothers, all right? They may act like it
sometimes, but one’s 6’6″, 350 pounds. The other is 6’5″, 370 pounds.

So big interior guys. It’s going to be hard to roll on those guys. You got Gary Holmes,
Darius Keck, more transfers from the junior college level.

Who are equal in size. Absolutely. And then on the back end, you’ve got five transfers
who are all conference guys at the Division II level.

All right, let’s go to rule changes this year. Yep, so we got iPads on the sideline. For us,
we get six as a conference.

So we’ll put four on the field, two in the box, and pretty much 20 seconds after the
previous play, it uploads to the iPad and we’re able to use it on the sideline in between
timeouts and stuff like that. And we’re going to have two-minute warning at the end of
each half this year. Yep, which is much like the NFL, right? It’s not really a two-minute
warning.

It’s a two-minute timeout. It’s the words they give, but it’s a two-minute warning. And
then we’re going to still keep the traditional kickoff.

We’re not going to see the kickoff that they’re doing in the NFL yet. Yes, absolutely. So
one more year of hard hits on kickoff.

Yeah, a lot of folks get confused and they try to apply NFL rules to NCAA and it’s a little
bit different. And so with all of these dynamics going on, you have to sit down and visit
with your kids about this and how to use those iPads and how to make that work for
them on the sideline. And the coaches, is that something y’all are exploring on your own
or is there any kind of coursework that you do on that? How does that work? So we had a
scrimmage at both Midland, at Estelle Broadband, and Ratliff Stadium last week.

And both of those venues, we tested it out. In between drives, we would have the guys
come to the sideline and meet with them. And they kind of got the kinks out of the iPads
and we figured out how our communication piece will be as we come off the field for
drives.

So what do you anticipate that is going to help you with, having those iPads on the
sideline? The in-game adjustments. You know, when you ask a kiddo, hey, what look are
you getting out there? Are you getting a three technique, a four technique, a two
technique? And sometimes they lie to you because they just don’t remember. Well, now
this iPad allows us to remember.

That’s great. Coach, on that, we’re going to take a break. We’ll be back on the other side.
This is Chris McCullough on 95X. And we’re back, ladies and gentlemen, with the
Chris McCullough Show on 95X. I’m your host, Monty Montgomery.

Coach, let’s get right to Western New Mexico. What do you see with them and what are
your keys to victory? Yeah, Western New Mexico is one of those games you don’t like to
play. First game of the season, new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator,
and we got the two deep.

There was only three people that I remember from last year’s team. So completely new
team as far as the transfer portal and junior college. And, you know, they kind of did
what we did last year.

Completely new team, revamped the whole thing. Go out there and you have no idea
what to expect as far as what they’re going to run on offense, what they’re going to run
on defense. So as a coach, you have to prepare your team for every possible scenario.

And thank goodness we get the iPads this year to help us along the way of this game.
You know, I think every game, and I said this a lot last year, keys to victory starts in the
trenches. I think when you look at our defensive line, it’s probably one of the best in the
country.

I thought last year’s defensive line was pretty special. I think this year’s D line is even
better from a depth perspective and just the starters are special, special, right? We’re
going to have probably six all-conference defensive linemen. So it starts there.
Offensive line, we got to be able to move people, right? We got to be able to run the
football. Last year we ran for 400 yards on Western New Mexico. Can we match that type
of performance? I think we can.

I think obviously Dylan Graham’s first game back under center, that’s a big key to the
game. How does he play? He hasn’t seen the field in a year. Last year he was kind of in
the coach’s role.

This year he’s a player. So is he going to be the guy that can lead us to victory? He’s got
weapons around him that he never had in 2022, and I think he’s going to be pretty
special this year. And then number three, it’s always the turnover margin, right? When
you have the first game of the season, possible rain game, depending on how the
weather is, knock on wood, I think it’s going to be a special night when it comes to
maybe a little showers in pregame, but it’s going to be perfect for kickoff.

But you never know, work ball security, work turnover circuit as our defense, but we
have to win the turnover margin plus two. That’s what we preach. That’s how we had so
much success last year.

We created turnovers and we didn’t turn the ball over much. So can this be a season
where you take care of the football and you finish drops? That turnover margin is going
to tell the key to a victory right here. So this is the first time in history of the program
we’ve opened up with a conference opponent.

How does that affect your preparation, if at all? I mean, for me, my job is to win football
games and I want to win as many games as possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s a
conference game or non-conference game. Every time I step on the field, we want to
win.

So we don’t treat it any different. Just go out and win. All right.

And so we’re sitting here with Chris McCullough talking about the upcoming game
against Western New Mexico, which is at six o’clock Saturday night at Ratliff Stadium in
Odessa. And we’re going to take another break and come back here for our last
segment. This is Chris McCullough Show on 95X.

And we’re back, ladies and gentlemen, here with the Chris McCullough Show on 95X. I’m
your host, Monty Montgomery. And coach, we start the season for the first time ever
nationally ranked number 16 in the D2 football poll and number 21 in the American
Football Coaches poll.

Your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, it’s just exciting times, right? Finishing the year like
we did last year. There’s going to be pre-season expectations. Except for the Lone Star
Conference coaches poll, they picked us third, which excites me a lot.

But going into the season, just so much energy, so much excitement, right? We did our
part as a university making admission free. To all games. To all games, to all home
games, along with tailgating, right? So bring your cold beverages and all your yard
games and let’s have some fun at Ratliff Stadium this Saturday.

Falcon Walk starts at four. Kickoff starts at six. And I’d be remorse to not say this.
We had a tragic loss this past summer, right? One of our very own Falcons, Luke Miller,
passed away suddenly. And I wear this wristband every single day, Luke Strong, number 36.

And every time we step on that field, we have the helmet sticker LM36.
We’re going to make sure that we honor him in everything we do this year. That’s great,
coach. And a tragic loss for his family.

And our thoughts and prayers go out with him. Coach, can’t wait to get the season
started. I know everybody’s going to be about three feet off the ground when that ball
hits the foot to start off.

And thank you so much for being here. And thank you for all you’ve done for UTPB
football and for the university and for all those fans. We appreciate it.

And we look forward to seeing you on Saturday. And our pregame show on 95X will start
at 530 p.m. Exciting times. Falcons up.

Falcons up.

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