Brooks accepts special teams position at Tulsa

Rich is more than just a name.

Rich Brooks accepted the special teams coaching position at Tulsa Saturday, ending a longstanding courtship among several schools who were seeking the coach that guided the Kentucky Wildcats to an 8-5 record and Music City Bowl victory. After the Wildcats’ historic season, Brooks was certainly a hot commodity. Over the past two weeks, rumors circulated that Rice, Eastern Kentucky, Temple, and Duke were all vying for Brooks to be their assistant coach. In the end, Brooks described his move as “ironic.”

“I love irony,” said Brooks. “Steve Kragthorpe brought his special teams coach, Mark Nelson, with him to Louisville from Tulsa. You’d never know this, but Mark used to be the special teams coach at Kentucky back a few years ago. Now I'm going to Tulsa. I get a kick outta that.”

The move was hardly surprising. Brooks doubled his base salary to $55,000, with incentives boosting his pay to $67,000 if his new team leads the nation in either one of three categories: return yards, onside kick recoveries, or hospital visits. Brooks leaves behind a rabid fan base who thought they had finally arrived at the forefront of college football’s landscape after their first bowl victory in 22 years. Now, Kentucky fans are left wondering whether their school is merely a steppingstone to other Division I powers such as New Mexico State, Baylor, the ESPN2 Wednesday night college football broadcasting booth, and Tulsa.

Potential Brooks replacements include Claude Bassett, John L. Smith, and, of course, Bill Parcells.